Chapter 12 Senator’s Shadow

Chapter 12 Senator’s Shadow
“Senator, the seal on your pen looks quite dated. Doesn’t that invite bad luck?”
Senator Silas froze, his hand mid-stroke as he signed an ‘Eviction Order’ atop the marble table. He turned toward me slowly, the gold fountain pen held tightly between his fingers. The jade stone at the cap of the pen shimmered under the chandelier—the Valderama family seal, stolen from my father.
“You have sharp eyes for a shadow, girl,” Silas chuckled, his voice as oily as I remembered. He tucked the pen into his breast pocket, right over his black heart. “This pen has signed the future of this city. It’s not bad luck. It’s the fortune of the victors.”
I remained standing in the dim light of the VIP lounge, my silver mask feeling as cold as my own skin. Every laugh he let out felt like a claw scratching at the inside of my skull.
“Victors?” I repeated, taking a step forward until the light caught my face. “Or thieves?”
Silas stared at me, his smile slowly curdling. “Madame Viveca should teach her girls better manners. For a Rank 13, you have a very reckless tongue.”
He didn’t recognize me. Behind this mask and this obsidian gown, I was just another piece of meat owned by the Sanctum. But in my mind, the memories began to detonate like bombs.

FLASHBACK
The scent of expensive champagne at the gala suddenly vanished, replaced by the smell of vanilla cake and freshly mown grass.
I was fourteen. My father’s 50th birthday party was at its peak. I remembered Silas standing on a chair, raising his glass. “To Roberto!” he shouted, his arm draped around my father. “The brother I never had. May your empire last a thousand years!”
Only an hour later, our mansion was flooded with the blue and red lights of police cruisers. I stood in the foyer, confused, clutching the hem of my party dress. Silas approached me. He wasn’t running; he wasn’t scared. He looked calm—too calm for a friend watching his ‘brother’ get arrested.
In his hand was a small, brown teddy bear with a red ribbon. “Don’t cry, Margo,” he whispered, his voice soft and patronizing as he handed me the toy. Behind him, I saw four officers dragging my father away. Silas didn’t look away. He watched with a satisfied glint in his eyes while stroking my head. It was the touch of a man who hadn’t just won a war—it was the touch of a man who had just claimed his prize. And that pen he was holding? It was the last thing he swiped from my father’s desk before the police forced us out.

PRESENT

“That pen…” I started, my voice dangerously low. “It belongs to a dead man, doesn’t it?”
Silas stepped closer, the stench of expensive cologne and old age hitting me. “Everything I hold now belongs to history, girl. If you’re smart, you’ll stop asking questions and start doing what Viveca sent you here for. Entertain me.”
He reached for my mask, his fingers like maggots crawling across my cheek. My hand twitched. I wanted to reach for the hidden blade in my thigh strap and drive it into his throat right here, in front of all his high-society friends.
“Eris, fall back. You’re overstepping,” Julian’s voice crackled in my earpiece. I could hear the tension in his breath. He was watching us from across the hall.
I didn’t move. Silas’s hand was now tracing the edge of my mask. “Tell me, what was your name before you became Rank 13? You have a fire in your eyes that I’ve seen once before.”
“My name doesn’t matter, Senator,” I whispered, leaning into his touch just enough to make him feel secure. “What matters is what’s written on that paper.”
I pointed to the ‘Eviction Order’ on the table. Silas smirked. “That? That is the final piece of land in the Southern Sector. One more signature, and it’s over. The Valderamas will truly be erased.”
I looked at his signature at the bottom of the order. It was large, arrogant, and final. Seeing that signature—the same hand that likely signed my father’s death warrant—turned my mission from a simple intelligence gathering into a blood vendetta.
“A beautiful signature,” I said, my fingers grazing his breast pocket where the gold pen sat. “May I… try it?”
Silas laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “For a protege? The ink is far too expensive for the likes of you.”
“Please, Senator. Just one word,” I purred, utilizing Class 2.2: Controlled Vulnerability. I looked at him with wide, pleading eyes.
He relented, mesmerized by the performance. He pulled the gold pen out and handed it to me. The moment the cold metal touched my palm, a jolt of electricity surged through my spine. This was my father’s. I could feel the microscopic scratches on the barrel he used to make when he was deep in thought.
I didn’t write on the order. Instead, I grabbed a napkin from the table and wrote one word: JADE.
I handed the pen back to him, along with the napkin.
Silas’s eyes widened as he read the word. His face turned from arrogant to ghostly pale in seconds. “Where… where did you hear that word?”
“It’s always been my favorite word, Senator,” I whispered. “They say Jade never truly dies. It only waits to be sharpened until it’s lethal.”
Before he could respond, I turned. I walked away with the poise of a Valderama, leaving him standing there, trembling, clutching the pen like a lifeline that was about to snap.
“Eris! Get out of there now!” Julian’s voice was no longer a command; it was a plea.
I didn’t head for the exit. I headed for the balcony, my blood boiling. I reached the stone railing and looked down at the gala. Silas was now frantically speaking to his security, pointing in my direction.
“He looted us, Julian,” I said into the earpiece, ignoring his orders. “He’s wearing my father’s life like a trophy.”
“I know,” Julian’s voice came from right behind me. He stepped out of the shadows, his expression grim. “I know he did. But if you kill him now, you won’t save Leo. Is that what you want? To satisfy your anger and lose your brother?”
I turned to Julian. The moonlight hit his gray eyes, and for the first time, I saw the crushing guilt he carried.
“Why are you helping me?” I challenged. “Is it your conscience? Or are you just afraid that if I get caught, you’ll go down with me?”
Julian stepped closer, his hand grabbing my waist to pull me deeper into the shadows, out of the security’s line of sight. “Because I refuse to watch you die in front of me a second time, Margo.”
“It’s too late for that, Julian,” I said, my voice cracking. “The Margo you knew is dead. The person standing here now is Silas’s executioner.”
“Then be a smart executioner,” Julian hissed, his grip tightening. “Let him be paranoid. Let the word ‘Jade’ haunt him tonight. That is more painful than a quick blade.”
I looked down at the gold pen in Silas’s hand as his guards led him away. He looked haunted. He looked like a man who had just seen a ghost.
Good.
Let him look over his shoulder. Let him wonder which shadow in his mansion has eyes. Because tonight, I didn’t just shadow him.
I marked him.
And as long as he’s holding that pen, he’s holding his own death sentence.
“Target marked,” I said into the earpiece, my voice calm but lethal.
Julian let go of me, his eyes full of a pain I refused to acknowledge. I walked past him, my obsidian gown rustling like the wings of a crow. The gala was over for me. But for Senator Silas? The nightmare was just beginning.
I am no longer Rank 13. I am the shadow that will never leave him.
I am the Jade. And I’m back to claim what is mine.