I poured everything into this chapter, blood, fire, and survival. Emilia didn’t just walk through the flames… she became them. This was always her destiny, not to be saved, but to rise. Not to be hidden behind a man like Lucien, but to stand beside him. Bruised. Barefoot. Unbroken. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking this journey with me through every betrayal, every kiss, and every bullet. Emilia is no longer the girl who was sold, she is the queen who took back her power. And Lucien? He’s learning that love doesn’t mean caging something wild. It means bleeding beside it. The next chapters will shift, but the war is far from over. Power comes with enemies. Stay with me. The fire’s only just begun. 🔥 With all my heart, JW
Lucien didn’t move at first.The heat of Emilia’s body was still on him, her breath still warm against his ear, but the words… the words burned through the haze like acid.I know the mole.For one suspended heartbeat, he didn’t know whether to freeze or finish. Instinct and weeks of denied hunger won, his body shuddered in release, his grip on her hips almost bruising, but his mind had already shifted into a different, colder place.When he finally drew back enough to see her face, his voice was low, tight.“Say it again.”“I know the mole,” Emilia said, meeting his gaze without flinching.“Who?”Her answer was a whisper, but it hit him like a bullet.“Matteo.”For a second, the name didn’t fit in his head. Matteo, one of his top men, the one just beneath Julio in rank, the one who’d been in the room for some of the most sensitive decisions they’d made.Not the same trust as Julio, never that deep, but enough that Lucien had let him close. He even had him protecting Emilia. His expr
The moment Lucien’s hand closed around her jaw, she knew she had him.Not tamed, never tamed, but caught.There was nothing tentative in the way he came to her, no cautious testing of boundaries, no soft reintroduction after weeks of distance. He came like a storm that had been pacing the horizon too long and finally broke.The first kiss wasn’t a kiss at all. It was teeth and breath and the hot drag of his mouth over hers, a claiming that pulled sound from her throat before she could stop it. His hand slid to the back of her neck, holding her there, making her take him deeper.She didn’t resist. God, she’d missed him.Missed the way his weight pressed her down.Missed the rough slide of his palms when he didn’t care about silk or lace, only skin.Missed the way he could make her feel small, even when she was fighting to keep her own ground.The bed dipped under his knee as he pushed her back, following her down, breaking the kiss only long enough to strip the thin straps from her sho
Lucien’s mood was a storm that didn’t pass with the closing of the council doors.It followed him down the marble steps of the old building, past the long shadows stretching across the courtyard, all the way to the car.Julio was a silent shadow at his side, his jaw clenched tight, his usual easy smirk gone.Neither man spoke.They didn’t need to.The meeting’s stench still clung to Lucien, arrogance, opportunism, that particular smell of men who thought they’d sniffed out weakness.The gunpowder scent from the single shot he’d fired lingered in his memory, as vivid as the bright splash of blood across polished wood.Julio slid into the driver’s seat without a word. The engine’s low growl filled the air as they pulled out into the night.Lucien leaned back, watching the city blur past in the window’s reflection.Every streetlight lit his face for a heartbeat, then left him in shadow again.The rhythm matched his thoughts, flashes of faces from that table. Santiago’s stillness. Dario’s
The house was quiet in the late afternoon, the kind of quiet that stretched too long and felt wrong.Emilia had been in the training room for nearly an hour, sweating through another round of target practice Matteo insisted they finish. He’d been patient, too patient, correcting her stance, steadying her elbows when she wavered. Always with that easy smile that made it hard to stay annoyed at herself for missing half her shots.But halfway through reloading, he’d excused himself, “Two minutes, principessa, then we finish,” ...and slipped out of the room.At first she didn’t think much of it. Matteo was the type to wander off for water, a phone call, a snack. But when five minutes passed, then ten, and he still hadn’t returned, irritation won over patience.She set the pistol down on the bench and wiped her palms on her leggings. “Where the hell…”The house swallowed her voice.The hallway outside the training room was dimmer, the air cooler. She followed the faint creak of floorboard
Lucien entered without knocking. without announcement.The doors to the old council room were built to intimidate, dark oak, twice the width of a man, but they swung open on his push, groaning across marble. The room beyond smelled of stale cigar smoke and the faint, iron tang of old blood sunk deep into wood grain.Sunlight poured through tall, dust frosted windows, slicing the space into bands of light and shadow. It illuminated the long mahogany table in the center, the polished surface gleaming like still water.Eight men sat there. Waiting. Watching.He knew every man here. Knew their debts, their grudges, their ambitions. Knew which ones were willing to slit a throat for coin, and which ones would slit it just to feel the warm rush between their fingers.Julio moved in behind Lucien and took his place at the wall just over his right shoulder, silent, solid, the way a right hand should be. He never sat. Never relaxed. His presence was a quiet reminder that Lucien didn’t walk into
He’d been watching her breathe for over an hour.The morning light crept in slow, casting pale gold across the curve of her shoulder. She lay with her back to him, still, silent. Awake. He could feel it. The kind of stillness that wasn’t rest, but restraint.Lucien didn’t speak at first. He didn’t know how.So much time had passed between them in silence that now, even his words felt like they might bruise her.He tried anyway.“You’re up early.”There was a pause before she answered. “Didn’t sleep much.”A beat passed.“I noticed.”Another silence. One she didn’t try to fill.He stared at the ceiling. Then turned his gaze to her, wishing she’d turn, too. Wishing she’d just… meet him halfway.“Emilia,” he said, voice low. “I haven’t really check up on you.”She rolled onto her back, finally looking at him. Her eyes were tired, unreadable.“You haven’t.”The honesty hit harder than any accusation would have.“I’m here now,” he said quietly.She sat up, pulling the sheet to her chest, a