Semua Bab BLOOD & JUSTICE: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Thirty thousand feet. The clouds below had no allegiance—not to the Rostova clan, not to the Salvatore dynasty, and not to the vengeance Elena had nursed for fifteen years like a wound she kept deliberately open.The engines droned. The most honest sound on this aircraft, because not one person aboard dared remove their mask.In the seat ahead, Dante worked. Fingers moving across the keyboard. Spine straight. Every motion tactical, without a wasted inch. The visit to the Rostova compound had gone exactly as planned—the handshakes, the smiles just wide enough to counterfeit sincerity. Dante had navigated Konstantin’s ego through a strait riddled with mines, and Elena had stayed faithfully at his side.She’d played the role of wife with an accuracy that was beginning to bite like a trap.Because at this altitude, the one variable she’d failed to control was the current of her own thoughts.✘   ✘   ✘Feli

Quarter past eleven. Elena slipped through the kitchen corridor like a held breath.Mrs. Agnes Johnson had her back turned, swaying in her private rhythm, wiping the counter in slow arcs. But Agnes didn’t need eyes.She turned before Elena could speak.“Twenty-one years I’ve served this kitchen,” Agnes said. Her gaze traveled Elena head to toe. “Not once has a guest come in here past ten with a face like that.”“A face like what?”“The face of someone who’s already decided, but still needs something to hide behind.”Elena pressed her palm flat against the cold marble of the kitchen counter. “I need to bring food to the west sublevel.”Agnes’s hand went still. A thick silence filled the space between them.“If Mr. Dante were to find out—”“All explanations are mine to give,” Elena cut in. “That responsib

Marcus stepped out of the container truck.Lorenzo’s guards had every barrel trained on him. No gaps. No angles. No way out.He’d anticipated everything.Marcus dropped his weapon first. Then raised both hands—fingers spread against the black sky. Fifty-five years old. Thirty years spent believing justice always found a way to breathe.The universe didn’t care tonight.He surrendered like a fighter who knew when to stop delaying defeat.Lorenzo watched. His predator’s eyes gave nothing away.Then Elena appeared behind Marcus.Marcus turned. The look on his face was almost painful. “Elena, get back—”“No.”One word. It landed like a key snapping in a lock.Elena walked past Marcus. She cut through the columns of headlight from the black cars hemming them in. Stopped at the precise boundary between blinding light and absolute dark.He

Eight o’clock at the Salvatore estate had a rhythm. Leather soles on marble. Espresso steam. Guards with faces carved clean of anything human.This morning, that rhythm was wrong.The main hall had never been built to hold shame. The Carrara columns, the oil paintings, every inch of it screamed we do not lose. But the light pouring through the tall windows today made all that opulence look like a plea.Victor stood at the head of the formation like a conductor who’d just realized his orchestra was playing a score of ruin. Before him, his guards bore the visible remains of defeat—bandages at their temples, arms in slings, deep bruising around their eyes.Elena entered alongside Dante. Her fingers moved to her jacket cuff on instinct, checking the bandage beneath. A remnant of her deal with Lorenzo in the early hours. Proof she was still breathing in a house of wolves.Lorenzo already stood along the left wall, a coffee cup in hand. Untouche

East River Terrace · The Charity GalaThe gala sprawled across an open terrace like a performance with no audience. White tents. Iron frames. A children’s choir swallowed whole by the murmur of the powerful.Feliks Rostova had chosen the most tactically useless position he could find—a dim corner near the bar, half-hidden under a leaning canopy. He looked like a bored man watching no one.He was mapping everything.Dante stood at the center of it all. Not because of the suit. Not the height. It was the way the man owned space—shoulders squared, chin lifted exactly far enough—as if broadcasting one silent frequency: I can ignore you, and we both know it. Feliks had recognized that particular gravity since they were eleven years old, fighting over the shadiest patch of grass along Lake Moretti.Three steps from Dante—his target.Dark red hair. Waves catching the last of th