Chapter 30
After Lara died, me and Jeremiah tracked Elodie through every shadow she left behind. The bitch wasn’t subtle–she’d been feeding off the black market like a starving rat, making deals with anyone dumb enough to call her queen. But greed always leaves a trail, and I made damn sure she knew what it felt like to be hunted.
We tortured one of her new guards for the location. I tied him to the chair with barbed wire, not rope. I didn’t want him to be comfortable. His skin was already bleeding, little rivers dripping down his arms, soaking into the floor.
He whimpered when I cracked my knuckles.
.
“Please,” he croaked, head hung low. “I’m just a soldier. I follow orders.”
I tilted my head and crouched so I could look him in the eye. “And I’m just a ghost, remember? But here I am, breathing. So tell me, soldier… where’s your queen?”
“She’ll kill me if I talk,” he whispered.
I pulled out the knife Jeremiah gave me. The one with Peter’s last words etched on the handle. pressed the blade against the side of his cheek and smiled when he flinched.
“I’m not asking you to talk,” I said slowly. “I’m asking you to bleed in the right direction.”
“Fuck–fuck, okay,” he cried, jerking back. “She’s in the Ravello bunker. The one with the re gates. But it’s wired. Motion traps. You go in wrong, you die.”
I sliced a thin line across his throat. Not deep enough to kill, just enough to make him gasp. “You think I haven’t died before?”
“You don’t understand,” he said, eyes wide with panic. “She’s losing it. Talks to herself. Says sh sees you in her mirror. Says you’re haunting her.”
stepped back and let his blood drip onto the cold cement.
“She’s not wrong,” I said. “Tell her I’m coming. And I’m not in her mirror anymore. I’m the storm outside her fucking door.”
“Please,” he sobbed. “I was just following orders. I got a sister, man. A sick one. Elodie said she’c pay for her meds.”
I paused and looked at him…really looked at him.
Then I leaned in, so close he could smell the death on my breath. “And what about Peter? He was my brother. He raised me. He held me when the world turned its back. You helped kill him. So cry me a river, soldier. And when you get to hell–don’t forget to tell them who sent you.”
Then I drove the knife through his stomach and left it there.
He didn’t scream.
He just gurgled and slumped forward.
And I walked out with blood on my boots and peace in my chest.
The moment we reached the bunker, it smelled like desperation. Rotten perfume and explosives. Jeremiah went left, I went right. There were tripwires and motion sensors, but I moved through
4:56 pm
them with the same silence I used when I buried the old version of me.
We breached fast.
She tried to run, holding some deadman switch in her trembling hand, screaming that she would blow the place up. I didn’t even blink. I grabbed a pipe from the broken scaffolding, and slammed it into her wrist until the bones cracked. The switch fell.
She screamed.
I beat her until her perfect face looked more swollen than sculpted. She cried and choked and still had the audacity to spit at me when I pulled her by the hair.
‘Elodie,” I said, voice calm, “look at what’s left of you.”
She coughed out blood and whimpered, “Please… please, I was just jealous. I was nothing next to you. You were always the one he looked at like the world ended and began in your eyes.”
tilted my head. “So you tried to become me?”
‘I just wanted to be chosen,” she sobbed and crawled toward me, grabbing my ankles, holding onto my legs like I was her last breath. “Danica… Aria… whoever the fuck you are now–please ‘m sorry. Don’t kill me. I’ll disappear. I’ll vanish.”
‘You should’ve stayed gone when I buried the version of you that mattered,” I said, pushing he off with my boot. “You ruined men, and dragged corpses into graves they didn’t deserve.”
Tears were streaking her bloody face as she tried again, crawling like a dog. “I didn’t know how to compete with you.”
crouched down slowly, right in front of her, and grabbed her jaw so she couldn’t look away. “You were never competing. You were never even in my league.”
She whimpered. “Please. Death is mercy. I’ll take it.”
leaned close. “Prison is slower than death. And I want you to rot with the rats you called allies.”
Jeremiah walked in then, holding the cuffs. His eyes met mine.
‘Ready?” he asked.
nodded and smiled down at her.
‘Long live the fake queen,” I whispered.
She screamed as he dragged her out.
And I stood still for a moment, breathing in the scent of gasoline and blood, letting the silence
remind me of what I took back.
My name.
My vengeance.
And my goddamn crown.
Elodie’s sentence to prison wasn’t just a punishment. It was a performance. The mafia council made sure of that.
They didn’t give her a cell. They gave her a cage. One with no windows and no silence. One where the lights never turned off and the pain never ran out. Where the prisoners were paid in
food for every scream they pulled from her throat. Where death wasn’t mercy–it was a prize she was never allowed to reach.
They dragged her in kicking and screaming, red silk gown torn and muddy, face already bruised. She looked less like a queen and more like a corpse with a heartbeat.
I didn’t flinch.
I walked past her slowly, heels clicking on the wet concrete, blood still under my nails, and vengeance still ringing in my bones.
“Danica!” she shrieked, clinging to the bars, eyes wide with panic. “Danica, please! Tell them it was a mistake! I was sick–I didn’t mean it! I loved him! I loved you!”
I stopped, turned slightly, and let my gaze cut through her.
