Chapter 23%
I woke up to the sound of a heart monitor, a cheap fan clicking like it was dying, and the sharp sting of disinfectant clawing up my throat.
This wasn’t a hospital. Too dim. Too cold. No nurse smiles, no white lilies. Just metal, mildew, and war scars in every corner.
I blinked hard.
Matteo sat in the chair beside me, a ragged towel over his shoulder, blood on his knuckles. Not mine. Someone else’s. He wasn’t saying anything. Just watching. Like he was waiting to see if I’d live… or come back wrong.N
Enzo leaned in the doorway. Arms folded. Silent. That was his way. But his jaw was tight. His shirt half–unbuttoned. He hadn’t slept.}
“You two look like hell,” I rasped.
Matteo gave me a look. One part relief, one part rage.
“You know, when you vanish, get tortured, then crawl out of a tunnel half–dead–we’d appreciate a damn text. Or maybe a corpse. Something easier to explain.”
I laughed. It hurt. “Guess I’m still your problem.”
Enzo walked in, grabbed a chair, and sat. Voice low. Direct.
“Your escape blew up the board. Half our loyalists came running back. Some tried to flip. Others are just… gone.“}]
I nodded once. Eyes like steel.
“Anyone who turned on the Rosinni name disappears. No warnings. No noise. I want the ground to eat them.“M
Enzo didn’t blink. Just murmured, “Consider it done.”
I sat up straighter. Ribs screaming, body aching, but I was here. And I wasn’t afraid anymore.
“Lucien?”
Matteo looked down for a beat. Then back up.
“He’s alive. Coma. Hooked to machines. But he’s not gone, sis. Not yet.“N
Something broke and stitched itself inside me in the same breath. Lucien… he held the parts of me that didn’t belong to this war. If he was still breathing, then I was still human.
Barely.
I took a deep breath and looked at both my brothers.}
“Edmund. Lester. Loisa. Elizabeth. Find them. I don’t care if they’re dead or dragged back in chains. Family or not, I want blood.“}]
Matteo didn’t flinch. Enzo stood.
“We’ll start the sweep tonight.”
But there was one more pressure point I hadn’t pressed yet. And if I knew Lester–and I knew every broken coward bone inside him–then I knew where to strike next.
“Lyle Nash,” I said quietly. “The twins.“}
Enzo raised a brow. “You want them dead?“>
“No,” I replied. Cold. Clear. “I want them taken. Alive. Untouched. They’re the only thing Lester might crawl through fire for. We don’t hurt the boys. We use them.”
Matteo nodded once, sharp and final. “We’ll bring them to you.”
They were dropped to my feet twenty hours later.
Two little devils in designer clothes. Seven years old, and already wearing the Rosinni sneer like a badge of honor. My brother stood behind them, jaw clenched.
The boys stared me down.
Lyle curled his lip. “You used to scrub our floors.“>
Nash followed suit. “You’re just a maid. Mommy said you were nothing.”M
And then they spit. Right on my gown.
Matteo reached for his gun, but I lifted a hand. Calm. Measured. I crouched, eye level with them. My voice dropped into something sharp enough to flay skin.
“One more scream,” I said, slow and deliberate, “and I will put a bullet in your mother’s mouth. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise I’ll deliver smiling “2
They blinked. Real fear cracked through their masks for the first time. I tilted my head, voice like glass.
“You think tantrums make you royalty? You think blood gives you power?” I looked from one twin to the other. “Your father begged. Your mother spat lies. You’ve inherited their venom but not their spine.”
They stayed silent Smart boys.
I stood and turned to my brothers.
*Separate them. Keep them well–fed. Monitored. No harm. They are the matchstick. When Lester sees what I’ve taken, he’ll come crawling. And when he does-”
Inlanned down at the twine anain aves huning
0
D
I glanced down at the twins again, eyes burning.
-we finish what should’ve ended years ago. Bloodline or not.”
The video was short. Forty–three seconds, no music, no filters, just raw silence and dread humming in the background.
The twins sat blindfolded. Lyle trembled. Nash clutched his knees. They were untouched–I made sure of that–but I let the fear bloom around them like rot. Concrete walls. Dim light. The kind of quiet that screams louder than a beating.
I stood behind them in Rosinni black, head held high, hair pulled back, gloves on. Authority in every breath.
The message was simple. One sentence.
“Come collect your legacy, Lester. Or I’ll raise them in Rosinni black, and they’ll never remember your name.” Then I cut the feed. Didn’t take long for the coward to respond. Not in voice, not in flesh. He sent Loisa: Of course he did.
He wouldn’t come himself. He never faced pain if he could throw a woman in front of it. That’s how he was born. That’s how he’ll die. We intercepted her before she made it to the extraction point. She had three men with her–one shot, two disappeared into the wind. But Loisa? We wrapped her in chains like a Christmas gift.
And then I brought her home.
Not to the penthouse. Not to a gilded prison.
brought her to the same underground tunnel I’d crawled out of weeks ago, ribs cracked, blood soaking my heels. This was where my rebirth began. It was only right that hers would rot here.
She was stripped of her jewelry, her lashes, her glossed–up ego. And now she stood, barefoot, dripping with sweat and rain, staring at me like I was a nightmare with a heartbeat.}}
I held up a hanger.
The maid uniform.
Black cotton. Stiff apron. High collar. Exactly how she made me wear it. Years ago, when I scrubbed their floors while she insulted my father and pretended I didn’t exist.”
Her lip curled.
“You think this proves something?”
I smiled slowly. “I don’t think. I know.”
Two guards held her arms as I forced her into the uniform. I buttoned it myself. Tighter than necessary.
“You used to love watching me on my knees, didn’t you?” I whispered in her ear. “Let’s see how you wear humiliation.“}
