All Chapters of VELVET GUN: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

“There are wars you walk into with a blade and there are wars you walk into with a womb.” Before sunrise – The estate’s armory the room wasn’t on any official blueprint. Ellie unlocked it with two keys, one held between her teeth, the other tucked into the lining of her bra. Amy followed close behind, silent, dressed in men’s trousers and a white undershirt, a revolver already on her hip. Inside, the room was a different world — rifles polished to a mirror gleam, knives lined like teeth, silenced pistols packed in velvet. “Pick your poison,” Ellie said flatly. Amy went for the short-barreled Beretta. She weighed it in her hand. “The Capetti boys like to gloat. They’ll get close.” Ellie chose nothing, she already had what she needed, she always had. “What about Alba?” Amy asked, eyes flicking to a map on the table — routes, names, escape options, safehouses. “She’s already gone,” Ellie said. “Left twenty minutes ago. She and Giulia are splitting the vineyard perimeter.” “And th

“They would burn every truth to ash — if it meant the world remained as they built it.” The Finn Mansion didn’t sleep, not anymore, not when the walls whispered. Not when the past crept in through every creak of wood and every flicker ofcandlelight. Not when there was him — lying unconscious in the guest wing, guarded by Thomas, cleaned by Lena, watched over by eyes that had learned not to trust shadows. Dario was alive, that was all they knew at first but whatever had been done to him left its mark: his right eye bruised, lips cracked, skin pale like he hadn’t seen the sun in months. The chains hadn’t cut, but the silence had. His hands trembled not from weakness —but from memory. He hadn’t spoken a word in the first twenty-four hours. Ellie didn’t ask. Amy didn’t push. Lena hovered. Alba setout soups and bandages and walked away. Only Thomas sat quietly by his bedside with a pistol and a look that said try something and I’ll kill you again.But on the second evening, Dario whisp

“Sometimes, blood is not enough to be family. And silence is the kindest goodbye.” — The moon over Finn Mansion had a silver sheen that night. Cold, detached, and watching. The kind of moon that looked like it belonged to no one. Much like Giulia.Three days had passed since her confrontation with Ellie— three days of hovering near the estate gates, arriving unannounced, waiting on the stone benches like she had a right to still be there. But on the fourth day, the message came she was no longer welcome. The letter was delivered by Lena, crisp and official not written by Ellie, not signed by Amy but sealed with bothof their initials. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t angry but it was final. “For the peace of all who reside here, you are asked to refrain from visiting Finn Mansion from this point forward. This decision is not personal. It is permanent.” Giulia stood at the gate with the letter clutched in her hand. She stared through the bars for a long time—like she expected Ellie to chang

“Sometimes the ones who give you life are the first to try and take it from you—piece by piece.” The air at Finn Mansion was quieter than usual. A different kind of silence—the kind that seeped into the stone, curled around your ribs, and whispered that something was about to change. Ellie sat in the greenhouse behind the mansion, hands clasped loosely between her knees. Her eyes traced the ivy snaking up the glass wall. There was something heavy in her chest, something she couldn’t name. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t peace. It was the waiting like the moment before a storm rolls over the hills. A knock came from the gate at the far end of the estate. “Miss Ellie,” a guard’s voice crackled through the comm, “a man’s asking to speak with you. Claims he’s your father.”Her spine straightened instantly. Lena, who’d been pruning a row of herbs nearby, paused. “You want me to send him away?” Ellie stood. “No. Let him in.” He looked older than she remembered. Silver hair now streaked thro

“Some people live entire lives searching for a love that doesn’t make them bleed and some of us find it too late, with the hands of ghosts still wrapped around our throats.” The sun filtered softly through the high arched windows of Ellie’s room in Finn Mansion. The silk curtains moved gently in the early breeze, golden light tracing the edge of the bed where two tangled bodies lay under rich sheets but only one of them stirred. Amy sat propped against the headboard, one arm resting behind her neck, the other lying still at her side. Her short dark hair was disheveled, her chest bare under the blanket pulled to her waist. Her gaze was fixed downward at Ellie still curled into her, sound asleep, lashes brushing her cheek, lips slightly parted and yet Amy wasn’t seeing her, not really. Her mind was a storm, Last night had been something out of a fever dream, Ellie had taken her apart piece by piece, not just physically but emotionally. There was something terrifying about how freely sh