Chapter 61

The Garden Burns.

The first sign of betrayal came through screams, but silence.

I stood in the east corridor of the manor, watching the sunrise exit through the fog. The previous night’s battle left blood on the floors, scorch marks on the walls, and an ache on my bones I couldn’t shake. I hadn’t slept. Not really.

My thoughts had been consumed by Eva’s face. Her voice. Her story.

We had her caged, but had not contained her.

Because devils don’t need to scream when they already know how to whisper in the dark.

“Ma’am,” a guard approached, his voice tight. “Containment’s been breached.”

I turned, my spine locking into place.

“What?”

“The cell glass was cut open. No alarms. No forced access.”

“What the hell?”

“She’s gone.”

In the lowest levels of the manor, alarms wailed too late.

Rourke and three elite guards moved like lightning through the tunnels, but Eva was already five steps ahead.

They found the cell empty, the steel floor smeared with blood. Not hers, but the guard who had foolishly walked in alone. On the wall, in a message scrawled in the dead man’s blood, were the words.

“Only one can bloom.”

Rourke’s fist slammed into the wall. “She was playing us the whole time.”

I arrived moments later, Damian on my heels. I stared at the wall, my jaw clenched. “She was never trying to win a war. She was trying to burn what made me strong.”

“What do you mean?” Damian asked.

“She’s going to the garden.”

Damian’s eyes widened. “Claire….”

“She’s going to destroy the last piece of our mother.”

The garden was sacred.

Hidden in the hills behind the manor, a place our mother once called her Eden. That was where I first learned how to read. Where I first learned that roses could bloom even in graves. And where our mother had hidden the only known vials of my unaltered DNA.

The source code.

If Eva burns it, she’d erase our origin completely.

I arrived in the garden with rain clinging to my boots, thunder growling above. The wind carried the smell of fire even before I saw the smoke. The tree around the sanctuary glowed red in the early morning light, and beyond the iron archway, the greenhouse was aflame.

Eva stood in the middle of the burning flowers, her hair dancing like fire itself, her dress now blackened from ash.

“You came,” she said, as though it was a tea party.

I stepped into the fire with no fear.

“Stop this, Eva. That garden doesn’t belong to you.”

She tilted her head, smiling like a wolf.

“It doesn’t belong to you either. It belonged to her. And she’s dead.”

I stepped closer, with fury rising in my voice. “That garden was the last good thing she left behind.”

“No,” Eva hissed. “You were. And look how that turned out.”

She flung a vial into the flames. The glass shattered. Blue liquid hissed against the fire.

I gasped. “What’s that?”

“One of the originals,” Eva said. “Her real DNA. And now it’s ash.”

I lunged.

We collided between burning lilies. No blades this time.

Just fists and fury and grief.

“You were the dream,” Eva cried, punching my face. “I was the weapon!”

I screamed. “You are still the weapon but that doesn’t mean you have to be.”

We rolled through mud and flame, coughing on smoke and pain. The fire roared higher, encircling us.

From the hillside, Damian watched the inferno with dread in his throat.

“She’s in there,” he said. “Claire’s in the flames.”

Rourke tightened his grip on his rifle. “Then let’s get her out.”

But Damian didn’t move. His mind was frozen.

He saw two girls. Two sisters. One love. One war.

He turned to Rourke. “If I go in, and only one of them comes out…I’m afraid who I’ll choose.”

Rourke looked him square in the eye. “Then don’t think. Just run.”

My leg buckled under Eva’s final kick. And I crashed into the glass wall of the greenhouse, shards cutting on my back. Blood bloomed on my shoulder.

Eva stood over me, knife drawn, and eyes glinting.

“I could have been you,” she whispered.

“You can still be,” I gasped.

She hesitated. Her hands trembled. And then…

A gunshot split the air.

She froze. Damian stood in the flames, gun in hand, jaw set.

“Step away from her,” he said coldly.

Eva didn’t move. “Don’t kill her,” I whispered. But she smiled. “She’s right Damian. You won’t pull that trigger.”

He did.

The bullet hit her shoulder, knocking her back.

I screamed scrambling toward her.

Damian holstered the weapon and rushed forward, grabbing me before the ceiling collapsed.

We crashed outside just as the greenhouse caved in behind us.

Later, when the flames were dead, and the ash settled, we found Eva’s body among the debris.

Barely breathing. Burned. Bleeding.

Alive. Again.

Damian stood over her as medics worked to stabilize her.

I approached, covered in ash, my hand on his.

“You didn’t kill her.”

He looked at me, eyes raw. “Because I finally understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That killing her wouldn’t save you. And sparing her…might save you.”

That night, we returned to the manor, battered and hollow. Rourke reported that half the Southern safe houses had been compromised.

Cilax men were spreading whispers that Damian was losing control. The vote to remove him from the syndicate throne had been called.

I listened in silence, then stood.

“Then let them vote.” Damian looked at me. “I’m done hiding,” I said. “It’s time the syndicate sees the real me.”

Rourke blinked. “You mean…”

“I’m going to take what was always mine. I’ll go to the syndicate floor. I’ll speak. Alone.”

Damian stood too. “You won’t go alone.”

I looked at him.

And for the first time, I saw not just the devil. But the man who had walked through fire to save me.

In the infirmary wing, Eva lay in a morphine haze, her eyes barely open.

When I entered, I didn’t flinch.

“I thought you’d come to finish me.” I sat beside her, quiet.

“Why?” Eva asked. “Why do you keep sparing me?”

I reached into my coat and pulled the second vial Eva had failed to destroy.

I set it on the table beside the bed.

“Because there’s still one thing left of her.” She stared at it.

Tears slid silently down her cheeks.