Chapter 16
In the name of the mother.
There are moments in life when everything just falls apart.
When the truth stops being a quiet whisper and suddenly shouts.
I lived in fear, silence, and fury, but never in power.
Until now.
I found myself in the same room where Damian had made me sign that contract. The fireplace flickered behind me, casting dancing shadows on the marble floor. But I didn’t feel cold anymore.
My mother had once struck a deal to protect me. Now, it was my turn to make a deal. And I planned to make it hurt.
Damian walked in without even knocking.
“I told you to shut down the west wing. You dismissed my guards.”
I needed silence. I replied without turning around. Not with surveillance.
“You’re in danger.”
Finally, I looked at him. “I’ve always been in danger, Damian. I just didn’t know I could choose what kind.”
He stepped closer. “You found something.”
“In the contract,” I said. “There’s a name: Anastasia Vilek. She witnessed the agreement.”
Damian frowned. “The Russian assets. Your mother’s handler.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Lucien’s been trying to find her. She has the original files that link him to the 2003 Cross’s pipeline massacre. The one that nobody ever talks about.”
“That was sealed by the council.”
“More like buried. There’s a difference.”
Damian searched my eyes. “You want to go after her?”
“No, I want to draw her out. With a name only she and my mother knew.”
“What if she’s dead?”
“Then we burn what’s left of Lucien’s kingdom to the ground.”
That night, we gathered at the table, surrounded by maps and chaos. Vera, Luca, and even Nico, the last of the neutral Cross cousins, were there.
I stood at the head of the table, my presence too sharp, too intense, to be questioned.
“Lucien is using the docks again,” Vera reported. “But it’s not just for products. He’s trafficking memories, files, old operations, blackmail documents from the war.”
Which means he’s running scared.
“Or consolidating,” Nico muttered.
I placed a photo on the table. A blurry image of a woman boarding a private jet in Prague.
Anastasia Vilek.
She resurfaces every seven years. My mother kept tabs on her. And now, she’s heading to the States.
Damian raised an eyebrow. “Coincidence?”
Not a chance, I replied. “She’s coming to collect. And I intend to meet her first.”
Later, as the team started to break up, Damian caught me in the hall.
“You’re moving like a commander.”
“I am one,” I replied.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re becoming your mother.”
“No, I’m becoming something even more dangerous. I’m turning into the woman she never got to be.”
He reached for my wrist. “She would be so proud of you.”
I didn’t pull away or smile. She’d be terrified.
The meeting was scheduled at an old green factory on the outskirts of the city. No security, no weapons, just information.
I was the first one there.
The conservatory had a mix of jasmine and dust in the air. It felt like time had paused in every piece of stained glass.
Anastasia walked in five minutes later. Dressed all in black, a silk scarf wrapped around her neck like armor.
“You have your mother’s eyes,” she said, her Russian accent thick. “But not her softness.”
“I buried that a long time ago.”
She stepped closer, her expression unreadable. “Why did you call me?”
“Because you have something that can end Lucien.”
She hesitated. “You think I kept it?”
“I think you always kept it. Insurance. Power. Proof.”
A smile crept onto her face. “Smart girl.”
She pulled a thin silver flash drive from her coat.
“One copy hidden for over twenty-two years.”
I reached for it, but she held on tight.
“You understand what this is?” she asked.
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s war,” she corrected.
Hours later, Damian watched me walk into the penthouse, drenched and quiet. He stood up from the leather couch, his eyes locked on the flash drive in my hand.
“You got it?”
“Yes.”
“What’s on it?”
“Everything,” I said softly. “Lucien’s financial deals, the girls he trafficked, the hits he ordered. Including my father.”
Damian exhaled slowly. “This changes everything.”
I nodded. We have to be careful. We’ll leak the right details, destroy his operations from the inside, and take him down without turning his city into a graveyard.
“And when it’s over?”
I met his gaze. “Then we bury him. For good.”
That night, Damian didn’t touch me out of desire. He touched me with respect.
It was like he finally understood the storm he had married into.
I wasn’t just the girl in a white dress or a pawn in his game.
I had become the queen, born from my mother’s fire.