Chapter 25
I didn’t move. I let him speak. Because I needed him to drown in every word the way I drowned i
silence for years.
“I’ll do anything. You want my blood? Take it. You want my legacy? Burn it. Just… Geneva, tell m there’s a way to fix this. Tell me I’m not too late. Please… please,” he said, eyes now looking u wet and red and broken. “I’ll kneel for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes. I’ll carry the weigh you’ve held all this time. I’ll rebuild every piece I shattered.”
The guards moved. Michael tensed. Niko stepped forward.
But I raised my hand. I looked down at Niccolo Salvacion, once my king, now nothing but a mai crushed beneath the truth. His head still pressed to my leg. His hands trembling around the velvet hem of my dress.
And finally, I spoke.
“You had your chance.”
My voice wasn’t raised, but it cut through the winter air like a blade honed on grief.
“You buried your son and my name in the same grave. You let me mourn alone. You let him di with doubt in his chest because you believed a liar over the boy who called you papa.”
He shook his head, tears falling freely now.
“I didn’t know-”
“You didn’t ask,” I interrupted. “You didn’t look. You didn’t care until the world turned its back o you.”
I stepped away, his arms falling to the ground like chains being broken.
“I’m not here to dig you out, Niccolo.”
He reached out again, crawling, sobbing now. “Please… Geneva, just a minute. Let me say goodbye to him. Let me look at you a little longer. Just one more second-”
But I turned and walked.
The crowd parted for me like I was fire. And I was. I burned everything behind me.
And then, from the side of the ballroom stairs, a calm male voice broke through the silence.
“Well, damn.”
I turned sharply.
The man stepped out from the shadows, holding a glass of bourbon and wearing a look I hadn’t seen in years. Confident. Warm. Electric.
“I’ve watched you tear the entire empire down in heels,” he said with a smile. “You were fire back then. But now? You’re a goddamn legend, Geneva.”
I stared for a moment, my chest tightening in confusion. My mind flipped through years I had long buried.
‘Nathaniel?”
He grinned wider. “You still remember.”
12:59 pm pppp.
I didn’t speak.
0
Because I wasn’t just stunned by the fact that it was Nathaniel–the boy I once loved in secret- but by how much he’d changed.
Older now. Stronger. And in that moment, under the moonlight, with Niccolo Salvacion sobbing behind me and Vienna watching… Nathaniel was the first face I saw that didn’t carry blood or
regret.
Just a past I hadn’t ruined yet.
Nathaniel tilted his head, his arm still offered to me, like none of the chaos behind us mattered.
“Wanna come with me?”
My heart had no reason to trust anyone anymore–but my feet were already moving before my head could make a decision.
I took his arm. “Sure.”
His brow lifted slightly, amused but gentle. “Where to?”
I stared ahead, refusing to glance back at the man still kneeling behind me on the gala stairs, drunk on regret and years too late. I exhaled slowly and said, “Anywhere but here.”
And just like that, we walked away.
I heard it, his voice breaking like a snapped spine, loud enough to freeze the air.
“She’s mine!”
But I didn’t flinch. I didn’t turn. I didn’t let his voice anchor me this time.
Michael didn’t even blink. He glanced over his shoulder and said calmly, like a final nail in a long–forgotten coffin, “She was never yours.”
Niko didn’t say anything. He just smirked, cruel and satisfied, and then followed behind us like the shadow of justice.
We left Niccolo Salvacion on the floor in front of the world he used to own, weeping into marble and loss.
Nathaniel didn’t speak much as he drove, which I appreciated. Some men don’t understand silence. He did.
An hour passed before the car stopped on the edge of the cliffs outside Vienna. The moon was silver above the water, and the ocean stretched endless and dark, its waves crashing like quiet applause.
I stepped out of the car and stood at the edge, arms folded.
It was the first time I had seen the sea in years.
The last time… I had begged Niccolo for a beach trip. Just a weekend. Just the four of us. I even bought matching swimsuits for the twins. He didn’t even read the message. That same weekend, I saw paparazzi photos of him and Margot on some private beach in Santorini, drinking white wine while my children asked if Papa forgot their birthdays.
I slipped my heels off and stepped into the sand barefoot. Cold, real, grounding.
Chapter 25
1:00 pm p ppp.
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Nathaniel leaned against the car, arms crossed, watching me like someone who didn’t want to
interrupt a woman meeting herself again.
After a while, he spoke softly. “When’s the last time you let yourself breathe?”
The water hit my toes, and I closed my eyes for a second.
“Before my children became bargaining chips,” I whispered. “Before my son died thinking I abandoned him. Before my name was turned into a punchline.”
He nodded, not pushing, not rescuing.
“You look different,” he said.
I turned my face toward him. “Better or worse?”
He studied me for a moment. “Like you stopped pretending to be anyone’s shadow.”
I smiled faintly. “Because I did.”
He stepped forward, slower now, giving me space. “You know… you never needed a crown, Geneva. You always had one. You just didn’t know it yet.”
The wind picked up and I let my hair down, letting the cold air tangle it across my shoulders.
“I didn’t come back to wear a crown,” I said, still facing the waves. “I came back to bury ghosts. And take back everything that was mine.”
Nathaniel didn’t respond right away. And when he did, his voice was low.
“Then let me walk beside you. Not ahead. Not behind. Just… beside.”
I looked at him really looked. The boy I used to like in school was gone. This man in front of me had seen war, maybe not the same kind I fought, but close enough to know how to carry silence and not run from pain.
‘I don’t know how to be soft anymore,” I admitted. “I don’t think I want to be.”
‘Then don’t,” he said. “Just be real. That’s more dangerous anyway.”
We stood there a little longer, the salt air cutting through everything we weren’t saying.
And for once, I didn’t feel alone. I felt… chosen.
Not claimed.
Chosen.
