The text popped up while I was icing my cheekbone–still a little swollen from Zacharias pushing me off him like I was some street whore.
> Zacharias is on the move. Armed.
I stared at the words, heart jackhammering against my ribs, ice sliding off my skin and crashing to the floor.
“No, no, no-” I scrambled for my phone, fingers shaking but not from fear. Rage.
I dialed Winston. He picked up on the second ring, voice already thick with stress. “If this is about your sister again-”
“She’s not my sister,” I snapped. “She’s a parasite with lipstick. Now listen- Zacharias is coming. He knows. He’s armed.”
Winston went quiet. Then, low and bitter: “You promised he’d stay busy licking your boots.”
“Do you think I control him? He’s a beast when it comes to her.” I swallowed hard. “You have to move her. Now.”
“Don’t give me orders, Alina,” he barked. “I’ve been the only one keeping this from turning into a bloodbath. I cleaned up your mess at the gala. hid you after your staged little sob–fest. I’m the only one who’s ever protected you.”
“Then protect me now,” I hissed. “Do it for us. For what we said we’d build.”
He was silent again, breathing hard. Like a dog cornered, foaming at the mouth.
I leaned into the moment. My voice went soft, almost sweet. “Take Scarlett. Anywhere. I don’t care where. Just don’t let him find her. You know what he’ll do if he sees her again–he’ll never look at me.”
Winston exhaled like he’d swallowed glass. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I tell the world everything. About the villa. The car crash. I know it was you.”
Click. I hung up first.
The silence after was loud:
I stood in the center of my hotel suite, staring at my reflection in the floor–to–ceiling mirror. My silk robe clung to me like a desperate excuse.
Chanter
林念77%
And then I laughed. Soft at first. Then louder.
“It’s fine,” I told myself, tossing the phone across the room. “It’s fine. He’ll come back. He always does.”
He had to. Scarlett may have been his obsession.
But I was the one who knew how to play him.
And I wasn’t finished yet.
***
SCARLETT’S POV
The shrink was full of tranquilizing bullshit and a greasy smile.
He sat across from me like he thought I’d fold under a few clinical questions and a soft voice. “Scarlett, we just want to help you get better. You’ve been under stress, yes? Delusions about being kidnapped… paranoia about your sister—”
“My sister is a disease,” I said plainly, eyeing the pen he’d been nervously tapping. “And you’re just another bacteria feeding–off her infection.”
He blinked at that.
leaned forward with my best broken–girl smile. “Wanna know what’s funny, doc?”
I drove it into his leg, right ext
Before he could answer, I
He shrieked, slamming back he blade I’d hidden beneath my thigh and
F–fuck-!”
kneecap.
into the wall, arms flailing. “Jesus–ah!
I stood calmly, took his ID badge, his keycard, and pressed a finger to his lips. “Quiet now, You’re supposed to be observing, remember?”
I walked out before the blood could soak through the expensive carpet.
The hall was quiet. Too quiet. I moved fast, barefoot, dressed in a silk robe they’d given me like I was some rehab wife–tired and docile.
I wasn’t.
I reached the garage. The guards outside had taken a break–Winston thought control meant indulgence. He always underestimated the taste of poison behind a woman’s smile.
I slid behind the wheel of a matte black SUV, Engine turned over like it knew who I was.
12:30 Mon, 19 May G M
But just as I made it down the curved driveway-
Bang.
77%
The car jolted as Winston’s Maybach rammed into the rear, spinning me into a post. My skull cracked the window.
Before I could breathe, the passenger door was yanked open, and Winston- sweaty, crazed, beautiful in that dangerous way–was in the seat beside me.
“You-” I gasped, blood dripping into my mouth.
“You never learn,” he said with a smirk, grabbing the wheel like he owned my body, my air, my everything. “You think you can just leave me? After everything?”
His voice was soft. Too soft.
“You’re mine from the start, Scarlett. From that first night at that cursed dinner, I saw it. Saw you. Not the girl on Zacharias‘ arm. The woman behind the eyes. I waited. I watched. And now…” He grabbed my chin hard. “Now we’re going to leave this godforsaken country. You and me. Just like it should’ve been. Just like it was meant to be.”
“You’re delusional,” I croaked. “You want a corpse, Winston? Because I will die before I love you.”
He leaned in closer, eyes bloodshot, breath thick with heat. “Then you’ll die with my name in your mouth.”
He touched my hair, too gently. “Sleep well, Scarlett.”
Something pricked my arm. I hadn’t even seen the needle until it was already
- in.
The world tipped sideways. My limbs turned to syrup.
But my mind–my mind stayed sharp even as the dark swallowed me.
Because when I wake up, Winston Salerno will learn what it truly means to steal from a queen.
And I will not be merciful.
ZACHARIAS POV
The estate was already a ghost by the time I got there.
Marble floors still gleamed, the kind that screams old money and clean crimes, but my boots crushed through blood tracked in streaks–Scarlett’s blood.
er 23
3/4
BA3
12:30 Mon, 19 May GM.
N 77%
I knew it before they told me. I could smell her in the room. She bleeds like fire. -hot, stubborn, refusing to die.
My knuckles collided with the nearest stone column. Pain split through my hand, sharp and honest. Better than screaming. Better than breaking one of my men in half for being too slow.
“They’re running,” I muttered. “Winston’s trying to ghost her out of the country.”
One of my soldiers came up beside me, holding a flash drive like it was a cursed artifact. “We pulled the security feed. Last hour’s footage was wiped, but there’s a backup. She was dragged out–black SUV, partial plates.”
I took the drive and watched the screen on his tablet. There.
There she was.
Scarlett–my wife, my venom, my storm–bloodied but still fighting even as two guards pinned her arms.
Winston walked behind her like a goddamn phantom. And she still turned her head–spat something at him. I couldn’t hear it, but I knew her mouth. That was defiance. That was war.
I looked at my men. “Get me the rest of that plate. I want satellites. Drones. Underworld whispers. I don’t care if you have to burn every checkpoint from here to Palermo–track that car
No one moved fast enough.
“I said now!” I barked. “And while you’re at it–tell every broker, smuggler, and sewer rat who still owes me blood: I’m hunting tonight. Personally. Every rat in this city better feel the heat of my name on their backs.”
