Niccolo Salvacion, my past, my ruin, my sin. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the night I left him on his knees. Good. Let the sleeplessness chew through his soul. He deserved worse.
His voice cracked the air between us.
‘Geneva… please. Let me help. Just give me a gun and a name. Let me bleed for her. She’s still my daughter.”
stared at him.
Elle’s face. Eli’s grave. Every goddamn memory I buried came back in a scream of silence.
should’ve said no. I should’ve told him to rot.
But this wasn’t about pride. This wasn’t about pain. This wasn’t about me.
This was about her.
My baby girl. The last of my light.
So I said it. Slowly. Controlled.
‘You can help. Because her safety comes before my hatred for you.”
His eyes almost softened. I stopped him right there.
‘But don’t confuse this for forgiveness, Niccolo. You’re here because your blood runs in her veins not because you earned your place beside me again.”
He nodded.
‘I’m not asking for that,” he said. “Just let me help bring her home.”
I looked him up and down. He wasn’t the king of Salvacion anymore. He was just a broken man standing in a mother’s warpath.
I pointed to the map table. “Then listen closely. You’re going to help me end Margot.”
Because this time… I wasn’t losing another child.
Not even if I had to walk through hell itself.
–
MARGOT’S POV
Huh, Geneva thought I’m a fool with no concrete plan? Hell, bitch, I am the plan. While she’s out there screaming orders like some high–and–mighty heiress, I’m in the goddamn shadows with men who would gut her bloodline for a pack of cigarettes.
The estate smells like mold and oil. Rust eats the walls, and the floor creaks like it’s got bones buried under it. These men… these ex–Montenegro bastards–used to sell their souls for diamonds. Now they sell it to me. Because I pay in something more powerful than cash:
revenge.
One of them spits on the floor, his voice thick with accent. “You sure this kid’s worth that much noise?”
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I stare at him and smile. “She’s worth the entire Montenegro empire crashing down. And I’ll burn
their castle brick by brick if that’s what it takes to make that bitch Geneva crawl.”
Another one, the bald one with the facial scar, chuckles. “If they find out we helped you, Domino will gut us.”
I lean in, placing my fingers on his chest, slow and deliberate. “Then don’t get caught. Or at least die before he catches you.”
A third guy lights a cigarette with bloodied hands and mutters, “What’s your beef with the Montenegros anyway? You’re not even from their blood.”
I roll my eyes and sip cheap vodka straight from the bottle. “I could’ve ruled Salvacion. I could’ve been queen. Until that daughter of a dead empire crawled out of the grave and stole everything I built.”
“You want the mother or the girl dead?” the one near the cellar door asks.
I grin. “Both. But I’ll start with the daughter. Let Geneva scream like I did.”
“Cameras are off,” one of them confirms. “We got one hour window before border surveillance
rotates.”
“Good,” I say. “Prepare the car. When this is done, I want you to scatter the girl’s body across three countries. And leave a note that says ‘You’re next, Geneva.”
Upstairs, the brat finally wakes up. I hear the soft whimper first, then the cough. I go up slowly. high heels clacking against stone. She’s tied to a chair, wrists red and bruised. Her school uniform stained and torn, and yet her eyes they’re not scared.
“My mama doesn’t just chase people,” she says in a calm, clear voice. “She burns them down. And she never misses.”
I grab her face so tight she winces. “You’re just a baby. You’ll die screaming. And this time–I’ll finish your bitch of a mother too.”
She doesn’t blink. She just stares at me like I’m the one who’s pitiful.
God, she’s Geneva’s. It’s in the blood. But blood can be spilled. And I’ll spill it gladly. Because this time, I’m not faking miscarriages. I’m birthing a war.
GENEVA POV
The second I heard the burner phone vibrate, I knew it wasn’t just another threat. I picked it up calmly, my brothers tense around me. The screen flashed no number. But the venom on the
other end? Unmistakable.
“You want her?” Margot’s voice crackled through the signal, low and filthy and rotting with obsession.
“Trade your empire for your child. Your crown, your banks, your men. Everything. Or she dies screaming your name.”
My hand tightened around the phone so hard I felt the plastic crack. The room went quiet. Michael stopped typing. Niko stood completely still.
I stepped into the hallway, alone. I didn’t want them to see what came out of me next.
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voice slice between us.
“You want leverage, Margot? You should’ve taken me instead. Because I’ll give you nothing but your own fucking death.”
She laughed on the other end, low and breathy. “Oh, Geneva. Always so dramatic. Let’s see how much your Montenegro pride is worth when your daughter begs for you while I peel it away.”
I didn’t blink. “Don’t hurt her, Margot. You know I’ll find you. You know I always do. Or you can say goodbye to your parents‘ lives.”
Her tone dropped. “You think you’ve already won! But you haven’t, princess. Not until I say it’s over.”
“Then say it.” I whispered back, my voice shaking only because of what I would do next.
“Say goodbye, Margot. Because the second I find you, I won’t give you the mercy of a bullet.”
She hung up. Coward.
I stood there in the hallway, letting the silence wrap around me.
Michael looked at me and said the signal was scrambled too well. Our Montenegro tech couldn’t break it yet. I didn’t care. I turned to Elle’s bed and stared at it. Her little stuffed fox was stil resting on the pillow, untouched. I pressed my palm to my mouth because I could feel something breaking in my chest, and I refused to cry in front of my brothers.
But one tear slipped out. One. I let it fall.
‘We need someone who doesn’t just find shadows,” I said. “We need someone who was one.”
Niko leaned forward and smirked. “Then we call him.”
My heart stopped for a second. Because I already knew who he meant. Before I could ask, the security door buzzed open and in walked Nathaniel–dressed in all black, sharp gaze, and that same deadly calm I remembered from years ago. My crush. My ghost. Now a man they called the Ghost of Prague.
He stepped forward and gave me that unreadable look, the kind that felt like he was reading my soul.
‘Well,” he said, “we meet again, Geneva.”
