Chapter 196 You idiots
Chapter 196 You idiots
Elara’s POV,
Hours pass before I finally stop screaming.
At some point, my voice gives out, my fists split open, and every vase, lamp, picture frame, and piece of furniture that can be broken ends up scattered across the floor. The room looks as though a hurricane tore through it, and I am too exhausted to care. Even the curtains are beginning to burn where I threw a candle without thinking. The smell of smoke hangs in the air, yet it somehow feels cleaner than the silence.
He really left.
Lucien actually left me here.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, drawing my knees against my chest. The illusion remains perfect. There is still no door or window. Only the soft breeze drifting through a room that shouldn’t have any air at all.
He promised he would never use his illusion on me again.
A bitter laugh escapes me.
Another promise broken.
My eyes wander across the room until they settle beneath the bed again for the fifth time.
The folder.
Dorine’s folder.
The one I stole from Matteo's study.
The forgotten file.
The file Matteo considered important enough to hide.
I stare at it for a long while before pushing myself to my feet. My suitcase lies open on the bed, half-packed with clothes I won’t even need anymore. After tonight, none of it will matter.
After tonight, Lucien will retrieve the safe, and the Church will finally have what it wants.
They will give Isla Virelli to him, just as they always intended, and he will become the Church’s greatest ally.
And I...
I will disappear.
The thought hurts so much that I have to steady myself against the bed.
I should leave the file alone; after all, everything has already been decided. Knowing one more secret will not change anything.
Still...
I find myself walking back toward the bed.
“There is a saying,” I murmur to nobody, pulling the folder into my hands. “Curiosity killed the cat.”
My fingers hesitate over the flap.
“I’m already dying anyway.”
I tear it open, and the first page means nothing. Neither does the second. Then I reach the third.
My eyes skim over the lines once.
Twice.
Three times.
My breathing slows instead of quickening because my mind simply refuses to process what I'm reading.
No.
That cannot be right.
I start again from the top. Every single word is the same. By the fifth time, I wasn’t reading anymore.
I was searching for a mistake.
A typo.
Anything.
There wasn’t one.
Father: Adrian Virelli.
Daughter: Isla Virelli.
\[ADRIAN VIRELLI – HEIR RECORD\]
\[Status: DECEASED Verification: INCOMPLETE\]
\[Recovered Subject: Identity altered\]
\[File Reassigned: Elara Virelli\]
\[Match…99%\]
\[Heir not dead.\]
My stomach twists violently.
I flip through every page again, searching desperately for a correction, a footnote, a contradiction, anything that tells me someone made a mistake.
Nothing changes.
Nothing.
The words remain exactly where they are, and the papers slip from my fingers before I can stop them.
“...No.”
I scramble after them and read them again. And again. My vision blurs.
Hold on, Dorine saw me that day. She watched me fall into the sea, and if I know any better, I am a hundred percent certain that she reported directly to Matteo.
She believed I died, so Matteo should believe I died too.
Then...
Why...
The answer arrives so suddenly that I stop breathing.
He isn’t looking for the heir. He already lost her. The operation was never about finding me.
The scientists, the warehouse, the files.
Every clue, and every move.
Every single thing...
It was never about the heir. It was about Lucien.
"Oh God…”
And Asher. The folder falls to the floor.
“No…”
A scream tears out of me before I even realize I’m making a sound.
“CELENE!”
I throw myself toward the place where the door should be, slamming both fists against the invisible wall.
“CELENE!”
Nothing.
“NOEMI!”
Nothing.
“SOMEBODY!”
My palms hit the illusion again and again until blood smears across empty air.
“YOU HAVE TO LET ME OUT!”
I hit it harder.
“LUCIEN IS IN DANGER!”
Again.
“I AM NOT JOKING!”
Again.
“IT’S NOT A JOKE!”
Nobody comes.
Nobody answers.
I keep pounding until my hands become slippery with blood, and somewhere between one strike and the next I realize the painful truth.
They’re already gone, and the operation has already started. A broken laugh escapes me.
“...Think, Elara.”
I wipe my face with the back of my wrist. Then my eyes drift toward the gun case beneath my bed.
“...You idiot.”
I actually forgot.
The room is still real. The illusion only hid things; it didn’t erase them.
So I yank the case open and grab every pistol inside before calculating where the window should be. I raise the first gun and fire into the wall. The bullet disappears without effect, so I fire again, shifting the angle slightly each time until—
Crack.
Glass.
Hope slams into me so hard my knees nearly give out.
“There you are.”
I unload round after round into the same spot until the hidden window explodes outward in a shower of shattered glass, and cold air rushes inside.
Real air.
I freeze.
If the file is wrong… I can still stay here. I can pretend I never opened it; Lucien will come home, we’ll argue, we’ll survive.
We’ll...
But if the file is right… Everything changes. Every single thing.
I close my eyes.
Logic has never once defeated my heart.
It certainly isn’t about to start now.
I climb through the broken frame, ignoring the sharp sting of glass slicing my palms and legs, and lean dangerously over the ledge.
“YOU IDIOTS!” Every soldier below looks up.
“ADRIAN VIRELLI IS MY FATHER!”