Pustaka
Cari
Beranda / LGBTQ+ / The Widow’s Blood Debt / 54: The Jura Ascent

Share

54: The Jura Ascent

Penulis: Lola's Write
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-02-08 23:03:11

POV: Leo Dante Moretti

The Jura Mountains were a wall of white and grey, a jagged spine of limestone draped in the heavy, suffocating silence of a Swiss winter. I sat in the back of a blacked-out SUV as it wound its way up the serpentine roads toward the "Phoenix" node. Outside, the world was beautiful and indifferent; inside, the air was pressurized with the hum of high-end tactical gear and the cold intent of the men I had brought with me.

These weren't my father’s old street soldiers. They w
Lanjutkan membaca buku ini secara gratis
Pindai kode untuk mengunduh Aplikasi
Bab sebelumnya Bab selanjutnya
Bab Terkunci

Bab terbaru

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   61: The Morning After Audit

    POV: Willa ThorneThe first thing I realized when I woke up was that the air in my loft had changed. It usually tasted of stale turpentine and the cold, damp scent of old brick, but this morning there was a sharp, expensive undercurrent of sandalwood and success.I was tangled in a nest of paint-stained sheets, the morning light filtering through the grime of the skylight in long, dusty shafts. Silas was gone from the bed, but the indentation on the pillow beside me was still warm. I sat up, pulling the duvet to my chest, my heart doing a frantic staccato as the memories of the night before flooded back. The train, the studio, the way his hands had felt like a brand on my skin—it wasn't just a lapse in judgment. It was a total structural collapse of my defenses.I heard a rhythmic, metallic tapping coming from the kitchen area.I threw on an oversized sweater and padded across the cold floor. Silas was standing at my small, rusted gas stove, his charcoal suit jacket discarded on a mil

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   60: The Subway Seduction

    POV: Willa Thorne"You’re kidding," Silas said, his voice flat, his gaze fixed on the rusted, rattling entrance to the L-train as if it were a portal to a sub-atomic hellscape. "You expect me to get on that.""It’s called public transit, Silas. You know, the thing your tax breaks are supposed to fund?" I stood on the sidewalk of 14th Street, my paint-splattered messenger bag slung over my shoulder. The city was in that frantic, golden hour where the sun was dying behind the skyscrapers and the commuters were morphing into hunters. "My condition for finishing the gallery layout was an 'inspiration trek.' You said you wanted to understand my process. My process doesn't happen in a penthouse."Silas looked down at his shoes hand-burnished Italian leather that probably cost more than the average Bushwick rent. He looked utterly out of place, a charcoal-suited monolith against a sea of denim, leather, and neon hair."I have a car and a driver waiting at the corner, Willa. We can go whereve

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   59: The Two-Week Audit

    POV: Willa ThorneDay one of my "sentence" at Sterling Global began at 7:00 AM, a time of day I usually only saw from the tail end of a night spent on a scaffolding. The sun was a pale, anemic disk rising over the East River, struggling to penetrate the thick, triple-paned glass of the executive floor.I stood in the middle of a workspace that felt less like a studio and more like a high-tech laboratory. Silas had given me a corner of the sixty-fourth floor, cordoned off with frosted glass partitions. There were no milk crates to sit on, no splattered drop cloths, and certainly no ventilation for the fumes I intended to create. Instead, there were sleek, ergonomic tables, a digital drafting board that probably cost more than my apartment, and a set of brushes so pristine I felt like I needed to apologize to them."The ventilation system has been upgraded to medical-grade filtration," Silas’s voice cut through the silence.I turned. He was leaning against the doorframe, a cup of black

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   58: The Glass Ceiling

    POV: Willa ThorneThe lobby of Sterling Global was a cathedral of curated silence, glass, and intimidatingly expensive air. It was the kind of place designed to make you feel small before you even reached the reception desk. Every surface was polished to a mirror finish, reflecting the distortion of my own image a girl in paint-splattered cargo pants and a thrifted hoodie, clutching a backpack that smelled like a chemical spill.I didn't belong here. That was the point. Silas Sterling’s world was a fortress of exclusivity, a vacuum where the messy, vibrant life of the streets was filtered out through triple-paned windows."Can I help you, miss?" the receptionist asked. Her voice was as sharp as her bob, and her eyes raked over my cobalt-stained hands with the kind of clinical disgust usually reserved for a biohazard."I’m here to see the ghost," I said, leaning my elbows on the white marble desk. I didn't care about the smudges I was leaving. "The Wraith. Silas Sterling.""Do you have

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   57: The Pale Horse

    The morning after the gala was hushed, the kind of silence that only exists in a house where the storms have finally passed. I stood in the kitchen of our Sicilian villa—a place that had transitioned from a hideout to a home watching the steam rise from two cups of espresso.Dante was outside, walking the perimeter of the olive grove. He wasn't checking for assassins anymore; he was checking the irrigation lines. The "Butcher" had become a cultivator.I sat at the heavy oak table and opened a small, leather-bound notebook. It wasn't a digital ledger, and it wasn't connected to the Phoenix node or the Shadow Audit. It was just paper and ink my final, personal audit.I looked at the entry I had made twenty-five years ago, on the night I was "sold" to the Morettis: “Debt: Infinite. Assets: Zero. Survival: Calculated.”I picked up my pen and wrote beneath it: “Debt: Settled. Assets: A legacy of light. Survival: Absolute.”I heard the door creak open. Dante stepped in, his face flushed fro

  • The Widow’s Blood Debt   56: The Sovereign’s Silence

    POV: Leo Dante MorettiThe gala at the Pierre was more than a celebration; it was a masterclass in the theater of legitimacy. From my vantage point on the mezzanine, the ballroom looked like a swirling kaleidoscope of shimmering silk, polished mahogany, and the low, sophisticated hum of the city’s elite. To the mayors, the senators, and the CEOs sipping champagne below, Dante and Julian were the grand architects of a new, peaceful era. To me, they were the reason I had to become the guardian of a silent one.I felt the obsidian drive in my pocket a cold, heavy anchor against my thigh. It was the only thing in this room that wasn't a lie."The Governor is moving toward the north bar," Marco the Younger’s voice whispered in my earpiece, a digital ghost in the frequency. "He’s about to be 'surprised' by a lobbyist for the North Atlantic Port Authority. The same lobbyist who just received a six-figure deposit from an untraceable node in Moscow."I didn't move. I didn't reach for my phone

Bab Lainnya

Anda juga akan menyukai

Jelajahi dan baca novel bagus secara gratis
Akses gratis ke berbagai novel bagus di aplikasi GoodNovel. Unduh buku yang kamu suka dan baca di mana saja & kapan saja.
Baca buku gratis di Aplikasi
Pindai kode untuk membaca di Aplikasi
DMCA.com Protection Status