“So,” I said, piecing it together. “I obtain the poison from Raul. I rewrite the journal as if I still love Balthazar. Then what?”
Salvatore’s grin widened, wicked and knowing. “Go to John James. Ask for his help.”
I narrowed my eyes, incredulous. “John James? What kind of twisted game is this?”
“It’s the only kind that matters,” he explained. “A game of deception. We lay breadcrumbs. We craft the illusion. You’ll go to John James, trembling and broken, to play the frightened woman haunted by Balthazar’s wrath. He’ll believe you. He’ll tell youexactly what we need him to—where to take the journal. Where to carry the Sun Dagger.”
“And then?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Salvatore’s eyes locked on mine with predatory intensity. “Then you follow his instructions. Word for word. Step by step. And when the time comes…”
He leaned in. “You bring it all crashing down.”
A cold tremor ran through me. But I nodded.
“I won’t fail.”
His smirk returned. “Good girl.”
Then he vanished.
After he was gone, the weight of what I had just agreed to settled over me like ash.
I sat in the dim light of Lee’s living room, fingers trembling as I reached into my purse and pulled out my weathered notebook. The leather was worn, softened by time, and my breath caught as I flipped through its pages.
Memories clawed their way up from the ink—versions of me I scarcely recognized. Stories etched in chaos and fire. Nights soaked in pleasure and power. Laughter echoing off bloodstained walls. I had been untouchable. Unrepentant. A queen cloaked in ruthlessness, grinning like the devil himself.
And I hadlovedher—every wicked inch of who I once was.
But that version of me couldn’t exist anymore.
Now, as I stared down at the smudged, worn words chronicling that past life, one thought echoed louder than the rest?—
It’s time to destroy who I was… to rewrite who I must become.
I had to move forward. Had to craft a new narrative—one designed not to reveal truth, but to weaponize it. A lie so intricate it would seduce and mislead—a story tailored to Balthazar’s pride and obsession.
Drawing a deep breath, I picked up my pen.
I began writing a journal filled with illusions—fabricated hopes, dreams I never held, emotions I’d long since buried. Each entry dripped with false vulnerability and devotion. Carefully placed phrases acted as breadcrumbs—subtle clues meant to pull Balthazar deeper into the snare.
For two days, I barely left my seat. I wrote relentlessly, forging anew identity on paper. My words conjured entire lives—characters who danced and wept, lovers who burned, cities that rose and crumbled—with every pen stroke, truth and fiction blurred into something alive and dangerously believable.
I wrote through the night, my body protesting with hunger and exhaustion, but I didn’t stop. Icouldn’t. Each word was a step toward power. Toward freedom. The ache in my fingers became the pulse of creation.
And in that process… I rediscovered something.
The thrill of storytelling. The pure, unfiltered power of creation. The electric rush of spinning lies so carefully that they tasted like truth.
By the end of the second day, I set the pen down, blinking against the haze clouding my vision. My body screamed for rest, but a deep, visceral satisfaction settled in my chest.
This was no mere journal.
It was a masterpiece of deceit.
A spell woven in ink.
I had turned myself from a feared villain into a hunted, helpless woman—an image so convincing that evenIfelt the shift. And when Balthazar read these words, he would see not a threat… but prey.
