LOGINCELESTINE'S POV:The pain hits me like a wave.I am standing in the hallway, trying to find my way to safety, when the first contraction doubles me over. My hand flies to the wall. My knees buckle. My breath leaves my body in a rush.Not now. Please, not now.The baby is coming. I can feel it. The pressure. The urgency. The undeniable truth is that this child is not going to wait for the disruption to end.I try to stand up straight. I try to walk. But another contraction hits and I cry out, my voice lost in the roar of flames and the shouting of servants and the distant sound of gunfire.Lysander is beside me in an instant. His arm is around my waist. His voice is steady, calm, the voice of a man who has trained himself to stay composed even when the world is falling apart."Celestine," he says. "I have you. I have you.""The baby," I gasp. "The baby is coming."His eyes widen. Just for a second. Then the mask is back."Okay. We need to get you somewhere safe. Somewhere we can—"The
VLADIMIR'S POV:I have been waiting for this moment for twelve years.Twelve years of patience. Twelve years of planning. Twelve years of watching this family from the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike. The Ashcrofts and the Valancourts destroyed my empire. They destroyed my son life. They took everything from me. And now, finally, I am going to make them pay.I sit in my safe house, the same concrete room where I have been hiding for months. The walls are bare and the windows are boarded. The only light comes from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. But I do not care about the surroundings. I care about the plan. The plan that I have been building for over a decade.The plan that is finally coming together. I have been patient. I have been waiting. And now, finally, I have my weapon.She has done exactly what I asked. She has planted the seeds of doubt. She has torn them apart from the inside. She has made them turn on each other. And now, it is time for the final p
CELESTINE'S POV:The stone bench where I am sitting in the garden is cold beneath me, and I am shivering, but I do not move. I cannot move. My legs have forgotten how to carry me.Lysander is beside me. His arm is around my shoulders. His body is warm against mine. But I cannot feel the warmth. I cannot feel anything except the hollow ache in my chest, the place where my heart used to be before Elara ripped it out and threw it on the ground.She hates me.That is the thought that circles through my head, over and over again, a loop that will not stop. She hates me. She believes I murdered her mother. She believes I conspired to kill her father. She believes I have been using her since the day she arrived.I have loved her for twelve years. Twelve years of holding her when she cried. Twelve years of tucking her into bed. Twelve years of reading her stories and kissing her forehead and telling her I loved her every single day.And she hates me.I look at Lysander. His gray eyes are dark
ELARA'S POV:"Elara," he says. "Please. Listen to me. Whatever you think you know—""I know enough," I say interrupting him. "I know that you killed my family, all of you and that is enough for me.""That is not true.""Prove it."He opens his mouth and then closes it. He does not know what to say. He does not know how to defend himself against what I have been told.I turn and walk away.**CELESTINE'S POV:**I am in the kitchen when I hear the voices.I walk to the window. I look out at the garden and I see Lysander and Elara standing on the stone bench. Their faces are tense. Their voices are raised.My heart starts pounding. I push open the back door and walk toward them."—killed my mother," Elara is saying. "You and everyone in this family is pure evil."I freeze with my blood running cold."Elara," I say. "What are you talking about?"She turns to look at me. Her green eyes are hard. Her face is pale."The letter," she says. "From my father. He told me everything."My throat
LYSANDER'S POV:I found her in the garden after I checked in her room and didn't see her there early the next morning.She is sitting on the stone bench, the one that overlooks the valley, the one where Celestine and I used to sit when we were first falling in love. She has a book in her hands, but I noticed she is not reading it. She is staring out at the distant hills, her face expressionless, her green eyes empty.I walk toward her. My footsteps are heavy on the gravel. She hears me coming but she does not turn nor does she not acknowledge me.I stop a few feet away and I hold up my phone. The screen glows with the message I found. The message that proves she is a traitor."Elara," I say. "Explain this. This is from your phone."She looks at me. Her face goes pale. For a moment, just a moment, I see the mask slip. I see the fear underneath, with rhe guilt and the panic.Then she recovers and her expression smooths and even her voice is steady."That is not from my phone," she says.
ALISTAIR'S POV:He is sitting at his desk, his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped. He looks so tired and broken.I do not know what to say. I do not know how to tell him that his daughter who is also my sister is a traitor.I take a breath. I walk toward him. I stop in front of his desk."Dad," I say.He looks up and his gray eyes are red."Alistair? What are you doing still up?""I need to show you something dad."I open my laptop. I pull up the screenshot. I turn the screen toward him.He looks at it and after some minutes his face goes white and his hands start shaking."Elara?" he whispers. "Our own Elara?"I nod my head and my voice is steady.He stares at me. His mouth opens and closes but no words come out. He looks like he has been punched in the gut. He looks like the world has just collapsed around him.I think about my mother. About the stories she told me about her first marriage. About Kier Thornwell and the thousand times she forgave him. About the lies and the cru
KIER'S POV:He turns back to face me. His smile is thin and cold."But I can beat him. I have resources that he does not. Connections that he cannot access. Methods that he would never stoop to. If you want me to destroy Lysander Ashcroft, I can do it. But it will cost you, and it is not just half
KIER'S POV:I sit across from Vladimir Drakon in his London townhouse, a place that smells like old money with plenty violence, and I try not to let him see how much my hands are shaking.The room is decorated in shades of gold and burgundy, with heavy curtains that block out the afternoon sun and
Lysander POV:One night, I come home to find her in the living room with Maxwell. They are sitting on the couch, her brother and my wife, and she is laughing at something he said. Really laughing and her eyes crinkle at the corners and her hand reaches out to touch his arm.I stand in the doorway a
CELESTINE'S POV:We finish what we started, Lysander and I, and then he kisses my forehead and pulls back and looks at me with those gray eyes that I love so much."I think he finally got the message," he says.I glance at the glass wall. Kier is gone. The hallway is empty. The only evidence that h







