Chapter Hundred-One – Fugitive Royals

Chapter Hundred-One – Fugitive Royals


Bianca didn’t answer immediately. “They break people,” she said. “They train them. They brand them. Geneva may not be the child you remember. She’s been shaped into a tool.”

Giulia swallowed. “If she’s been trained to hate us—”

“Then our first job is to get her away from them,” Bianca cut in. “We will not give them the satisfaction of watching you run in blind.”

Giulia shouldered her bag. “I don’t want help. I want Geneva.”

“You wanted this,” Bianca said. “You wanted the truth.”

Giulia said nothing. She thought of every year she had slept with the blank space of a missing twin in her mind. She thought of vows and threats, of memories that had no counterpart. She thought of the way Lucian had used a necklace like a taunt.

They took a cab to a small safe apartment Bianca had rented for the trip. Inside, the drive sat on a low table. Bianca pressed play. The clip was short. Grainy. A woman walking a perimeter, glancing at something off-screen, scar visible along her jaw. She paused and ran a hand over her neck. The camera tracked her face for a second longer than necessary.

Giulia watched until she could barely see anything else. “Where did they get this?” she whispered.

“Someone inside sold it,” Bianca said. “A handler. A low-level guy who thought he could make a quick coin. He didn’t know what he had. Or he didn’t care.”

Giulia stood and paced. “We go tonight. We find that warehouse and we pull her out.”

Bianca watched her. There was a small, almost imperceptible softening at the corner of her mouth. “We move with care. If they’ve trained her to kill the Delucas on sight, then brute force will get us killed.”

Giulia stopped. “You always have a plan.”

“Not always,” Bianca said. “But I have a way to buy time.”

She picked up the list of names. “We’ll set a small diversion. Draw guards. Get in and out. If Geneva resists, we pull back. No heroics.”

Giulia’s jaw worked. She wanted to argue, to rush, to charge into fire and tear Geneva from where she sat. Instead she breathed in and out, steadying herself. “Then we move on your terms.”

They spent the next hours prepping. Bianca called contacts, bribed drivers, secured a small crew who’d worked for her before. Giulia wrapped her knuckles, checked the clip in the drive one more time, then shoved it into her pocket. She kept it close like proof that the woman with the scar was real.

Outside, the city moved on in the usual way — people in coats with umbrellas, cabs honking, life that ignored their grief and plans. Inside the apartment, two women who had lived with the same wound paced toward the same door.

“Ready?” Bianca asked.

Giulia nodded. “I’m ready.”

They left without fanfare. The drive to the warehouse was quiet. Neither of them said anything more than necessary. Focus had replaced fury for the moment. They had a name, a place, and a short clip. They had a plan that might work.

And they had, finally, proof that Geneva was not a ghost. She had a face. A name. A cost. The only question left was whether they could bring her back from what she had become.

The safehouse was small, quiet, and hidden. Dante checked the locks twice before sitting down.

Isabella dropped her bag on the chair. “We’ve changed places three times in a week. How long do we stay here?”

“As long as it takes,” he said, his voice flat.

She stared at him. “You said that at the last place.”

He ignored her, searching through a pile of weapons. “No signal, no visitors, no windows open. That’s how we stay alive.”

“Alive isn’t the same as living,” she said quietly.

Dante looked up. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything,” she replied. “I just don’t like hiding like rats.”

He exhaled and sat down. “You think I like it? You think I enjoy running?”

“Then stop acting like it’s all my fault!” she snapped.

He went silent. For a while, only the ticking wall clock filled the room.

She sighed and sat across from him. “Look, I know you’re angry. But this isn’t forever. It can’t be.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I used to give orders, Isabella. People listened. Now I’m hiding in someone else’s basement eating canned soup.”

She tried not to laugh. “You hate the soup that much?”

He looked up, surprised. “It tastes like metal.”

That broke the tension. She smiled. “You used to eat worse when you were training.”

“Yeah, but that was by choice,” he muttered, shaking his head.

A small pause followed before Isabella spoke again, softer this time. “If we survive this, promise me something.”

“What?”

“That you’ll stop living just to fight. The throne doesn’t make you who you are, Dante. You do.”

He looked at her for a long moment, his jaw tight. “You think I can forget everything that’s been taken from me?”

“No,” she said. “But you can stop letting it control you.”

He leaned back. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Not on you,” she replied.

The silence this time wasn’t awkward. It was calmer. Dante stood up, grabbed his jacket, and walked toward the window.

“Place looks peaceful,” he said.

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “Almost too peaceful.”

He turned. “You think they’ll find us?”

“They always do.”

He nodded once. “Then we’ll be ready.”

She started unpacking. “How many safehouses do we even have left?”

“Three. Maybe two,” he said, pulling a pistol from his bag and checking the chamber. “Depends who’s still loyal.”

She frowned. “You trust anyone?”

“I trust you.”

Her eyes softened, but before she could answer, a sound outside caught their attention — tires on gravel. Dante froze.

“Stay quiet,” he whispered.

They both moved to the window. A black SUV rolled past slowly, headlights dimmed. It stopped for a moment, then drove off.

Isabella’s voice was barely audible. “Scouts?”

“Maybe. Or worse,” Dante said. “Pack what you need.”

“Now?”

“Yes. If they’re tracking movement, we can’t stay.”

She shoved her few clothes into a bag while Dante cleared the table of anything with prints.

“Do you ever get tired of this?” she asked as she zipped up the bag.

“Every damn day,” he said.

“But you’d still do it again.”

He didn’t answer.

She shook her head. “You’re impossible.”

He gave a short laugh. “And you talk too much.”

“Someone has to. You’d go crazy in silence.”

He checked his gun again. “Already am.”