The Dark Blade: Return Of The General.

Chapter 25: Mother's Betrayal

Jacob and Roseline raced through Seron's dark streets, the city lights blurring past like streaks of neon fire. Jacob's hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white, and his mind churned through the impossible revelations Keaton had dropped before dying.

Diana Tate was alive. Anna's mother had survived the massacre that killed the Krigg family. More than survived—she had orchestrated it. Everything Jacob thought he understood about that terrible night fifteen years ago was built on lies and manipulation.

"We need a plan," Roseline said from the passenger seat, checking her weapons with practiced efficiency. "Charging in blind will get us both killed and accomplish nothing."

"The plan is simple," Jacob replied, his voice flat and emotionless. "I go in, I get Anna, and I kill anyone who tries to stop me."

"That is not a plan. That is suicide with extra steps."

"Then I commit suicide with extra steps." Jacob's foot pressed harder on the accelerator, pushing the car well past legal speeds. "Anna is in danger because of me. Because of my family, my enemies, my past. I will not let her die for sins that are not hers."

The auction house came into view—the same building where this nightmare had truly begun, where Jacob had won back his father's amulet and made an enemy of Marcus Nico. The elegant structure looked the same from the outside, but something about it felt wrong, corrupted by the evil that now inhabited it.

Jacob slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt two blocks away. What he saw made his blood run cold.

The auction house was surrounded by armed mercenaries. Not security guards or hired thugs, but professional soldiers in tactical gear with military-grade weapons. Jacob counted at least fifty men positioned at every entrance and exit, with more likely hidden inside the building itself.

"That is Marcus Nico's private army," Roseline observed, her voice tight with concern. "He brought every man he has. This is not a trap, Jacob. This is a declaration of war."

Jacob opened his door and stepped out. "Good. I am tired of traps and games. Let them see me coming."

Roseline grabbed his arm before he could walk away. "Jacob, listen to me. Fifty trained soldiers against two people—those are impossible odds even for us. We need backup, we need better weapons, we need—"

"We need Anna alive," Jacob interrupted, pulling free from her grip. "And every second we waste planning is another second she is in their hands." He looked at Roseline with eyes that held no fear, only cold determination. "I am going in. You can come with me or you can stay here. Your choice."

Roseline stared at him for a long moment, then pulled out two more knives from hidden sheaths and handed them to Jacob. "If we are committing suicide, we might as well do it properly. But when we die, I am going to be very annoyed with you."

"Noted," Jacob replied, accepting the weapons.

They moved toward the auction house with the coordination of warriors who had fought together before. Jacob took point, his enhanced senses scanning for threats and planning attack vectors. Roseline covered his blind spots, her movements silent as a hunting cat.

The first mercenary never saw them coming. Jacob's knife found his throat before he could raise his weapon or sound an alarm. Roseline caught the falling body and dragged it into shadows, already moving toward the next target.

What followed was not a battle. It was a massacre.

Jacob and Roseline moved through Nico's army like death itself, striking from darkness and vanishing before anyone could mount a defense. They used the terrain to their advantage, forcing enemies into choke points where numbers meant nothing. They used captured weapons, improvised traps, and brutal hand-to-hand combat.

Bodies fell in their wake—not dead, but unconscious or too injured to fight. Jacob was killing only when necessary, conserving his lethal force for the people who truly deserved it.

Ten minutes. Fifty soldiers. By the time Jacob and Roseline reached the auction house entrance, the private army had been reduced to scattered survivors radioing desperately for backup that would not arrive in time.

They burst through the main doors together, weapons ready, expecting immediate ambush. Instead, they found the entrance hall empty and eerily quiet. Their footsteps echoed on marble floors as they advanced deeper into the building.

"Too easy," Roseline whispered. "They let us through. This is exactly what they wanted."

"I know," Jacob replied. "They want me in the same room as Anna. Whatever they have planned requires us both in one place."

The doors to the main auction hall stood open ahead, light spilling from the room beyond. Jacob could hear voices inside—Marcus Nico's mocking tone, and another voice he did not recognize but that made his skin crawl with instinctive revulsion.

He stepped through the doors, and his worst fears became reality.

Anna was tied to a chair on the same stage where Jacob had won his father's amulet. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her face showed signs of rough treatment—a split lip, a bruised cheek, tear tracks cutting through dirt and blood. But her eyes were alert and defiant, not broken despite her captivity.

Marcus Nico stood beside her with a chrome-plated pistol pressed against her temple. He wore an expensive suit rather than his fake Elijah disguise, apparently done with pretending to be Jacob's dead brother.

"Welcome back to where it all began, Dark Blade," Marcus said with theatrical flair. "We have been waiting for you. Please, come in. Join our little family reunion."

Jacob took three steps into the room, his eyes locked on Anna. She shook her head slightly, trying to warn him off, but he ignored her silent plea. He would not leave her here no matter what trap waited.

The sound of a door opening behind the stage made Jacob's attention shift. A woman stepped into view, and Jacob's breath caught in his throat.

She was older than the photos Jacob had seen, probably in her late forties, with silver streaking through her dark hair. Terrible scars marked the left side of her face and neck—burn scars similar to the ones Anna had carried before Jacob healed her. She wore an elegant dress that seemed absurdly formal for the violence surrounding them, and she moved with the confidence of someone accustomed to command.

Diana Tate. Anna's supposedly dead mother. Very much alive and looking at her daughter with an expression that held no maternal warmth whatsoever.

"Mom?" Anna whispered, her voice breaking with confused hope. "But you died. In a car accident. Grandfather said—"

"Your grandfather was a fool who believed comfortable lies," Diana interrupted, her voice cold and sharp as winter ice. "I survived the Krigg massacre, Anna. Barely. I crawled out of that burning estate with my skin melting and my Guardian sisters dead around me."

She walked closer to the stage, her scarred face twisting with hatred as she looked at Jacob. "And that night, bleeding and dying in the dark, I learned something important about the Krigg family."

Diana's eyes locked with Jacob's, and the pure malice in her gaze made him instinctively reach for his weapons.

"Your family deserved to die, Jacob Krigg. Every single one of them. And if I had known you survived that night, I would have hunted you down and finished what we started."

Jacob felt the ground shifting beneath his feet again. "You were part of it. You helped murder my family."

"I led the assault," Diana said proudly. "The Guardians had protected the Kriggs for centuries, and for what? So your arrogant bloodline could hoard power while the world burned? I showed the other Guardians the truth—that the Kriggs were not worth protecting. That we could take their power for ourselves."

Anna was shaking her head in denial, tears streaming down her face. "No. You were a Guardian. You protected people. You saved lives. This is not you!"

"You never knew the real me, daughter," Diana replied without looking at Anna. "You were just a tool I created to infiltrate the Krigg bloodline if any of them survived. And look how perfectly you performed your role—saving Jacob from the fire, earning his trust, even marrying him. You delivered him to me wrapped in a bow."

Jacob's entire body had gone rigid with fury. He started to move forward, but Diana pulled something from her dress pocket—a small remote control with a single red button.

"I would not do that if I were you," Diana warned. She pressed the button.

Electricity erupted through Anna's restraints. She screamed—a sound of pure agony that tore through Jacob's heart like a blade. Her body convulsed against the chair, muscles locking as voltage coursed through her.

Diana released the button, and Anna slumped forward, gasping and sobbing.

"That was the lowest setting," Diana said conversationally. "The highest setting will stop her heart instantly. Would you like to see?"

"What do you want?" Jacob demanded, fighting to keep his voice steady despite the rage threatening to consume him.

Diana smiled—a terrible expression on her scarred face. "I want what your family has hoarded for centuries. All five Krigg artifacts, right now. You give them to me, and I let Anna live. You refuse, and I press this button again. Simple transaction."

She held up the remote, her thumb hovering over the red button. "You have ten seconds to decide, Jacob. Save your wife, or protect your precious family legacy. What matters more?"

Diana began counting down. "Ten... nine... eight..."

Jacob's hand moved toward the amulet around his neck—his father's amulet, the first artifact he had reclaimed.

"Seven... six... five..."

Anna's voice cut through the countdown, weak but determined. "Jacob, do not give her anything. Let me die. Do not let them win."

"Four... three..."

Jacob looked at Anna, at the woman he had married, healed, and come to love. Then he looked at Diana's finger on the button.

"Two..."

He made his choice.

"One—"