More smoke grenades. Flashbangs that turn the world white and ringing. The photographer, who’s not a photographer, pulls me sideways.
"Stop them.” Father's voice, desperate now. "Twenty million to whoever stops them.”
But his guards are confused, blinded by smoke, unsure who's a real guest and who's trying to take me away. The chaos is perfect, orchestrated, beautiful.
I'm thrown into the van, landing hard on my knees, wedding dress pooling around me like spilled milk. The others pile in after me. The doors slam.
"Go, go, go!" someone shouts.
Tires scream against gravel. The van lurches forward, throwing me against the wall. Through the back windows, my father stands in the smoke, his empire crumbling around him, his face a mask of rage and disbelief.
He's shouting something, but I can't hear it over the engine, the alarms still wailing, my own pulse pounding so hard I think it might escape my chest.
We tear through the estate's gates, past more arriving security, onto the main road, where we blend into traffic like we were never there at all.
I'm in a van with strangers, wearing a destroyed wedding dress, barefoot, with nothing but the earrings my grandmother left me.
And I'm free.
I start laughing. Or crying. Maybe both. The sounds tear out of me, years of suppression breaking like a dam. The woman pulls me into an embrace, and I sob into this stranger's shoulder, my body shaking with the force of everything I've held back.
"You're safe." Her voice is steady, grounding. "You're safe now."
Through my tears, I manage one question: "Paul?"
"On his way to the rendezvous." She confirms. "With the Swan."
The Swan. That cursed ruby that destroyed my grandmother's life and nearly destroyed mine.
But also the key to my freedom.
I close my eyes, feeling the van carry me away from everything I've ever known, toward something terrifying and uncertain and absolutely perfect:
A life that's actually mine.
THIRTY
Paul: Convergence
The van tearsthrough back roads at speeds that should terrify me, but all I can focus on is Jenny's voice crackling through the comm: "Package secured. Moving to rendezvous."
Package.Vivianne. Safe.
"How long?" The demand comes out rough.
"Three minutes." CJ never takes his eyes off the road. "Maybe two if I ignore physics."
"Ignore it."
Merlin sits beside me, the Swan heavy in his cupped hands like he's cradling something sacred. He hasn't spoken since we left the estate, just stares at the ruby with an expression I've never seen on his face—raw, vulnerable, a lifetime of loss etched in the lines around his eyes.
Through the windshield—an abandoned textile warehouse on the outskirts of the city, its broken windows like dead eyes. But the Guardian HRS van is already there, parked at an angle that suggests they came in hot.
CJ hasn't even stopped before I'm yanking the door handle.
"Paul, wait?—"
I don't. Can't. I hit the ground running, my shoes slipping on gravel, nearly going down, but not caring. The van's back doors are opening and?—
