LOGINThe jeep roared down the broken highway, smoke trailing from the bent hood.“Faster, Lucien!” Rafael barked, clutching his bleeding side. “They’ll have drones in the air in minutes!”Lucien’s knuckles were bone-white against the wheel. “Shut up before I throw you out.”Solene sat between them, hands trembling, throat raw from smoke. Her chest burned with every breath. The roar of the engine was nothing compared to the storm inside her head.Her father. Alive. Watching her like she was still a child to command.Her stomach twisted. She pressed her palms against her knees to stop them shaking.Lucien’s eyes flicked to her, sharp even through his blood loss. “Say something. Anything.”She turned toward him, her lips dry, her voice a rasp.“I don’t know who I am anymore.”Rafael let out a harsh laugh. “Welcome to the club, sweetheart.”The jeep finally limped to a stop in a half-collapsed factory at the city’s edge. Lucien killed the engine, the silence inside the car deafening after the
“Let me out of this car!” Solene’s fists slammed against the reinforced glass, knuckles splitting. The interior light flickered across her face, blood, smoke, rage.Rafael leaned back in the seat beside her, maddeningly calm despite the fresh cut across his cheek. He wiped his bloody palm on his thigh, eyes locked on the road ahead.“You hit like a demon,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”Her blade flashed. She had it against his throat before the driver could glance back.“One more word,” she hissed, “and I paint this seat red.”Rafael didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. His lips even twitched into the ghost of a smirk.“If you were going to kill me, Solene, you would’ve done it already.”Her hand trembled just slightly.He saw it. Of course he did.“You’re not hesitating because you doubt yourself,” he murmured. “You’re hesitating because a part of you still remembers what we were before all this.”Her grip tightened. “We were nothing.”“Lies always taste bitter when you spit them that fast,
“Cut the lights.”Lucien’s command cracked through the convoy. Engines killed. Headlights blinked out. Silence settled, thick and waiting.Dom peered through night-vision goggles, jaw tight. “Two guards on the north wall. More at the gate. Snipers up top. They’re expecting you.”Lucien chambered a round. “Good. Makes the killing easier.”“Boss ” Dom hesitated. “We could wait. Scout. Call in more men.”Lucien turned his head, eyes burning through him. “She’s in there now.”Dom exhaled, the argument already lost. “Then let’s end this.”The convoy doors opened. Black boots hit dirt. Lucien stepped forward first, blade sheathed at his thigh, rifle slung across his chest. He moved like death given shape.At the compound walls, a guard leaned over, spotting them. “Hey ”Lucien lifted his gun and put a bullet through the man’s skull.“Gate’s open,” he muttered.The war began.Gunfire cracked outside, sharp and steady. Solene’s head jerked toward the barred window, heart pounding in sync with
The barrel pressed harder into Solene’s ribs. Rafael’s lips brushed her ear when he spoke.“Say his name. Say you choose Lucien, and I’ll paint these church walls with your blood.”Lucien didn’t flinch. His gun never wavered, though his jaw locked tight enough to snap.“Rafael ”“Quiet!” Rafael barked, his laughter sharp. “Always so sure you’re the savior. The protector. You’re not. You’re just a butcher who thinks love is something you can own.”His grip on Solene tightened, iron cutting into her lungs. She wanted to shove him away, to scream, to carve the smirk from his face but she forced herself still. Still enough to think.Because Rafael wasn’t just desperate. He was playing for something more.“Let me go,” she hissed.Rafael’s chuckle slid across her skin. “Why would I let go of the only thing worth taking from him?”Lucien’s voice dropped, low and lethal. “If you touch her again ”“You’ll kill me?” Rafael tilted his head, brushing his cheek against hers like a lover, his wo
“Run all you want, Solene. I’ll always find you.”The voice wasn’t Lucien’s.It was sharper. Colder. Wrapped in the cruel amusement only one ghost could carry.Rafael.Solene froze in the alley where she had vanished after leaving the compound. Her hands were still trembling from shoving Lucien away, from hearing the confession she couldn’t forgive. The air stank of smoke and wet stone, and for a split second she thought she was hallucinating. But then shadows peeled back.And there he was.Rafael Vairo. Not a ghost, not a memory. A man with fire in his eyes and blood on his knuckles, wearing betrayal like a second skin.Her mouth went dry. “You’re supposed to be dead.”Rafael tilted his head, smirk tugging the corner of his mouth. “And you’re supposed to be his salvation. Looks like we both make terrible myths.”He stepped closer. Too close. She could feel the heat of him, the danger of him. He wasn’t like Lucien controlled violence, steel wrapped in restraint. Rafael was raw, unhing
“Still bleeding for ghosts, Lucien?”The voice slid through the smoke like oil. Low. Mocking. Familiar enough to split the air in Solene’s chest.She froze. The barrel of her gun dipped an inch. For the first time in hours, her lungs forgot how to breathe.Lucien reacted faster, weapon up, stance solid, a predator caught mid-strike. His jaw clenched as if he’d seen the specter in his worst nightmares crawl into the room.From the haze stepped Rafael Vairo.Alive. Whole. Smiling like the devil had handed him the script.“Impossible,” Solene whispered, barely audible, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her.Lucien didn’t whisper. His rage cut through the silence like a blade.“You’re dead.” His finger twitched on the trigger. “I buried you myself.”Rafael laughed softly, as though the absurdity of the statement was entertainment. His suit, charcoal black, wasn’t even wrinkled. Not a scar. Not a shadow of death. Only eyes that burned with too much knowledge, too much power.“Correction
BOY: “You’re next.”His hands shot up for her throat.A gunshot cracked before his fingers could touch her skin.Not Lucien’s.Not Solene’s.The boy staggered back, eyes wide, pressing a hand to the crimson blooming under his ribs.He looked down at the wound, then up at the shooter.SOLENE: “…Moth
SOLENE: “You’re bleeding.”LUCIEN: “Not as much as you.”The smoke was thick enough to chew. Every breath burned. Somewhere behind them, metal screamed as part of the compound collapsed in on itself.SOLENE: “You didn’t deny it.”LUCIEN: “We’re not having this conversation in a death trap.”SOLENE:
ANGELO: “Tick-tock.” Lucien ripped the detonator out of the boy’s pocket and tossed it toward the treeline. It landed with a thud still counting down. 14. 13. RAFAEL: “That won’t stop it.” SOLENE: “Then we stop him.” Angelo moved like something no longer bound by bone too fast, too clean. Luci
BOY: “Don’t… let her touch me.”The words were weak, almost swallowed by the dark, but they froze everyone.SOLENE: “Stay with me.”Her hands were clamped on his arm, blood seeping through her fingers.WOMAN: “He’s mine, Solene. Always has been.”Lucien stepped in front of Solene without hesitation







