Chapter 54 Maria

Chapter 54 Maria

Maria’s POV

The night had teeth. Cold wind whispered through the curtains, carrying the scent of rain and smoke from the city below. I stood at the balcony, staring at the glittering skyline, the same view that used to make me feel powerful.
Now, it only reminded me of what I was losing.

Scarlett.
And him.

Two names that had come to mean ruin in my life.

I’d always believed control was an art something earned, shaped, and protected with care. But control was slipping through my fingers like sand.

My reflection in the glass looked older than I remembered. The fine lines around my eyes seemed deeper tonight, shadows pooling where charm used to live. I traced the edge of my wine glass, ignoring the phone vibrating on the counter. I already knew who it was.

Damien.

He’d been distant for days. The kind of distance that wasn’t about space, but choice. The kind that came with another woman’s name written across his silence.

Scarlett.

My daughter. My mistake. My mirror.

The thought made my throat tighten. She was supposed to be my redemption, the one pure thing left in this world of dirty bargains and whispered lies.
Instead, she became the blade I sharpened with my own hands.

I lifted the phone, staring at his name glowing against the dark. Then, with a slow exhale, I answered.

“Damien.”

“Maria.” His voice was low, careful. That same careful tone he used when he thought I might break. “We need to talk.”

My pulse quickened. “I thought we said everything that needed to be said.”

He hesitated, then said, “Scarlett came to me.”

There it was the knife sliding between my ribs.

I forced a laugh, soft and bitter. “Of course she did. She always runs to you, doesn’t she? Like a moth to a flame.”

“Stop it,” he said sharply. “You knew this would happen. You pushed her too far.”

“She needed to learn,” I hissed. “She doesn’t understand what this world costs. What I gave up so she could have a life worth—”

“You’re not protecting her anymore, Maria,” Damien interrupted. “You’re trying to control her. There’s a difference.”

I froze. The words hit harder than I wanted to admit. I had taught myself never to show weakness, especially not to him. But the way he said it the way his voice softened at the end cracked something open inside me.

“Control is all I have left,” I said quietly.

For a long time, he didn’t answer. Then he sighed. “You can’t control people into loving you.”

That was when I hung up.

Because I couldn’t bear the truth in his voice.

The rain started a few minutes later, soft at first, then heavier. I poured another glass of wine, watching droplets slide down the balcony glass like tiny falling stars.

He’d chosen her. I could feel it in the way he said her name, hesitant, protective, aching.

Scarlett was twenty-two. Reckless. Stubborn. And beautiful in the same dangerous way I had once been. She didn’t know how easily beauty became a weapon and how love could turn into chains.

But Damien knew. And he still reached for her.

A cruel smile curved my lips.

Love makes fools of everyone.

By midnight, I was sitting at my desk, the flash drive Scarlett had stolen weeks ago glowing faintly on the corner. She thought she’d hidden it well when she brought it back. She never learned I had eyes everywhere.

I slid it into the computer, watching the files bloom across the screen.

Every name, every deal, every secret I’d spent years collecting was still there. Proof of every crime that could burn this world down including Damien’s.

A video caught my attention. Timestamped two days ago.

Curious, I opened it.

The camera feed was shaky, but I recognized the warehouse instantly from Kade's old site by the docks. Scarlett and Damien stood inside, arguing. Their voices echoed through the speakers, brittle with tension.

“Why did you go to her?” Scarlett shouted.

“Because she has the answers we need!” Damien fired back. “You think this is just about revenge?”

Her laugh was jagged. “Don’t pretend this is noble. You went to her because you can’t let her go.”

And then she said the line that twisted something deep inside me.

“I hate her, Damien. I hate what she does to you. I hate that when you touch me, it feels like you’re thinking of her.”

I sat there, numb.

My daughter hated me.

And Damien… he didn’t deny it.

He just whispered, “It’s not that simple.”

I paused the video, heart hammering. My hands shook as I reached for my lighter, the small flame flickering against the dark. I should destroy the files, burn everything and walk away.

But I couldn’t.

Because beneath the jealousy, beneath the bitterness, there was something far uglier — the fear that maybe I had already lost the war long before it began.

The war between us wasn’t about power anymore. It was about love.

And love was the one battlefield I never learned how to win.

I closed the laptop and rose, walking to the mirror. My reflection stared back, pale and composed, but I could see the cracks. The mask was slipping.

Scarlett had my eyes. My fire. My defiance.

And now, she had Damien’s loyalty.

I touched the edge of the mirror, whispering to the ghost of my own reflection.

“She thinks she can take everything from me.”

A soft laugh escaped me, broken, brittle.

“She has no idea who she’s dealing with.”

The phone rang again. This time, I didn’t hesitate.

“Damien,” I said.

“You shouldn’t have hung up.” His tone was clipped, but there was something underneath it. Concern, maybe. Guilt.

“You shouldn’t have called,” I replied.

“I had to. Scarlett’s gone.”

The words froze me in place.

“What?”

“She left after we argued,” he said. “She took your files. She’s going after Kade’s old associates alone.”

My stomach dropped. “That idiot.”

“She’s not thinking clearly,” Damien said, voice tight. “If Kade’s people find her first—”

“They won’t,” I cut in. “Send me the location.”

“Maria—”

“Send it!”

He did. And for one brief, blinding moment, the old fire burned back to life. The same fire that had carried me through every deal, every betrayal, every blood-soaked night.

If Scarlett wanted to play the game I taught her, then she was about to learn how deadly the rules could be.

By the time I reached the car, the rain had turned to a storm. My reflection in the windshield looked nothing like a mother.

It looked like a woman going to war.

Against her daughter.
For her lover.
For the life she refused to lose.

And as I drove into the night, thunder rumbling overhead, I whispered to myself a vow, a curse, and a confession all in one.

> “The things we do for love… they never let us go.”