Charles POV

“It’s not survival if you don’t burn something to prove you lived.”

The refinery is a cathedral of fire.

Pipes groan, flames crawl through the steel like veins of living magma, and smoke paints the walls in shades of ruin. I move through it like a ghost, watching the empire I built eat itself alive.

My boots crunch over shattered glass and ash. The security monitors on the wall flicker half melted, half defiant.

For a heartbeat, one of the cameras catches motion. Xavier, ...