Before she could react, his hand closed around her arm and pulled her backward. Her back hit the stone wall behind her with a solid thud. Gasps rippled through the room. Lucien stepped close, one hand braced against the wall beside her shoulder, trapping her in place.
His face was inches from hers.
The look in his eyes was deadly.
Not anger.
Something colder.
More dangerous.
“Sera,” he said quietly.
The way he said her name made the entire room freeze.
“You will not come down here and lose control in front of my men.”
Her heart was pounding, but she refused to look away from him. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have lied to me.”
His jaw tightened slightly. For a moment neither of them spoke. The tension between them was suffocating.
Finally Lucien straightened. His hand dropped from the wall and he stepped back. The deadly look in his eyes didn’t disappear. “Not now,” he said flatly.
Sera stared at him in disbelief. “You’re just walking away?”
Lucien didn’t answer her. He turned toward Ronan. “Move out.”
Ronan hesitated for half a second, glancing at Sera before nodding. “Yes, boss.”
The other men immediately began gathering weapons and equipment from the table. Lucien walked past her without another word. Ronan and the rest of the security team followed. Sera stood frozen against the stone wall as they moved toward the exit of the chamber.
Lucien didn’t look back.
Not even once.
The heavy door at the end of the corridor opened. Then slammed shut behind them. Leaving Sera standing alone in the cold, silent room.
CHAPTER 48
The war did not begin with gunfire. It began with a letter that a staff member gave her after the chaos had settled. It arrived sealed in black wax bearing a sigil Sera had only seen on her necklace, on the map and carved into the man’s ring the night she killed him.
Virelli.
Inside the letter read,
You were never meant to be hidden.
You were meant to rule.
Meet me where the sea eats the cliffs.
No signature.
Sera folded the letter with trembling fingers, the edges crumpling beneath her grip. The words echoed in her mind, but all she could feel was the hollow ache spreading through her chest. Every beat of her heart felt heavy, weighted with a mixture of longing and fury. Maybe all this time, Sera had been living a lie.
She moved almost blindly through the estate, the cold corridors pressing in on her like the walls themselves wanted to suffocate her. She didn’t think, didn’t plan. Every instinct in her body demanded she follow the trail, even if it meant stepping intodarkness she couldn’t control. Hatred burned beneath her skin, not just for the death, or so absence of her mother, not just the death of her father, not just for the lies that had stacked themselves over the years but for the world that had dared to make her believe she had nothing, that she had been alone.
The cliffs were jagged, rising sharply from the turbulent sea below. Waves crashed violently, sending salty mist across her face, but she barely noticed. Her hands shook, clutching the edge of the railing as her mind wandered, imagining her mother waiting, warm and alive, a promise of reunion that might finally fill the gaping void inside her but when she saw the figure standing in the shadows, the outline sharp against the setting sun, her heart didn’t leap, it sank. Could it actually be her?
