Semua Bab VELVET GUN: Bab 81 - Bab 90

“The cruelest thing about happiness is how quiet it makes the world… just before it breaks.” The morning light was slow to enter Finn Mansion,pushing past the weight of the heavy curtains in thin, golden seams. The air was still, touched with the faint scent of last night’s rain and something softer—wildflowers Lena must have brought in from the garden. Amy stood in the doorway to the bedroom, leaning one shoulder against the frame, silent, Ellie was still asleep. Her hair was a loose spill across the pillow, one strand lifting slightly with each steady breath. The sheet had twisted down to her waist in the night, leaving the bare lines of hershoulders and the gentle curve of her collarbone visible. Her hand rested over her stomach—not flat, but curved, almost instinctively protective. Thirteen weeks, Amy didn’t need a calendar to tell her. She could feel the truth of it in her bones, in the way her chest tightened each time she looked at Ellie like this. A different kind of fear—

“Some storms don’t come from the sky. They walk toward you with human hands and human hate, and you don’t see them until the first blow lands.” The rain had stopped in the early hours, leaving Finn Mansion steeped in that strange stillness that only comes after a storm. The marble floors gleamed, the corridors smelled faintly of polish and lavender, and somewhere upstairs, Ellie was laughing at something Lena had said. Amy heard it from the foyer, the low, soft ripple of her voice, and it was enough to ease the knot in her chest for a moment. She stood there, hands in her pockets, watching the door until Dario stepped inside. He wasn’t wearing his usual lighthearted smile. There was a tiredness around his eyes, a guarded heaviness in his shoulders that had nothing to do with the weight of his medical bag “Morning,” he greeted, voice steady but clipped. Amy nodded once. “She’s upstairs. I’ll take you.” Ellie was already waiting in the sitting room off herbedroom when they arrived,

“When you corner a wolf, it doesn’t surrender — it teaches you what teeth are for.” The slip of paper lay on Amy’s desk like a dare. Ink scrawled in a neat hand. An address she’d chased for the better part of the day. And not a damn thing waiting there except mildew, dust, and the sound of her own boots on broken tile. The bastard was too clever to actually use the location he gave. Old predators were never sloppy — they made you chase shadows until you started to doubt whether you even wanted the truth anymore. Unfortunately for him, Amy thrived in the dark. Messing with her people was a different kind of sin. The moment that stone slammed into Ellie’s side, when she folded and Amy caught her before she hit the sand, something old and dangerous in her spine clicked back into place. A switch she’d tried for years to keep turned off because when that Amy came out, there were casualties. Always.The past didn’t knock before walking in, First, her parents. She saw them dead before she e

“Some people aren’t storms. They’re the silence before it — the kind that makes you forget the sky ever held lightning.” The hum of the engine was the only sound inside the car. Amy’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, jaw set like it was carved from stone. Beside her, Isadora leaned back in her seat, eyes half-lidded, the picture of calm—except for the way her thumb stroked the grip of the pistol resting in her lap. Neither of them spoke at first. They didn’t need to. The air between them was thick with the unspoken: the job ahead, the risk, the blood they might spill, and the blood they might lose. Amy’s mind wasn’t on the road—it was on Ellie. On the quiet mornings she’d watched her from the doorway. On the thought of her body carrying something so fragile, so unprepared for the ugliness of the world. And now, someone was out there, plotting to take both from her in one strike.Isadora broke the silence. “You’re breathing like you’re about to tear someone’s head off.” “

“In this world, family is not always born in blood… sometimes it is forged in the fire of those who refused to let you burn.” The first thing Ellie felt was warmth. Not the shallow kind that comes from blankets or the faint heat of morning sun creeping across the bed, but the deeper, bone-melting warmth of another body pressed against hers. Amy’s arm was heavy across her waist, protective even in sleep. Her face was buried in Ellie’s hair, breath slow and even, but there was still a faint tension in the muscles of her forearm—as if even unconscious, she was braced to fight off the world. Ellie didn’t move. She stayed still, watching the way the faint morning light slid across Amy’s jaw, softening the sharp edges that the rest of the world always saw. In that quiet, she could almost forget the chaos of last night, almost.Amy shifted slightly, murmuring something incoherent, and Ellie felt the faint brush of lips against her neck. It sent a small shiver through her, but it wasn’t des