Semua Bab A Deal with the Mafia Lord: Bab 51 - Bab 60

Aurora’s breath snagged in her throat.The throne stood at the end of the hall, towering and merciless, carved from a fusion of bone and steel that shimmered in the half-light. Its edges gleamed like blades, its back rose high as if it touched the unseen ceiling above, and its seat glowed faintly with a rhythm that was not its own. It pulsed with the same beat that had once throbbed inside the coin. Every pulse pressed into her chest, syncing with her heartbeat until she thought her veins might rupture from the pressure.Her legs trembled. She wanted to move away, to run back into the tunnel, but her body betrayed her. She drifted forward in small, halting steps, as though invisible threads bound her bones to the throne.Her whisper was weak and cracked. “This isn’t me. This isn’t who I am.”The city answered. The walls breathed with voices that seeped from cracks in the stone. They were neither echoes nor wind, but something deeper. Souls. Thousands of them. All chanting. You are cho

The cracking sound was soft at first.Then it deepened, echoing through the frozen air like a growl.Aurora stepped back instinctively. The ice beneath her boots spiderwebbed, thin fractures running in every direction. The light trapped beneath it flickered and twisted, as though something alive was moving below.Julian’s hand went to his gun out of instinct. He glanced at her, his eyes sharp. “Stay behind me.”She almost laughed, breathless. “You really think a gun will work in whatever world this is?”Julian didn’t answer. His jaw tightened. The glow beneath the ice grew stronger, bleeding through the cracks. A faint hum rose from below, deep and rhythmic, the same pulse as the coin.Aurora’s stomach turned. “It’s calling to me.”Julian gripped her wrist, hard enough to hurt. “Then don’t answer.”The ice shuddered violently. A rush of wind burst upward, knocking them both to the ground. The surface splintered completely, and from the center of the cracks, a dark figure began to rise

Aurora woke to silence.The air was cold, thick, and humming. She was lying on smooth white stone, her hair damp, her clothes torn and heavy with water. Her body ached in every place that could ache.She sat up slowly.Above her stretched a sky that wasn’t a sky. It shimmered like glass, reflecting fragments of another world, cities suspended upside down, rivers that flowed upward, and faces that flickered like ghosts in the clouds.Country C.It wasn’t a city. It was a memory of one.Aurora’s breath trembled. The buildings were tall, but wrong, walls made of mirrors, streets that ended where they began. Every surface reflected her face back at her, sometimes older, sometimes younger, sometimes wearing the expression of someone who had already given up.She stood shakily, her shoes scraping against the cold stone. “Julian?”Her voice echoed too many times.No answer.The silence pressed close, almost sentient.She started walking, her reflection following in every glass wall. With eve

The silence was alive.It pulsed around her, steady as a heartbeat. Aurora’s breath fogged in the air, though she couldn’t feel cold anymore. The city that had surrounded her moments ago was gone, leaving only blackness stretching in every direction.Her fingers tightened around the coin fragment. It glowed weakly, the last piece of something that had consumed too much.“Julian?” she whispered again.No answer.The sound of footsteps came from behind her. Slow. Precise.Aurora turned.Julian stood there, pale in the faint light. His shirt was torn, his knuckles bruised, but his posture was too still. Too perfect. His eyes shimmered faintly silver before fading back to their usual dark brown.She exhaled in relief, though a chill slid down her spine. “You’re here.”He nodded once. “I told you I’d find you.”She smiled faintly, stepping closer. “I thought I lost you.”“You did.”She froze. “What?”He tilted his head, studying her face as if searching for something. “You lost me when you

Aurora landed hard against the ground. The air was thick and metallic, humming with a sound that didn’t belong anywhere on earth. She gasped, pushing herself up, her palms stinging with the memory of shattered glass. Around her stretched a wasteland of shifting color. The sky pulsed red, then violet, as if someone had smeared the horizon with bruises.She was back.Country C.The realization hit like a wound reopening. The last thing she remembered was Dave’s face, the coin glowing in his palm, Julian’s voice breaking through the cracks. Now everything around her felt wrong. The ground breathed. The shadows moved when she wasn’t looking.Aurora clutched her chest, her voice shaking. “Julian?”Her echo came back, warped and low, as if the world itself was mocking her. No answer. Only the sound of her heartbeat and the distant rustle of something dragging across the dirt.She stood, legs trembling, and forced herself to walk. Every few steps, her boots sank into a surface that felt almo