All Chapters of Blood Ties And Silk Chains: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The kiss lingered like the tide after a storm, pulling at everything Liora thought she had buried deep enough never to touch again. Salt—she tasted salt, though she wasn’t sure if it was his tears or her own. Relief too, sharp and overwhelming, the kind that made her legs unsteady as though the floor itself couldn’t quite hold the weight of what had just happened.When Varian pulled back, it wasn’t far. His forehead stayed pressed against hers, both of them breathing in a silence that felt louder than gunfire. For a long moment, neither dared to move.Then, as if struck by the same sudden clarity, they stepped apart at once. The distance between them felt unnatural, a severed current still sparking at the edges.Liora’s hand came to her mouth, fingers trembling. She wanted to press the memory back into her lips, keep it safe where doubt couldn’t reach. But her mind was already racing, cataloguing the danger of what she’d just allowed.Varian stood motionless, hands at his sides, jaw t

The estate had always been fortress-first, home-second. Concrete perimeters, cameras sunk into the soil like mechanical eyes, a rotation of armed men who never smiled. Even the air around the place carried the hum of tension, a low thrum of readiness that didn’t belong to children or lullabies.Liora noticed it most when Wren stood at the window. The girl’s little palms would press against the glass, her gaze drifting past the manicured hedges, past the iron gates, out toward a world that should have been full of ordinary things—neighbors, stray dogs, kids on bikes, the music of bells from a church down the street. But here, the silence was engineered. Sterile. A safety too sharp-edged to breathe.And Liora knew it couldn’t last. Not for Wren. Not for any of them.She brought it up one morning when Varian had just dismissed Bram from the dining room. The table still bore maps and timetables from the previous night’s strategy brief, red pins marking Marcelli strongholds like open wound

The last threads of laughter from the kite still lingered in the halls of the estate, echoing faintly in Liora’s memory. Wren had fallen asleep curled in blankets that smelled faintly of rain and grass, a faint smile fixed on her face as though she were still chasing the sky in her dreams.For once, the house had felt still. Alive, but still.That stillness broke just after midnight.Liora was awake, wandering the hallways with a mug of tea that had long since cooled in her hands. She passed the study and paused, hearing low voices behind the heavy oak door. Varian’s voice, rough as gravel, and Ines’s, clipped and urgent.She shouldn’t listen. But the tone—the edge she hadn’t heard in weeks—anchored her to the spot.“They don’t sell weapons,” Ines was saying. “They don’t smuggle. They don’t even bloody well take sides. They deal in men. Trained, loyal, disposable.”“And expensive,” Varian replied. His voice was steady, but Liora could hear the tension buried beneath.“Yes. Paid to the

The war room smelled of ink, machine oil, and stale coffee. Banks of monitors hummed softly, their glow painting the underground chamber in fractured blues and grays. Ines stood at the central console, her hair tied back, eyes sharp and unblinking as she scrolled through columns of figures projected across the wall.Bram loomed near the doorway, arms folded, clearly unimpressed with numbers. He belonged in steel corridors and rifle smoke, not inside a bunker of code and balance sheets. Yet even he didn’t interrupt. The tension in the room was coiled too tight.Liora sat at the far end of the table, fingers wrapped around a mug she hadn’t touched. Her eyes kept darting from the numbers to Ines, to Varian, who stood in the shadows near the map board. He wasn’t seated, wasn’t relaxed. His whole body was drawn taut, like the silence before a strike.Ines cleared her throat. “I’ve spent the past seventy-two hours tracing every irregularity in our payroll structure. Every contractor, every

The conference suite atop the old riverbank hotel was built for performances of wealth: red marble inlaid with gold veins, chandeliers dropping crystal tears, carpets so deep the shoes sank a little with every step. Tonight, it smelled faintly of ink, cold coffee, and nerves. Varian closed the double doors behind him without looking, his presence filling the room before he even spoke. He didn’t knock. He never knocked. Marius Leth stood at the far table, hands splayed over a mess of documents. Contracts, ledgers, financial reports—all of them bearing his neat, careful signature. All of them trembling under the weight of his shallow breath. “You should have called me sooner,” Varian said, voice low, measured. The way one spoke to someone already condemned. Leth’s jaw worked, but no words came. Papers shifted as his fingers clutched at the table edge. Varian stepped closer. The soles of his shoes whispered against the carpet, carrying him into the circle of light. “I don’t like surp