All Chapters of Velvet and vengeance: stripped by the enemy : Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

“Silent Message”Dimitri’s POVI watched Maraleona from afar, far enough that she wouldn’t notice me, but also close enough so I wouldn’t miss anything that was said. Seeing Lucian and Jace barge into her home wasn’t something I had expected to see so soon, but luckily, she handled the situation with grace and eloquence. When they left, I finally took a good look of her. She looked a mess, like she hadn’t been sleeping and probably hadn’t been eating either. I wondered If I was the cause, and my heart broke at the thought. A little while later, I noticed the colour drain from her face as she watched a video. I noticed she was about to rewatch it and got closer. “Dimitri Volkov owed us blood. Now you will pay it.” The altered voice blared out. She heaved a heavy sigh and walked away while rubbing her temple. It was then I made a decision. ~It was well after 3:00 am when I decided to execute my plan. Maraleona had upped her security again, but that was nothing I couldn’t get by. Th

"Turning Gears" Jace's POV Somehow it felt like it was all leading up to this moment. Everything that had happened before this point felt like child's play. The blue light of the screen reflected off my face, making my eyes ache with a dry heat, and casting a flickering paleness over my features. In the central monitor, I watched the encrypted video loop with a face of indifference.The message "Dimitri Volkok owed us blood, now you will play it." Filled the room with an annoying hum that made Jace's eyes twitch.I tapped a key, freezing the frame on the masked man's hands. "The video was routed through a triple server in Novosibirsk," I said, my voice shaking lightly. I hadn't slept in forty-eight hours, and the code was starting to look like crawling ants. "But the encryption isn't just Russian. It's got layers of old-school ciphering- Sokolov-grade stuff from back when the Volkovs were still rising. They aren't just threatening us, Lucien. They're trying to delegitimize Maraleon

Cold TeaMaraleona's POV The porcelain cup in my hand was quite beautiful to look at. It had a unique that resembled a lighting strike, but right now, i saw it as something different. The cracks represented the cracks in me, and the way I held it so tightly and wholly in my hands was the way I was trying to hold myself together. It was thin, fragile and radiated a warmth that the winter winds was trying to combat. Outside the frosted windows of The Velvet Lark, the city was a blur of grey slush and falling white, a world being erased by the snow. It was a never ending winter in this part of the world. The café didn't exist on any tourist maps. It was a relic of the old times, tucked away in a basement between the town's ponds. It was the kind of place you either had to be invited in or simply know someone to get in. Across the table were the three people I trusted the most, but even then, my trust felt like a risk. Karen, my lead signal interceptor, a woman whose face resembled a

First OffenceDimitri's POV The secondary warehouse I bad found was a low hung, windowless bunker of reinforced steel. It had been tucked behind a graveyard of rusted shipping containers that were left along the sides of Moscow river. There were motion sensors all around, but I moved swiftly. If they caught anything, it would be written off as a glitch of sorts. I spend close to three hours in the high rafters, my body pressed against the cold iron beams. I was still recording the encrypted communications through my handheld receiver. Below, the faction operatives were beginning to get frantic. They no longer just spoke of the blood Oath they used to bait the world, but also of an heir. They were coordinating the arrival of the "Heir" for a live broadcast meant to shatter the last of the Volkov loyalists.my face twisted with disdain. They never cease to amaze me with the lengths they were willing to go. Before I slipped back into the vents, I paused at a junction near the loading

Ghost in The SnowDimitri’s POVThe courtyard of the estate was, as always, a cathedral of jagged ice and furious wind that seeped deep into your bones. At just ten years old, Dimitri already knew something. The harsh winds, though of natural cause, had grown to taunt the people of the manor. It didn’t just howl, it judged. If you shivered under its touch, you were weak; if you cried, you were bound to be tossed to the sides. His father’s voice was a permanent mantra that blended with the howl of wind. “A Volkov is a man of steel,” he would say. “We don’t feel.” He always added with a tone that made the young boy wonder if he had been like that throughout his entire life. But Dimitri was considered a failure. One that refused to bend under the will of his family. His words haunted the young boy. Echoed in his head when rooms got quiet or when my eyes focused do much that the world turned blurry, and left a bitter taste that Dimitri could not swallow. Dimitri was kneeling in knee de