Chapter 20%
A silence stretched between us. Then footsteps–loud, urgent–stormed through the cathedral doors.X
Salvatore
He didn’t even ask. One look, and he knew. Reagan’s blood on the floor. My blade still warm.
He grabbed Reagan by the collar yanked him back so fast the bastard nearly flew across the pews. “You touch her again, Salvatore growled, “I’ll make sure no one ever finds what’s left of you.”
Reagan spit blood, but even that looked pathetic now!
“You think she’s yours?” he laughed, manic. “You think those kids are yours?”
Salvatore didn’t answer. He just looked at me.
I nodded once. Reagan screamed as Salvatore’s fist hit his jaw.
He collapsed.
And this time, it was him bleeding on the floor.
Not me
I looked down at Reagan–tom, cracked, bleeding in a church like some defiled relic of the man he used to pretend to be.ll “You said you’d bum the world?” I said softly.
I crouched beside him, close enough for him to smell the perfume I wore the day I walked out of his life.!
Good luck lighting a match with broken hands. “Z
I stood. Tumed. And walked out!
–
And the final ple
plece dropped like poison in a glass of wine. Slow. Silent. Deadly.
It was Salvatore who handed me the drive–unmarked, unlabeled, still warm from the decrypt server.
“This is it” he said, voice flat!
I already knew it was bad.
I didn’t expect it to be this.
The screen lit up. Grainy footage, Hidden camera angle. Two people sitting in a private medical office–one too familiar, the other a demon I thought had already done her worst.
John De Santis.
Dulcie fucking Mistress.
They sat across from each other, whispering like devils trading sins. I watched as they passed files between them. Medical documents. Prescription logs. Vials. Forged signatures.
Then the bomb.E
Dulcie leaned in, her voice crisp and cleark
“She’ll never question it. We’ll say it was congenital. Twins die all the time. So do grieving mothers.”
John laughed. “And when she breaks, I control the estate”
I felt my heart step.
“And if she doesn’t break??
“We poison her too Slowly. Subtly. This is chess, not war.”
He toasted her with a glass of wine.
I stared at the screen long after it stopped.
My hands were still.I
My rage wasn’t
That night, I packed a bag
Salvatore didn’t ask He just handed me the new ID: Moore Black. French, elusive, too beautiful to question. My old alias reborn with a sharper edge
“You sure you want to do this yourself?” he asked.
“I was bom to do this
Dulcie was hiding on a private island off the Amalfi coast. Lavish. Fortified. Drenched in delusion.
She thought she was safe.
She forgot who taught her the game.K
Disguised as Moore, I arrived by private boat–flashing a forged invitation, a fake accent, and enough legs to distract her idiot guards. Two drinks in, they were laughing and drooling
Five minutes later, they were unconscious
1 slipped past the courtyard Marble floors, gold tom, oil paintings of saints that couldn’t save anyone 2
12:43 PM c
DUIGIE WUS in the sunroom
wrapped in SIR. man cured fire She SUB D Control of anything.
She locked up and smiled. “Who let-”
She stopped. Our eyes locked. Her blood drained like wine spilled from a shattered glass.
“Alyssa?” she whispered.
I pulled the mask off slowly, like a queen revealing her face after war.
“No, darling.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Danica-”
“Don’t say my name. You don’t deserve it“}
She ran. I let her.”
led.8
She reached the hall, Slipped. Crawled
I pressed my heel to her back and leaned down close.
“You killed my mother. You murdered my twin sister. You watched me burn from your throne of lies.”
“I didn’t-
I slammed her face against the tile.
“Don’t lie to a woman who invented your script.
She sobbed, but it was weak. Not regret–just fear. I cuffed her wrists. Pulled her up. Dragged her across the hall like the filthy secret she
was.
Downstairs, Salvatore was waiting by the private helipad.
“She talk?” he asked.
“Let’s make her.”
The bunker was beneath a decommissioned psychiatric hospital on the mainland. Symbolic. Twisted. Perfect.!!
We’d rebuilt the lower levels to resemble a high–tech asylum. Soundproof. Isolated. No windows. One reinforced door. Cameras in
every
corner.
I stood in front of her cell, watching as she shook in the straight–backed chair, cuffed, chained, drugged just enough to stay awake but not fight.E
“You want to know what irony tastes like, Dulcie?” I asked, stepping inside. “It tastes like your own medicine.”
She looked up, trembling. “What are you going to do?“?
I clicked the remote.
The video played. Her voice. John’s laughter. The murder plot
Her face crumpled. Her sobs tumed primal.)
“I didn’t mean to kill her!” she shrinked. “It was John He–he made mel”
“You were laughing.”%
“I was scared!“}
“You were smiling.”
She collapsed to the floor, screaming. Begging. Praying to gods that abandoned her long ago.
I crouched down beside her.
“You wanted to erase me,” I said softly. “Instead, I became your god.”
She whimpered.
“Look at me,” I hissed.
She looked. And I smiled !
“Town your fear. Your fate. Your freedom. You don’t get to die a pretty little death, Dulcle. That’d be mercy.”
I stood and pressed the button. The wall shifted. Her new cell revealed–a padded hell, lights flickering, the walls a slow suffocation. “You’ll rot beneath the world you tried to rule.“||
“Danica, please=”
“Don’t call me that Danica died in that fire. What rose from it?”
I tilted my head and let her see the monster she created!
“She doesn’t kneel. She reigns:”||
Salvatore appeared at the door. “Everything’s ready. Feed on schedule. Medical team on retainer. No exits.”
I nodded once “Let her scream.”
The cell door locked behind me!
As we walked out, I looked at Salvatore and said calmly.X
“One down”
He didn’t ask what came next
