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The Confession Trade

Author: Phylicia Ines
last update Last Updated: 2025-10-17 08:16:44

The church was nearly empty.

Candles guttered along the marble aisle, their light shivering in the draft from the cracked stained glass. It smelled of incense, dust, and old sins—fitting, Liora thought. The Marcelli patriarch sat in the third pew, his heavy frame folded like a penitent, though his hands were too clean for repentance.

She walked down the center aisle, the sound of her heels a slow metronome in the hush.

He didn’t turn as she stopped beside him. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. His voice was worn velvet, soft enough to hide the steel.

“Neither should you,” she replied. “But here we are.”

Marcelli finally turned, eyes rimmed with red and age. “You want my confession, I suppose?”

“I want names.”

He smiled faintly. “Same thing these days.”

“Not to me.” Liora slid into the pew beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. “I’m not here for forgiveness, Mr. Marcelli. I’m here to dismantle what’s left of your empire.”

He looked at her like she was a ghost. “Y
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  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   The Violinist’s Cue

    The broadcast hit every screen at once.From the mirrored lobby of City Hall to the flickering monitors above the docks, the message repeated in looping red text:“PUBLIC CLEANSING. ONE TRAITOR. ONE HOUR.”Then Ciro’s face appeared — bruised, bound to a chair under harsh light, a countdown ticking in the corner of the frame. Fifty-nine minutes, forty-seven seconds.Varian stood frozen before the monitor, jaw locked.“He’s alive,” Bram said, disbelief thick in his voice. “Barely.”“He won’t be for long,” Varian said flatly. “That feed’s real-time.”Liora leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Location?”“Square of Saints,” Ines replied, tapping keys. “They’ve cleared two blocks around it under permit from City Works. The Harrow bought it out as a ‘performance.’ No weapons allowed, no drones. Full civilian density.”“They’re daring us to come,” Liora murmured.Varian turned. “Then we go.”Bram frowned. “Daylight? That’s a slaughter waiting to happen.”Liora met his gaze. “Not if the crowd nev

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Strings and Secrets

    The wind that morning came in hard from the coast—strong enough to scatter the gulls, to rattle the empty flagpoles on the roof, and to tug the thin red kite Wren held at an eager, trembling angle.Liora stood beside her, one hand wrapped around the kite reel, the other bracing the girl’s shoulder. “Not yet,” she murmured. “Wait for the pull.”Wren squinted at the sky. “It’s pulling now!”“That’s me,” Varian said from behind them, his hand on the string, voice dry with amusement. “You’d know if it was the wind. It doesn’t take orders.”Wren stuck her tongue out at him. “You don’t either.”He smiled faintly. “Exactly.”Liora gave him a look over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to be letting her do this.”“I am,” he said. “Supervising doesn’t mean abandoning common sense.”She arched a brow. “You let me fly mine alone when I was her age.”“I doubt that,” he said.“I was seven.”“And I bet the kite didn’t survive.”She laughed—quiet, surprised. “It didn’t. But I did.”That earned her a lo

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Counterstrike

    “Run it again,” Liora said, voice clipped. “Every thread, every ledger, every name that smells like The Harrow.”Bram sat across the operations table, flicking through the projection screens with fast, deliberate swipes. “Already ahead of you. Their contacts inside City Hall are rerouting freight permits through shell NGOs. Clean on paper. Dirty underneath.”“How dirty?”“‘Fundraiser-for-schools’ dirty. They’re washing through children’s hospitals.”Liora’s jaw locked. “Of course they are.”Varian’s voice came through the comm—gravelly, restrained. “Don’t take this personally, Liora.”She pressed her earpiece harder, eyes narrowing. “They put bombs under school buses, Varian. I’ll take that personally.”“You take everything personally,” he said, quiet, and she could hear the thin edge of a smile.“Keep it up,” she said. “I’ll take that personally too.”Bram exhaled loudly. “Can we please focus before you two start flirting through encrypted channels again?”Liora shot him a look. “Foc

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   The Cost of the Shift

    The meeting with Leth was supposed to be controlled, quiet, sterile—neutral ground in a decommissioned customs hall. Neutral, Varian thought grimly, was a lie.Leth paced near the loading crates, jacket too crisp, eyes darting. “I told you, Varian, the Gray contracts weren’t mine. I just signed the renewals—”“You signed every one of them,” Varian said. “That’s ownership, whether you meant it or not.”Liora stood a few feet behind, silent, her hand resting near her holster but not drawing. She’d insisted on coming, though every instinct in him had wanted her to stay away. Trust was her word now. So he was trying.Bram leaned against a crate, watching the shadows. “We shouldn’t be here long. Feels wrong.”“Everything feels wrong lately,” Liora murmured.Varian ignored the tension, stepped closer to Leth. “You were the one who said the Arbiters were dead in the water. You were the one who swore you wanted redemption.”“I do,” Leth snapped. “But you’re not the judge, Varian. You never w

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   The Whisper in City Hall

    Rain streaked the windows again. It hadn’t stopped for days, as if the city itself refused to wash clean.Varian stood beside the projection screen, arms crossed, eyes narrowed on the security feed looping from the municipal archives.“Play it again,” he said.Ines hit a key. The footage rewound—two figures meeting in the dim corridor outside City Hall’s records wing. One carried a messenger satchel; the other, a lanyard badge glinting gold under the light.Liora leaned forward. “That’s internal clearance.”“Level Four,” Varian confirmed. “City operations. Whoever that is, they’re inside.”Bram grunted. “You think The Harrow bought a councilman?”Varian shook his head. “Too visible. He’d want someone who can move unnoticed. Someone who files reports, signs routine transfers, feeds intel through maintenance channels.”Ines froze the frame. “You’re talking about a clerk.”Varian’s jaw tightened. “I’m talking about a mole.”Liora crossed the room to the board. “We’ve seen mirrored leaks

  • Blood Ties And Silk Chains   Power Play

    “Guns are loud,” Liora said, eyes fixed on the glass board that stretched across the war room wall. “But paper—paper kills slower. Cleaner. Permanently.”Bram frowned, arms folded. “You want to fight The Harrow with court filings?”“Yes,” she said flatly. “I want his empire to collapse under its own weight.”Varian stood across from her, arms braced on the table. “Then show me how.”Liora tapped a marker against the map. “His front company—Roth & Vale Imports—handles nearly all his logistics. Legal on paper. Dirty in practice. Tax filings, offshore accounts, unpaid duties. We hit him with coordinated seizures and injunctions. Every shipment frozen. Every warehouse padlocked.”Ines raised a brow. “That’ll take a small army of lawyers.”“I already built one,” Liora said. “And they don’t need guns. Just signatures.”Varian’s mouth twitched into a small, dangerous smile. “You’re building your own version of warfare.”Liora met his gaze. “You taught me that control isn’t only about force.

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