Lucian slowly withdrew his hand.
After the torrent of tangled memories washed over him, a trace of understanding entered his gaze as he looked at Frenchie.
No wonder the guy had deliberately forgotten that story involving Nina, burying it in the deepest recesses of his memory and making it so hard to find. After all, it was no romantic encounter worth remembering, but a past in which he had been treated as private property and humiliated at will.
Nina, Frenchie's former "master."
The psychological scars left by that kind of relationship were enough to make a man physically recoil from the associated memories.
Unfortunately, he had fled Nina's side so many years ago that most of his information was already outdated. He had only happened to learn the location of that drug market afterward.
Lucian pulled over several thick electrical cables and deftly bound the unconscious Frenchie and Hughie securely to their chairs. Once he was done, he walked up to Hughie and lightly touched his forehead with a finger.
A strand of psychic power seeped in, planting a simple suggestion deep in Hughie's subconscious.
"When you desperately need power and have nowhere left to turn, contact Lucian..."
With that done, Lucian turned and left the basement.
His figure merged into the night sky once more as he flew toward the drug market in Lower Manhattan, New York, from Frenchie's memories.
It was a shabby old apartment building in a neighborhood filled with all sorts of people.
Lucian did not use the front door.
He hovered in midair, his gaze fixed on a lit window on the third floor. Figures moved inside.
Crash!
The window shattered, and he landed inside under several horrified gazes.
Ignoring their frightened looks, Lucian casually grabbed the nearest thug, pressed his palm straight onto the