Mag-log inThe sun came through the windows of the room in Paraty, golden and warm, as if the sky itself had decided to bless my recovery. The room was spacious, airy, with a view that looked out over the sea and the green mountains rising on the horizon. Far from the gray fog of Munich. Far from the smell of blood and gunpowder.Far from everything, except her.Anya was sitting in the armchair beside the bed, eyes fixed on the book she pretended to read. I knew she wasn’t reading. I knew because her eyes moved to me every three seconds, and because the page she was “reading” had been the same for twenty minutes.“You’re watching me,” I stated, my voice still a little hoarse.“I’m taking care of you.”“Taking care isn’t the same as watching.”“For me, it is.”She closed the book, finally, and stood up. The movement was fluid, natural, as if she had rehearsed the scene hundreds of times. She walked to the bed, sat on the edge, and ran her hand through my hair, a gesture so intimate I still wasn’t
The house in Paraty was silent that morning. Not the oppressive silence of the Delyon mansion, which always seemed to be waiting for something terrible. It was a peaceful silence, broken only by the singing of birds and the distant sound of waves crashing against the rocks down below.I was on the veranda, gaze lost on the horizon, when I heard the sound of the car coming up the dirt road. My heart raced, not from fear, but from anticipation. I knew who it was. I knew that after months of anguish, weeks of escapes, she was finally arriving.I got up from the chair so quickly I nearly knocked over the teacup. I ran through the house, bare feet pounding on the wooden floor, ignoring the dizziness that had been following me lately.The front door opened before I could reach it.She was there.Thaïs.Her red hair, now longer, fell over her shoulders in messy waves. The suitcase lay abandoned on the floor behind her, as if it no longer mattered. Her eyes — those eyes I had known since adol
The television was tuned to the news channel, as it had been for days. I couldn’t turn it off. I couldn’t stop watching. Every headline was a punch, every speculation a new open wound.“Cassius Delyon hospitalized after a fall at the mansion.”“Son takes over the empire amid scandals.”“Tristan Delyon’s statement: the lies and the truths.”I was sitting on the sofa in my living room, a cup of already cold tea in my hand, eyes fixed on the screen. Tristan spoke, and every word was a piece of a puzzle I couldn’t put together.Cassius fell down the stairs? I didn’t believe it. Cassius was too careful to fall. Too methodical to make such a banal mistake.Tristan defending Cassius? That was even stranger. The hatred between the two of them ran so deep it seemed part of the Delyon mansion’s landscape. What could have changed?Something was happening beneath the carpet. I could feel it. I could smell it. Like smoke before the fire.But I didn’t know what. And that consumed me.The phone vibr
The television was tuned to the news channel, as it had been for days. I couldn’t turn it off. I couldn’t stop watching.It was like watching an accident in slow motion, the kind of disaster you know is going to happen but can’t avoid.And there he was.Tristan.On the screen in the living room of my family’s country house, in a setting I didn’t recognize. He wore a simple white shirt, cuffs rolled up, hair combed back. He looked tired. He looked sincere. He looked exactly the opposite of what I knew he was.“Good afternoon,” he said, and his voice echoed in the empty room like a gunshot. “My name is Tristan Delyon.”My hands squeezed the remote so tightly that my knuckles turned white.Your name is a lie, I thought. Your life is a lie. Your face is a lie.I listened to every word. Every rehearsed pause. Every calculated sigh. The accusations about Aurora’s parents? “Fragile evidence.” The poisoning of his mother? “Absurd.” The disappearance? “Confidential army mission.”Confidential
The afternoon light in Paraty was different from any other I had ever seen.It wasn’t the cold, gray light of Munich, nor the artificial light of the press studios where Cassius used to pose for photos. It was a golden, soft light that came from the sea and spread across the veranda like melted honey.Aurora was by my side, arms crossed over her chest, eyes fixed on the horizon.Her dark hair, now short, swayed with the breeze. She was pale — not from fear, but from exhaustion. The last few days had been a hurricane. The escapes, Raphaël’s rescue, Cassius’s capture.The hours in the hospital, waiting for news, waiting for the doctors to confirm what we already knew: Raphaël would live.Hours earlier, I had bleached my hair and dyed it back to its natural color. I needed to look normal, not like a fugitive.“Are you ready?” she asked, without turning her face.“No.” The answer was honest. “But I have no choice.”“There’s always a choice.”“Not this one. Not now.”She turned, finally, a
I descended the embankment carefully, feet slipping on the loose dirt, hands steady on the pistol.The car was on its side, doors crushed, windows shattered. The smell of gasoline and blood filled the air, sweet and sour at the same time.The driver was partially outside the vehicle, body twisted in an angle no human being should occupy.His eyes were open, fixed on nothing.Dead.I walked past him without looking. I didn’t care.Cassius was in the back seat — or what remained of it. The dark suit was torn, stained with blood.His face was marked by cuts and bruises. One of his legs was trapped under the crushed metal, and he groaned — a low, hoarse sound from someone who was alive against all odds.“Tristan,” he whispered, eyes glazed with pain. “Help me.”“I will help.” I knelt beside him, pistol still in hand. “But first, I want to hear you beg.”“What?”“You spent your entire life taking. Killing. Destroying. Now I want to hear you beg.”Cassius’s face contorted — not from physica







