Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 61 - Chapitre 70

(Aria's Point Of View)The steel doors groaned shut behind us the second we slipped inside, sealing out the gunfire and the whine of descending rotors. The air inside smelled of ozone, old concrete, and something sharper, like burnt copper. Emergency strips glowed faint red along the floor, casting long shadows that stretched and warped as we moved fast down the corridor. Dante kept his gun raised, sweeping the corners, his grip steady even as distant explosions rattled the walls. I kept Elena’s knife in my hand, blade pointed down, my mind running through every possibility Rook’s final words had left hanging in the air.Elara Valenti. My father’s secret weapon. The sister everyone thought burned alive in a villa fire twelve years ago. I remembered her only as a shadow in doorways, a woman who never spoke, who watched everything with eyes exactly like mine. Lorenzo had kept her hidden not out of kindness, but out of calculation. He raised her to be the thing he could never be. Untrace

(Aria's Point Of View)The locket felt heavier than it ever had, cold and solid in my palm, as if it had been waiting all this time to be exactly where it was right now. I stepped toward the slot carved into the rock, and Dante caught my arm, his grip firm. The ground shook again, dust pouring from the ceiling in thick gray sheets, and somewhere behind us the tunnel groaned like it was breaking apart."If this is a trap," he said, his voice barely audible over the roar, "if opening this door brings more danger down on us, we fight our way back. We don't stay trapped in another room.""It's the only choice we have," I told him. "Allegra said this bunker was built before the world knew Nikolai's name. If there is an exit, it's behind that door. And if there isn't, then at least we die standing somewhere Elara can't reach us."I pressed the locket into the slot. It fit perfectly, every curve matching the shape carved into the stone, as if it had been made for this exact moment. I turned

(Aria's Point Of View)The sun rose slow and golden over the gardens, but inside that study, the air felt heavy and cold, as if the weight of decades still lingered between us. My mother stood with her hands folded before her, watching me, waiting for me to speak first. I could see the faint lines around her eyes, the weariness etched deep into her face, and I realized then that she had not been hiding all these years out of choice. She had been standing guard. Watching. Waiting for the moment she could finally step forward without putting me in greater danger."You should have come for me," I said, my voice steady even though my chest ached. "You should have told me who I was.""I could not," she said, her voice soft but unyielding. "Lorenzo would have hunted us both to the ends of the earth. He told everyone you were his daughter. He built his empire on that lie. If I had taken you back, he would have burned the world down to get you. And Elara..." She paused, glancing toward the fi

(Aria's Point Of View)The message had been sent less than ten minutes when the power died.One moment the hallway lights glowed warm and steady, the next they vanished into absolute darkness. Not a flicker, not a warning, just total silence swallowing the house whole. I stood still in the dark, my hand finding the wall instantly, my other hand closing around the gun at my hip. Dante appeared beside me, his presence a quiet weight in the blackness, and I felt his hand brush my arm once before he spoke, his voice barely a breath."Generators are offline too," he said. "He didn't just cut the power. He fried the entire system from the outside."That was the first twist. He hadn't sent an army to storm the gates. He hadn't blown the doors open or shouted threats from the drive. He had simply reached out with one hand and silenced the house. He knew exactly how we were protected. He knew every line, every code, every defense Dante had built. Which meant he had been here before. He had wal

(Aria's Point Of View)The road stretched empty and pale beneath the rising sun, three of us sitting in silence inside the car as we pulled away from the cliffs. Dante drove, his hands steady on the wheel, but his eyes kept drifting to the rearview mirror, watching the lodge vanish behind us. Elara sat in the back seat, staring out at the ocean, her face turned away from me, her hands folded loosely in her lap. She had not spoken a single word since we walked out of that stone building. I did not press her. There were some things words could not fix, and some wounds that needed silence before they could ever begin to heal.We reached the safe house three hours later, a small cottage hidden deep in the hills, far from any main road, far from anyone who knew our names. Viktor stood waiting on the porch, my mother beside him, and when they saw us step out of the car, both of them froze. My mother’s eyes went straight to Elara, standing pale and quiet beside me, and for a long moment no o