Ch: 100 What I Signed Up For.

Lucien's POVI told the men to hang back at the tree line, out of sight, while I walked the last stretch alone."That's not smart," one of them muttered."It's exactly smart. He knows all of you. He doesn't expect me out here at this hour." I checked my earpiece once more. "The second I raise my hand, you move. Not before."Rafael was leaning against the gatehouse when I reached him, phone in his pocket, coffee in his hand like it was any other quiet shift."Lucien." He straightened, surprised. "Everything okay up at the house?""Marcus made it through surgery.""Thank God." He said it fast, easy, no hesitation at all, and for one unsettling second I almost doubted Priya's information completely. Men like him were good at this. That was exactly the problem."You offered to cover the overnight shift," I said."Figured you'd need the extra hands, with Dario gone and Marcus down.""That's considerate of you.""Just doing my job."I studied him a moment, searching for the crack, the tell,

Last Updated : 2026-09-25

Ch: 101 Rafael Talks.

Nerissa's POVRousseau called before eight, voice sharp with the kind of energy that only came from actual progress."Rafael's talking."I sat up in bed, Lucien stirring beside me. "Already?""Fast, once his lawyer explained what conspiracy to commit attempted murder actually carries as a sentence. He's not interested in taking the fall for another man." Rousseau's voice had an edge of satisfaction he wasn't bothering to hide. "He wants a deal. Full cooperation in exchange for the lightest possible charge.""What's he offering.""Everything. Names, accounts, and something else you're going to want to hear in person."Lucien and I were dressed and in the car within twenty minutes, Rousseau's office already busy when we arrived, a prosecutor I didn't recognize going over paperwork at the far end of the table."Tell her what you told me," Rousseau said, once we'd sat down.The prosecutor slid a page across the table. "Rafael gave us an address. A property outside the city Rousset's been

Last Updated : 2026-09-26

Ch: 102 Think Like Him.

Nerissa's POVWe were still in the car, halfway home from the hospital, when my phone rang. Unknown number again.I almost didn't answer. "Ms. Vane." That same calm, cultured voice, unhurried as ever. "You really thought I wouldn't find out you know Rafael's been working for me too? That you've got him sitting in a cell right now?"My stomach dropped. I put it on speaker without a word, and Lucien's hands tightened on the wheel."You really are underestimating me," Rousset continued, "and I don't like it.""How do you already know that.""That's not a question you get an answer to today." A pause, almost thoughtful. "For what it's worth, Rafael and Dario were never anything more than a way to keep tabs on you. Convenient, replaceable. I'd hoped you'd understand that losing them wouldn't actually cost me anything meaningful.""Then why call.""Because I can see you're eager for a war, Ms. Vane." His voice didn't change at all, which somehow made it worse. "War you shall get."The line

Last Updated : 2026-09-26

Ch: 103 Handle It Yourself.

Nerissa's POVI kept circling back to the same question all night. How did Rousset know about Rafael within twelve hours, when the arrest hadn't even made it into a single public filing yet.There was only one answer that actually made sense, and I hated it.Someone inside the system was talking to him.I didn't say that part out loud to Rousseau. I wasn't ready to accuse a judge or a prosecutor's office of being compromised without more than a feeling to back it up. But it changed something in me overnight, some old faith in the process finally cracking all the way through.If the law could be reached that easily, I needed something the law couldn't touch.I arranged the visit through channels that didn't run through anyone official, and by mid-morning I was sitting across from Seraphina.She looked thinner than I remembered. Still composed, still careful about how she held herself, but something underneath it had changed since the last time either of us had been in a room together.

Last Updated : 2026-10-01

Ch: 104 Not a Person at All.

Nerissa's POVWe searched for two straight days and found nothing.Priya ran the name through every database she had access to, legal and otherwise. Rousseau had his own people checking court records, property filings, old immigration lists going back decades. Lucien called contacts I didn't ask too many questions about.Nobody named Shantelity existed. Not in this country, not in any country Priya could find a record for."Maybe it's a nickname," I said, sitting in Rousseau's office late on the second night, the word written on a whiteboard in front of us like it might rearrange itself into something useful if we stared at it long enough. "Maybe it's spelled differently somewhere.""I've tried eleven variations." Priya didn't look up from her screen, exhaustion flattening her voice. "Nothing. No birth record, no alias.""Then why would she give it to me.""Maybe she's lying," Lucien said. "Maybe it's nothing. A distraction to make us waste time while whatever she's actually protectin

Last Updated : 2026-10-03

Ch: 105 Everything She Kept.

Nerissa's POVSurveillance cleared the warehouse after three days. No movement, no watchers, nothing but a stretch of dusty asphalt and a building nobody seemed to remember existed.We went in just after midnight, a small team, Lucien beside me, Priya trailing with a laptop bag slung across her chest like she expected to need it the second we got inside.The unit sat at the far end of a long row, nothing marking it apart from the others except a padlock that looked newer than everything around it.Lucien knelt and spun the dial. 2-2-9-7.It clicked open on the first try.The door rolled up slow, dust falling in the beam of our flashlights, and for a second none of us moved, all of us just staring into a space that looked nothing like what I'd expected.Boxes. Dozens of them, labeled in neat handwriting, stacked floor to ceiling along every wall. Filing cabinets lined one side, a single desk pushed into the corner with a lamp still plugged into a generator humming quiet in the back."S