Chapter 82 Locket’s Echo
CHAPTER EIGHTY TWO
Rosanna’s POV~
I was in the study when Valenticia’s feed came from my monitor. Galden Exposed danced on the screen. She had called Ravi Patel by name, linked Lazareth inextricably to the illegal serum trade, and shaken Gregor’s empire to its foundation.
I could feel it in my chest — a gradual, creeping terror. Gregor would come for us now. He had always been brutal, but Valenticia’s defiance would lose something much worse from him. I’d seen that rage once, during Eleanor’s time. I had lived beneath it. And now, it was rising again.
I fisted the locket around my neck—Eleanor’s locket—its warm silver rose coin burning beneath my hand. It was Eleanor's gift to her now, parent to child, a sign of lineage. But it was more than that. It held something deeper.
“That’s your mom’s final gift,” I whispered to Valenticia over the secure line. “It has another chip inside — encrypted information.”
There was a crackling gasp in my earpiece. “What’s in it, Nana?”
My heart swelled. She is Eleanor’s daughter, in every sense of the word. “She had faith in you,” I said to her, swallowing down the lump mounting in my throat. “You’re her legacy.”
I pulled out Eleanor’s old journal with the soft leather cover. Her handwriting covered the pages, neat and fierce. Save our light, Rosanna. I read the sentence to Valenticia. “Save our light,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’re that child.”
“I’ll fight, Nana,” she replied. And I believed her. The fear raked me again, the feed playing the drones cutting their way through Seryne, red lights blinking. He was moving on us. Our allies. Our safehouses. He was after her — after all of us.
A flash of memory came back—Eleanor ’99 standing before Gregor on that Galden plateau, her voice steady as she took him to task. “Your serum’s poison!”
She’d been a flame amid shadows. She had nearly undone him. And so he had silenced her. I had wondered all the time if I let her down. But Valenticia—Valenticia was braver. Louder. Unrelenting.
I popped open the locket, where I found the second chip hidden under the silver coin. With trembling fingers, I slotted it into the secure console beside me. The screen flickered. A list began to load. Buyer codes. Hidden accounts. Partial names. Gregor’s web. But the data was locked. Encrypted. Incomplete. The faces were missing. No mechanism to link them to actual people. Just to understand the depth of the rot. Who was funding him?
My heart dropped. It wasn’t enough. We needed more. “Chip has buyer codes.” I texted Valenticia. Locked. But it’s a start.”
Her reply came instantly. “I’ll crack it.” Her resolve rekindled something in me. Stefan’s betrayal still stung — the image of his face next to Natasha’s at the cafe was still seared into my brain. I had trusted him. Thought those warm eyes wouldn’t tell a lie. And yet he had. Or had he? Was he forced? The thought gnawed at me.
I contacted Marcus, Lena, and Patel through secure comms. “Safehouses on alert. Gregor’s drones are operational.” Their responses were clipped, tense. Fear pervaded each of the notes, as it hovered in the pauses.
Can we hold?
Eleanor’s journal was before me, and her words seemed to glow on the page like a promise. I clutched it in my hand, letting the ink she’d left behind give me courage. A new scrolling feed lit up my screen, a live shot from the Serynian docks. Valenticia was there, striking. Flames filled the night, as behind her, Lazareth's crates went up in flames. There was something bright and ugly filling my chest. Pride, mingled with terror.
“She’s doing it,” I whispered. But Gregor would not let this go. I tapped the comms again. “I am the heart of Eleanor, child. Be sharp now.”
“I am trying, Nana,” she replied, breaking over the line. And like that, I felt her strength inside me. I imagined Eleanor clutching her files, standing in front of Gregor’s board, and heard her voice cutting through their cowardice. Now, Valenticia was standing in that very battlefield. She would make her proud. But then, the storm shifted. Raptor reported back there was Safehouse Beta had been hit by a predator drone. I listened to the Captain’s voice on the comm, panic in his words.
“We’re scattered!” My heart dropped. Are we exposed? I turned back to the data. Code streamed on-screen. My gaze focused on a new term hidden within the encryption. A defector. Hidden among Gregor’s ranks. A traitor to him. Hope surged—an insider? A lifeline? But the file was locked inside layers of code we couldn’t break. Not yet. I fired off a little note: “Chip says a defector. Working on it.”
Valenticia had an immediate reply: “Find them, Nana.” But Gregor’s drones were starting to buzz louder. The screen painted them a-buzz, red eyes flashing, all converging on Seryne. They were closing in. He was getting too close. I gripped Eleanor’s journal. Her words — Protect our light — echoed like mantras through my ears. I got in touch with our few remaining allies. “Regroup at Delta.”
Still, I had my doubts we could outrun him. The walls of the estate closed in as the storm outside grew fierce. Stefan’s picture haunted me. I still had no idea if I’d read him wrong. Had he truly betrayed us? Or by doubting had I betrayed him? We had damning information; the evidence we had was incriminating, if it wasn’t a code. But the suggestion of a defector was a slender thread of hope we couldn’t just ignore.
Who were they?
My fingers flew over the console, hacking further, pushing more. The encryption fought back. So did my fear. Gregor’s rage was coming. I felt it in my bones. Valenticia's voice boomed through the streets again - Traitor Exposed, previously recorded, now playing live, as fine a declaration as any fanfare from a rooftop bugle. She was shaking Gregor’s world. And I had promised to defend her. Even if she had to risk him once more. Even if everything was burned to the ground.