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Lahat ng Kabanata ng Kingdom of Ash and Blood : Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

244 Kabanata

Prologue - The Mother’s Silence

Madrid, Spain — Twelve years ago The storm rolled in over the city like a slow-moving beast, its belly full of thunder. Rain slicked the cobblestones of the villa courtyard, but no one dared leave. Not yet.Not until the deal was done. A beneath the awning, her black shawl pulled tight against her shoulders. Her name was Isabel Varela, and in Madrid’s underground, her name stirred both reverence and dread.She had once run half of the city's cartel network with no husband, no heir, and no apologies. But tonight, her silence was louder than any gunshot.In her hand, she held a sealed envelope.Inside it was a deal.Not with the Spanish cartels. Not with the Moroccans who had tried to court her with silver and diamonds.But with Dante Romano — the Sicilian devil himself.Her enemies thought she was stepping back. Thought she was going like all queens eventually did.But they didn't know she was already playing her last card — and it wasn’t for herself. It was for her daughter.From

Chapter Thirty-One

Return of the Bloodline The private jet touched down just after midnight.Madrid was colder than Amara remembered. Not the weather — the air. The silence. The hush that wrapped around the city like a whisper no one dared to say aloud.Luca stood at the bottom of the jet stairs, black trench coat snapping in the wind. He scanned the perimeter while Zeyna and Silva handled the convoy that waited in the shadows of the tarmac.Amara didn't rush.She stepped down slowly, her heels sharp against the metal steps, every inch of her wrapped in a long black coat belted tight at her waist. Her hair was up. Her lips painted blood.Her silence said more than any speech ever could.Madrid hadn’t seen her in twelve years. Now it would remember her forever.The villa her mother once owned had been abandoned for a decade.Vines crawled across the stone walls like veins. The windows were boarded. The hates rusted.But inside, it smelled like lavender and cigar smoke.Ghosts didn’t need much room.Sh

Chapter Thirty-Two

Cristina de León bled in silence.They strapped her to a steel chair in the basement beneath the Varela villa — the same ine Isabel used to use for interrogations. Amara sat across from her. Calm. Dressed in a silk-blqck blouse and high-waisted slacks, not a hair out of place. The storm raged outside, but in this room, nothing moved unless Amara said it could. Luca leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes burning into Cristina with the kind of focus that said one word would end her.Cristina, however, wasn't afraid.She looked at Amara like she was still ten years old.“I used to hold you,”she said with a thin smile. “You were always too quiet. Too still. Even then, you were already a Varela.”Amara’s voice was frost. “You don't get to use that name.”“I was loyal to your mother.”“Tou sold her to the Serpent Syndicate.”Cristina’s gave didn't waver. “No. I hid her from them. You think she vanished without a plan? She knew it was coming. The moment Dante tried to bind you to

Chapter Thirty-Three

The villa was a fortress carved from fire and stone. Cordoba lay beneath a haze of dusk, the sun dipping behind the olive trees like it knew what blood would be spilled before morning. Santiago Cruz's estate stretched across the valley like a wound — walled, guarded, vicious.Amara walked through the gates with nothing but a steel ring on her finger and hell in her eyes. She came alone.Because wolves did not need packs to rip throats out.At the front doors, four guards met her. Eyes cold. Guns visible.One stepped forward. “Secor Cruz —”“Knows I'm coming,” Amara said.He faltered.She held out her hand. “Check me.”They patted her down — rough mechanical. She didn't flinch. Let them touch. Let them think she was vulnerable. They didn't find the small blade under her tongue.Or the poison ring on her middle finger.Or the silent fury in her veins.Once cleared, the gates parted like a mouth opening to devour.She stepped inside. The main hall was obsidian and gold.Like somethin

Chapter Thirty-Four

The heat of Granada clung to Amara like a second skin. Dry, stinging, and relentless, it bled through her black dress, absorbing the desert sun as though it craved fire. She stood outside the crumbling hacienda on the edge of the Alhambra’s ruins—where the past whispered through cracked mosaics and vine-choked fountains. This was Milo Nero’s estate, the last known location of her mother, Isabel Varela. Her pulse thundered beneath her ribs. Inside, answers waited. And monsters. “I don’t like this,” Matteo muttered behind her, fingers twitching near his belt. “Let me go in first.” Amara didn’t move. “He asked for me. Alone.” “He’s a cartel ghost, Amara. Worse than Luca.” His voice dipped, wary. “Promise me you’ll scream if you need me.” She gave a faint smile. “If I scream, it’s already too late.” Then she stepped through the rust-stained doors. — The interior reeked of dust, blood, and sandalwood. Dim light poured through latticed windows, scattering shadows across the tiles.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The vineyards of Sicily were drowning in golden light, but Luca Moretti saw only blood.He stood at the edge of his family’s estate, staring across the endless rows of Nero d’Avola vines, hands clenched behind his back, jaw locked. The wind stirred the edges of his navy shirt, whispering secrets he didn’t want to hear.Amara had gone to Granada. Alone. To meet Milo fucking Nero, and now she was silent.It had been eighteen hours since her last message. Three lines of cold truth:I found him, I found the truth, we need to talk.Each syllable clawed at his control. He wanted to scream. Wanted to board the jet and hunt her down himself.But he waited.Because to follow her now, without understanding, without power, would be playing directly into Milo’s hands. And Luca never played without knowing the game.Behind him, footsteps approached. Steady. Familiar.Sergio.“Boss,” his consigliere said quietly. “The council is waiting.”Luca didn’t turn. “Tell them to wait longer.”Sergio hesitat

Chapter Thirty-Six

The air in Granada was laced with ghosts.Amara stood on the edge of a crumbling rooftop, staring at the quiet alleyway below. The night had settled thick and hot, pressing against her skin like sweat. Far below, the lanterns of the old quarter flickered with a kind of ancient sorrow—like the city itself remembered the blood spilt on its cobbled streets.Her heart pounded in her chest.She hadn’t slept since discovering the underground prison beneath Milo Nero’s estate. Since she’d seen the woman locked behind the rusted bars. The woman with her eyes.Isabel.Her mother.Alive.But hollow.Amara had only been allowed a glance before Milo’s guards pulled her away, warning that anything more would require... negotiation.She clenched her fists at the memory. He’d baited her—dangled Isabel in front of her like meat before a starving wolf.And now Luca was coming.She didn’t know if that terrified her more than it comforted her.A soft voice behind her broke her thoughts.“You’ve barely m

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The villa in Granada was supposed to be a sanctuary. Luca’s men had swept every room, stationed guards along the perimeter, and tripled security. But by midnight, the silence was too loud, and Amara felt more exposed than ever.She sat by the large window in the guest chamber, her knees tucked under her robe, staring at the velvet sky. The desert wind kissed the hills in a ghost’s lullaby, and yet her blood simmered. Milo Nero’s words haunted her."Your mother wasn’t taken. She chose to stay."A lie. It had to be. Isabel Varela wouldn’t have abandoned her daughter. Wouldn’t have watched their cartel fall into ruin without a fight. But then again, Milo’s tone hadn’t held triumph—it held pity.Behind her, the door creaked open.She didn’t need to turn to know it was Luca.His presence always filled a room like smoke. Dark. Claustrophobic. Inescapable.“Can’t sleep?” he asked softly, stepping inside.“Not with devils in the walls,” she murmured. “Or in my bed.”Luca chuckled, but there w

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The ancient villa in the Albaicín district burned beneath the morning sun like an omen. Ivory walls kissed by firelight, iron balconies dripping with bougainvillaea — the kind of beauty that mocked the blood still drying in Amara’s hair. She didn’t flinch when Mateo peeled open the heavy wooden doors and motioned her inside. “I’ll wait here,” he muttered, voice low, eyes sweeping the alley with the sharpness of a man who never forgot what it was to be hunted. Amara crossed the threshold, every instinct burning. Her boots echoed through a vast hall — the kind that reeked of old Spanish money and something colder. Something darker. She was shown into a library. Shadows clung to its high ceilings like secrets. He was waiting for her. Milo Nero. Her mother’s captor. The man who’d kept Isabel Varela hidden like a ghost for nearly two decades. He rose slowly from the armchair, tall, dark-haired, with eyes the color of dead leaves. Wrinkled but powerful, with a quiet kind of menace —

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The Castello Nero loomed like a myth stitched into the bleeding dusk, its silhouette jagged and cruel against the Andalusian sky. It wasn’t a palace. It was a cage with velvet walls, and Amara was the most precious captive it held. She stood on the rooftop terrace, wind tangling her curls as she looked toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. The chill had teeth tonight. Somewhere in the halls below, Milo Nero was entertaining investors, and every echo of laughter rising from the banquet room made her fists curl tighter on the stone balustrade. She wasn’t invited. She wasn’t allowed. She was watched—constantly. Since the confrontation in the cellar days ago, Milo had kept her under tighter control. Her room was guarded. Her phone? Confiscated. And her mother? Still locked away in a wing she wasn’t allowed to enter. The bastard was keeping them both as leverage. But Amara knew men like him. They never held power as tightly as they thought. Her pulse thudded when soft footsteps a

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