บททั้งหมดของ His Runaway Queen: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

*Lucian’s POV*I don’t go to her room after I leave.That restraint costs me more than the violence ever did.I walk instead – through the corridors I built, ruled, bled for – until the air feels thin enough to breathe again. The mansion is silent, obedient, perfectly ordered. It always is.That night, it feels like a mausoleum.I reach my study and shut the door behind me, pressing my palm flat against the wood for one long second. Grounding. Control. The things that keep me from becoming something worse than I already am.I showed her the truth.Not all of it – never all of it – but enough.Enough to make her understand that the man she left behind didn’t survive her death intact.The glass on my desk is still half-full. I didn’t touch it before. I do now. The burn down my throat is familiar, useless. It doesn’t erase the image of her face when she understood.Not fear, or disgust. Not guilt.That was the point.And still – it didn’t feel like victory.I see it again when I close my

*Aria’s POV*The next day, I woke up back in my room. I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I got up and stretched, heading to the bathroom to take a shower, in hope that the tiredness would ease a bit.I took a shower quickly, brushed my teeth and went back out, putting a simple jeans and a sweater on.But danger was always there. It has a way of announcing itself – not with noise, but with pressure. With the subtle tightening of the air, the way footsteps multiply outside my wing without explanation.The house feels… alert.I’m standing by the window when the first message comes. A phone I haven’t used in years, one Lucian allowed me to keep only because it’s useless to anyone but ghosts, lights up on the bedside table.Unknown number: Two words.‘They know.’My fingers go cold.I don’t need to ask who ‘they’ are.My family has always known how to find what belongs to them.I close the curtains slowly and turn just as the door opens. Lucian steps in without ceremony, his presenc

*Lucian’s POV*The men were barely breathing by the time I was done with them.One was unconscious, the second was sobbing, and the third – barely recognizable – was still awake.I crouched in front of him, immaculate despite the blood soaking the concrete floor. I removed my gloves slowly, deliberately, as if this were a meeting and not a slaughter. My fav time of the day.“Tell them.” I said quietly. “Exactly what I say.”The man shook, teeth chattering. “Y-yes. Please –”I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes.One of my enforcers placed a phone in the man’s trembling hands. Pathetic.The video started recording, as I stepped into the frame.I didn’t raise my voice. I never needed to.“This message is for the Hale family.”The man whimpered behind the camera.“You sent assassins after a woman under my protection.” I continued evenly. “After a child who carries the Drakov blood.”I leaned down, resting my forearms on my knees, gaze unwavering,“That was your first mistake.”I gestured

2 days went by. I didn’t see Lucian, and Nikolai told me that he had business to take care of outside the mansion.I hated that a part of me missed him. That a part of me still loved him. I feel like I’m betraying myself.Lucian’s rules were off when he left, I could see Adrian whenever I liked, we could go have walks in the garden. Even though under watchful eyes all the time.I woke up in the morning, with a kind of quiet that comes after the storm has burned everything it could reach and left only the things strong enough to stand.I sat up slowly, grounding myself in the present. In the room. In the fact that I am still here. That Adrian is still here. That no matter how suffocating this house becomes, I have survived worse.I smoothed my clothes, and lifted my chin.The mansion felt different that morning. It wasn’t tense, but it was as if preparing for something.People moved with purpose, voices lowered, footsteps sharper. Something was coming – I could feel it in the way the a

*Lucian's POV*Power isn't loud. It doesn't shout orders or demand attention. It settles. It waits. It lets everyone in the room feel it pressing against their spine until obedience becomes instinct. That's how I rule. I stood at the head of the long table in the lower room, hands resting flat against polished stone. The room is carved deep beneath the estate – soundproofed. Shielded, designed for decisions that never see daylight.Carlo stood to my right.He was always to my right.He’s impeccably dressed, tablet in hand, expression neutral in the way only men who know everything can afford to be. Carlo isn’t muscle. He isn’t blood. He’s precision. Logistics. The man who knows which lever to pull and which throat will bleed when it’s pulled wrong.“Three shipments rerouted.” He said calmly. “Two quietly. One loudly, as you requested.”I nodded once.“Good. Let them understand the difference.”Across the table, my cousin Rylan leans back in his chair, boots crossed at the ankles li