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Chapter Seventy-Two

Author: E. Vale
last update publish date: 2026-08-09 22:42:41

Zolandria's POV

Why did he really follow me to the exhibition?

This question stays on my mind throughout the whole night.

I get up at six, make coffee, and stand at my room window and watch New York. It’s been more than a couple of months now, and I can’t believe I feel at ease here when I was literally kidnapped and brought here. Those first few months were a nightmare, but now…it feels a bit homier than my actual home ever was.

I drink my coffee, get dressed, and go to work.

He's already
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  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter Seventy-Three

    Zolandria's POVThe domestic records section is not what I expected.I don't know what I expected, but maybe something warm, something human, a life lived rather than documented. This is documentation.Clinical, precise, language of intelligence records — dates, locations, transactions, names. In-depth files of Edgard Azaeres's domestic arrangements, his family history, his household movements across three decades, assembled by a man who has been watching for twenty-three years. He’s only shown me parts the last time, but now, I get to read it all. The early entries are about Edgard before my mother. Business records mostly — the origin story of a man who built something monstrous one careful step at a time. I know most of this from the months of route-flagging and supplier cross-referencing. Then, in 1996, Katherine appears (but her name isn’t Katherine in here because Lucien didn’t know too). Marriage record, private, a ceremony that didn't make society pages. And then the years

  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter Seventy-Two

    Zolandria's POVWhy did he really follow me to the exhibition? This question stays on my mind throughout the whole night. I get up at six, make coffee, and stand at my room window and watch New York. It’s been more than a couple of months now, and I can’t believe I feel at ease here when I was literally kidnapped and brought here. Those first few months were a nightmare, but now…it feels a bit homier than my actual home ever was. I drink my coffee, get dressed, and go to work. He's already in when I arrive, his lamp on, door ajar. I make his coffee, bring it in, and he looks up when I set it down, gives me a brief look and mutters thank you before returning his gaze to his screen. Normal.None of us ready to talk about last night even though my question still sits unanswered between us. I go back to my desk, open my task list, and get back to work. At around 10:47 am the emergency line rings after I’ve only heard it ring twice since I’ve been here, and it was for drills on bot

  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter Seventy-One

    Lucien's POVShe stands in my office doorway at nine fifteen with her notebook and says: "There's a Klimt exhibition at the Neue Galerie tonight. I'd like to go. I'll take Marcus."She waits, and I look at her.She looks back steady and unwavering. My thoughts travel to the Whitmore dinner and how the conversation between her and Whitmore ran long that day. "I'll come," I say.Something moves across her face. Brief. "You don't have to—""I know," I say.She holds my gaze for a moment. "Seven o'clock," she says and goes back to her desk.I spend the day trying not to think of why I offered to go. It's security. Elevated protocol. She shouldn't be going anywhere without—She offered to take Marcus, and I told her I'd come.***The Neue Galerie has an understated entrance, quality light inside, and the hush of a building that has been holding valuable things for long enough that it's developed its own atmosphere around them.She walks in beside me and something happens to her face. Her f

  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter 70

    Zolandria's POVOn Wednesday morning, at nine fifteen, while passing my desk without stopping, Lucien says: "Kane is being moved to the rehabilitation wing tomorrow. He's asking for you."He keeps walking."When?" I ask.He stops but doesn't turn. "This afternoon. Two o'clock. Marcus will take you."He goes into his office and shuts the door behind him, and I go back to my task list, but I don't get anything done for the next forty minutes.Marcus arrives a few minutes early, drives us to the hospital, and we don’t talk the entire ride. Marcus and I have a comfortable silence that has developed over months. He parks outside the hospital and gets out, and I get out, and he walks two steps behind me the way he always walks. My thoughts travel to the days he’s been nice to me—the umbrella in the rain and the courtyard, his laugh, and I feel the warmth of someone who has been quietly present across all of this without ever making it about himself."Thank you," I say when we reach the ent

  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter Sixty-Nine

    Zolandria's POV He's been back for four days, and he’s still a bit cold towards me. From day one to now, it’s been closed doors and delivery orders and tasks through the system, to leaving his door ajar on the second day, still delivers tasks through the system but comes over to my desk to ask about important details, then on day three, he actually looked at me while passing by my desk and now, he's in his office with the door fully open for the first time since he came back. I make his coffee and bring it in without being asked. He looks up when I set it on the desk. "Thank you," he says. Two words, but at least that’s progress. "Of course," I say. I go back to my desk and sit down, thinking: there it is. That's the thaw beginning. The morning runs on its usual track, and I let myself exist inside the routine of task list, the calls, the emails, the familiar rhythm of a working day in a building I've come to like. At ten, the direct line rings, and Kane’s voice comes throu

  • Blood Vengeance; a mafia romance story   Chapter Sixty-Eight

    Zolandria's POVIt’s Tuesday, and Lucien is finally back after it’s been more than a week.He walks off the elevator at around eight fifty-three am straight from the hospital rather than home, which means he went over to Kane first thing and then came here. He's in yesterday's suit, or one that looks like it. He looks tired, and that’s new to me because I've never seen him like this before. He walks past my desk without stopping, goes into his office, and closes the door, but not all the way.I look at the gap for a moment, then I stand and head to the breakroom to make his coffee.He's at his desk when I enter, laptop open, already head deep in work, his hands hovering over the keyboard, his eyes fixed on the screen. I set the coffee on the desk. His eyes avert from the screen to the coffee, then slowly up to my face. Something passes between us that I can’t name but felt like handing over the mantle. "Thank you," he says, and I can’t tell if it’s for the coffee or for while he wa

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