Chapter 191 Promised forever
Chapter 191 Promised forever
Elara's POV,
Kallian muttered under his breath.
“Well, that was anticlimactic.”
Dante reached for the blueprint.
“Matteo isn’t carrying the safe. We know that much now, so chasing him directly would be pointless.” He pointed toward a section of the map. “We still have our informant inside the Virelli estate. According to him, Matteo visits the dungeon every single week. Not occasionally. Every week. Food is taken down there regularly, and nobody except Matteo is allowed access.”
He looked around the table.
“If the safe isn’t there…” His finger tapped the blueprint. “...then something else is.”
Nikolai nodded.
“So we split.” He pointed to Lucien. “Team A.”
His finger moved between Lucien, Dante and himself.
“The three of us will intercept Matteo’s convoy before it reaches the scientists.”
He pointed toward another route.
“If the intelligence is correct, Varen, Milo and Luxe are transporting someone.” His voice lowered. “The heir. The objective is simple: Keep Matteo occupied, prevent him from reaching the scientists, and retrieve the heir if the opportunity presents itself.”
Then Dante pointed toward the opposite wing.
“Meanwhile, Viktor, Kallian, and the extraction team infiltrate the estate itself.”
“The dungeon,” Viktor finished.
“So, if there’s something Matteo has hidden for years…” Kallian leaned forward. “...that’s where we’ll find it.”
Dante nodded once.
“If one objective fails…”
“The other succeeds,” Nikolai completed. “We do not leave empty-handed.”
Finally, Dante turned toward Noemi.
“You stay behind.” She didn’t argue, as if she already knew. “You and your team would keep the mansion secure, maintain communications, coordinate extraction if either team needs support.”
Silence settled over the room, and I smiled, then gently placed my coffee cup on top of the blueprint.
The porcelain clicked softly against the table, and everyone looked at me.
“One question.” Nobody answered, and my smile remained. “...Where is my part in this?”
The silence became heavier as every single person at that table slowly turned… Toward Lucien.
His jaw tightened, but still he said nothing. I stood so abruptly my chair scraped violently across the floor.
“Are you all fucking deaf?” My voice echoed through the room. This time, I looked directly at him.
“I said…” My smile disappeared. “...where is my part in this?”
“So that’s it?” Nobody moves, and I stare at Lucien. “You weren’t even going to tell me?”
Lucien barely blinks.
“I'm trying to keep you alive.”
“You think you’re going to get out of this on a technicality?”
“I'm not trying to get out of anything.” His voice sharpens. “You’re a human trying to play god, and it’s like I always have to pick you back up every single time you throw yourself into danger. I’ve always had to protect you!”
Something inside me snaps.
Before I even realized I’d reached for it, the coffee cup is already flying through the air. It shoots across the room and misses Lucien’s head by barely an inch before exploding against the wall behind him. Coffee splatteres across the wallpaper.
Nobody breaths, and quietly, they all shuffle out.
Lucien slowly turns to look at the shattered porcelain before looking back at me.
God, I’d never seen his face look like that.
Angry.
“I don’t need protection!”
“I don’t care!” he shouts back. “I don’t fucking care what you want if it gets you killed!”
“You...” My entire body shakes so violently that I can’t speak. “You’re just like your father!”
Silence.
“You think you’re saving me?” I laugh, although it sounded more like I was choking. “All because I’m human? Fuck you!”
“Elara...” His voice drops into something terrifyingly calm. “Careful.”
“You don’t get to make decisions for both of us!” The words tear themselves from somewhere deep inside me. “This isn’t like last time! This isn’t something you can manipulate with one of your stupid illusions!”
My breathing became ragged.
“You think because you love someone, that gives you permission to control them!”
“I am not controlling you!”
“You are!”
“I love you!” I freeze at the sound of his cracked voice. “I can’t watch the woman I love put herself in danger again!” His breathing becomes uneven. “I watched you nearly die...”
“And I’d do it again!” The words escape before I can stop them. “As long as I have the man I—”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and open them back.
“The man I love beside me.” Lucien goes completely still. “You promised me forever.” Fresh tears blur my vision. “Is this what forever is to you?”
“You’re already leaving me behind.”
His jaw tightens.
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re planning to do?”
“No!” The scream hurt my own ears, and I shake my head violently. “No. I can’t. I can’t. I don’t want to.” The last sentence comes out as a sob. “Please...”
My chest hurts as I place both hands over it as if it could physically stop the pain. “I just found out things I can’t even comprehend. Please don’t do this to me.”
“You—” I look at him. “I’m trying so hard not to think about any of it right now.”
“Elara, I swear to you—”
“No!” I stumble backward. “Don’t make promises you can't keep! You keep doing that, but you’re a liar!”
“And you think you’re different?!”
My head snaps toward him so quickly that he physically recoils.
“What?!”
He immediately raises both hands.
“Okay, Elara,” he takes a step closer. “You have to listen to me.”
He reaches for my hand, and I slap it away. The sound echoes louder than I expect.
“Don’t touch me!” I wrapped my arms around myself. “I don’t even know what's real anymore!” The words finally spilled out.
“Tell me it isn’t true.” My voice had become so small I barely heard it myself. “Tell me you didn’t kill—” The one I loved.
My hand flies over my own mouth as Lucien stares at me as if I’d stabbed him, and I shake my head.
“Oh, God…No, no, no…”
“Elara...” His voice shook. “I beg you. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Are you even listening to yourself? It can’t get worse than this! Oh God...” The tears won’t stop. “I just want to be with you.” My entire body folded inward. “Is that really too much to ask?”
“Yes!” His answer explodes through the room, and he drags both hands through his hair until it stands in every direction. “I wake up every single day wondering if I’m remembering my own damn life correctly!”
“I don’t know why I killed my own family! I don’t know what’s missing from my own damn head! I don’t know who to trust anymore!”
His breathing become uneven.
“But I know one thing.” His eyes find mine again. “I know I cannot lose you.”
My heart shatters.
“I can’t watch you leave me here.”
“I’ll come back.”
“Then what?”