All Chapters of QUEEN OF THE RUINS: Born to Power. Crowned in blood : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

KAMARAOscar is dead.“What do you mean? He is dead..?”The words didn’t make sense. They collided with the damp concrete walls of the cold-storage room and shattered like glass. I looked at the guard, whose face was drained of color, his hands shaking as he clutched his phone like a lifeline.“He couldn’t even hold off for thirty minutes straight," the guard stammered, his eyes darting toward the heavy steel door as if the grim reaper himself were knocking. "He’s a weakling, Boss. Oscar was more of a weakling than we thought. He couldn't hold him off.”Seventeen years. For seventeen years, Oscar had nursed his vendetta, fueled by the cold fire of revenge, and now, in less time than it takes to have a meal, he was gone. My knees felt weak. The hope that had been a burning ember during the breach was doused in ice water. I looked over at Jace and Elijah. I expected shock, but their faces were void of emotion. They looked like men who had already attended this funeral a thousand times i

KAMARAThe tires of the SUV screamed against the asphalt as Elijah pulled a hard U-turn, heading away from the glow of the burning warehouse. My chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a rusted spoon. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jace wounded, bleeding, and pinned under Brian, facing down the man who had just murdered his own brother."We have to go back," I whispered, my voice trembling. Then, louder: "Elijah, stop the car! We can’t just leave him there with that... that animal!"Elijah’s profile was carved out of cold stone, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "He told me to get you out. I’m getting you out. I don't do 'back,' Kamara. It’s a waste of fuel and lives.""You’re a coward!" I snapped, the grief turning into a hot, poisonous rage. "He’s your brother! He’s dying back there for us, and you’re driving away like you’re heading to a business meeting. Do you even have a soul? Or did Matthias beat that out of you, too?"Elijah’s grip tightened on the wheel until his kn

JACEI was lost somewhere in the red canyons of my own skin, drowning in the hot, copper tide of my own lungs. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. My left eye was swollen shut, a curtain of bruised purple that blocked out half the world, and my ribs, I could feel the jagged ends of them grating against each other with every gasp.I was chained to a rusted industrial pipe, my feet barely touching the grease-stained floor of the basement. Across from me, Matthias sat in an armchair he must have had brought down specifically for this performanceHe looked pristine. Not a speck of blood on his silk lapels. He sipped from a crystal glass, the ice clinking with maddening cheerfulness."You’re dying, Jace," Matthias said, his voice a smooth, cultured purr that felt like a razor across my nerves. "I can see the light receding. It’s a slow leak. Quite poetic, really. The martyr who bleeds out in silence."I tried to spit at him, but all that came out was a thick, dark glob of bile th

KAMARAThe shipyard district didn't just feel like another part of the city; it felt like another dimension. We had long since abandoned the SUV, parked five blocks back behind a row of rusted shipping containers that looked like they hadn't been moved since the seventies. Silas led the way, his hand never straying far from the hem of his jacket.He guided us into a narrow artery of the city known as the "Glass Graveyard." It was a stretch of residential high-rises that had been gutted by a massive fire years ago and never rebuilt.The street was teeming with a different kind of life. People lived here in the hollowed-out shells of apartments, burning trash in iron drums for heat. As we walked, I could feel the eyes, thousands of them, peering from the darkness of the ruined balconies.They looked at me with a terrifying mixture of greed and bone-deep fear. Suddenly, an older man stepped into our path. I flinched, expecting a threat, but he didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, he dippe

KAMARAThe hot chocolate in my hand had gone stone cold, the sweet scent now cloying and nauseating. I stared at Kaela, trying to reconcile the Jace I knew with the man she was describing. "He knew," I whispered. “All those years he was by my side, he knew you were breathing. He knew where you were."Kaela leaned against a rusted filing cabinet, crossing her arms. “Don’t mistake his silence for malice, Kamara. Jace was loyal to a fault—but not to us. He was loyal to Richard. Our father owned him long before you ever felt safe with him.""But you said you met him," I pressed, my heart aching with a fresh kind of jealousy I didn't want to admit to. "How? When?""Richard and Matthias didn’t just trade me and forget I existed," Kaela said, her eyes darkening. "They had meetings. High-stakes check-ins to monitor the 'asset.' Richard would bring Jace along as his primary muscle. I’d be brought out like a prized hound to show Matthias I was still useful, still healthy. I’d look at Jace acro