Chapter 11[Cassian]Twenty-four hours later.The viewing room of the High Table was suspended above the catacombs like a vulture's nest.The walls were lined with monitors, feeding black-and-white security footage from the labyrinth below. I sat in a high-backed leather chair, my hands gripped so tightly on the armrests that the wood was splintering under my fingers.To my left sat the Emissary. To my right, Marco.My uncle was smiling. He was swirling a glass of scotch, acting as though we were watching a sporting event and not the execution of my wife."She has spirit, your little assassin," Marco chuckled, looking at the main screen. "But spirit doesn't stop bullets.""If you speak to me again, Marco, I will rip your tongue out and feed it to you," I stated, not taking my eyes off the monitor.On the screen, Elara was standing in the antechamber of the Gauntlet. She had traded the ivory silk gown for a pair of black tactical pants, combat boots, and a tight black tank top. Her rig

Chapter 13[Elara]Dead weight is entirely different from unconscious weight. It pulls at the earth with a finality that physics alone can’t explain.Cassian slipped through my arms, his broad shoulders hitting the damp stone floor of the maintenance tunnel with a hollow thud. The sound echoed in the claustrophobic dark. I scrambled over his chest, my knees scraping against the rough rock."Cassian." My voice was a ruined, toxic rasp. I slapped his face. Once. Twice. The skin was already cooling, losing that impossible, radiating heat that had kept me grounded since he pulled me into his basement.I pressed two fingers hard into the groove of his neck, right beneath the sharp line of his jaw.Nothing.Not a flutter. Not a thready push of blood. Just the terrifying, absolute stillness of a stopped heart.The neurotoxin had done its work. It weaponized the nervous system, suffocating the brain while leaving the lungs gasping for air that couldn't be processed. He breathed it in so I wou

Chapter 15[Elara]"I need a medic! Now!"My voice ripped through the cavernous quiet of the cathedral, raw and unrecognizable. The commanding presence of the Donna vanished, replaced by the frantic, entirely human terror of a woman watching the man she loved slip into the dark.The spell over the kneeling soldiers broke instantly.A man in a charcoal suit sprinted down the aisle, barking orders into a lapel mic. He was young, viciously scarred across the jaw, and moved with a frantic urgency that mirrored my own. Vincenzo. Cassian’s underboss. The man Cassian trusted more than his own shadow."Get the armored trauma rig to the east loading doors!" Enzo roared at the men, sliding to his knees beside me in the elevator car. His eyes locked onto Cassian’s ash-gray face, and for a second, raw grief fractured his hardened expression. "Christ, Cass... hang on, brother."Enzo didn't hesitate. He hooked his arms under Cassian’s shoulders. Two other Capos grabbed his legs. They hoisted his ma

Chapter 17[Elara]Grief does not fade. It simply calcifies, turning into a heavy, jagged stone you carry in the hollow cavity of your chest.Three hundred and sixty-five days had passed since the black waters of the harbor swallowed my husband. A full year since I clawed my way out of the freezing mud and painted the city in the blood of his traitors.I stood in the center of a ruined penthouse in Marseille, France. The Mediterranean rain lashed violently against the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting fractured, watery shadows across the imported marble floor.At my feet knelt Enzo.Cassian’s former underboss looked like a cornered rat. He had spent twelve months running from me, burning through stolen syndicate funds to buy the protection of the Corsican cartel. His expensive clothes were torn. His face was a bruised, swollen mess courtesy of the two Rossi soldiers standing silently by the heavy oak doors."Elara, wait." Enzo spat a mouthful of blood onto the pristine white rug. He l

Chapter 19**[Cassian]**My head felt like it had been packed with shattered glass and submerged in battery acid. I tried to open my eyes, but the heavy steel lids refused to cooperate. A dull, rhythmic throbbing echoed behind my temples, matching the slow, mechanical drip of something nearby. I tried to lift my hands to rub my face. Metal scraped against metal. I couldn't move my arms. Instinct overrode the chemical fog in my brain. My eyes snapped open. I was sitting in a heavy, steel-backed chair. Thick iron cuffs encircled my wrists, securely bolted to the armrests. My ankles were shackled to the heavy iron legs of the chair. I strained against the restraints, my muscles bunching and screaming in protest. The metal didn't budge a millimeter. "Don't bother. The chains are rated for industrial stress. You'd break your own bones before you warp the steel."The voice was cool, detached, and painfully familiar. I stopped struggling and looked up. I was in a sprawling, subterrane