Chapter 217 GRIEF.

Chapter 217 GRIEF.


AVERY’S POV:

I stared at the box. It looked elegant. Carefully chosen. Designed to confuse.

My gut said to burn it.

But curiosity was stronger than fear.

Grabbing a pen, I tore the lid open cautiously. Inside, perfectly nestled in a satin bed, was a heart-shaped bouquet of deep red roses. Thick petals. Almost too perfect. A small folded note rested in the center.

I picked it up and read:

“Every empire has its hour. Yours has struck midnight. The reign is over. Let the fall begin.”

My fingers gripped the paper tighter. My breath stayed locked in my chest.

I dropped the note and reached for the roses, something uneasy gnawing at my ribs. The moment I lifted the bouquet—

It fell from my hands.

Thorns weren’t what cut me.

It was what was underneath.

Ashley, not seeing what I saw, gasped. “Oh my God, those are gorgeous! Who would—”

“Don’t touch it!” I snapped, my voice loud and raw.

She stopped in her tracks, startled.

“Get out,” I said through my teeth. “Now, Ashley. Leave.”

She obeyed quickly, stammering as she shut the door behind her.

My hands were trembling now. I yanked out my phone and called the only person who would understand what this meant.

“Thaddeus,” I breathed. “My office. Now.”

He arrived in under a minute, already alert. “What happened?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just pointed to the box and stormed past him toward the restroom in the back of the office.

I collapsed in front of the sink, vomiting violently as everything I’d swallowed for days erupted from me.

Guilt. Grief. Fear.

Splashing cold water over my face, I gripped the counter, panting.

Baron.

No. It couldn’t be.

Tears slipped down without permission. He’d made me laugh even on days when everything felt like fire. That infuriating grin of his, the way he cracked dumb jokes just to lighten the mood. Always alert. Always reliable. He was rough around the edges but damn it, he was loyal.

And now...

Knock knock.

“Mrs. Blackwood?” Thaddeus’s voice came gently through the door. “Are you alright?”

I took a breath. Wiped my face. Stood tall.

When I stepped out, he straightened but his eyes were cautious.

“I’m fine,” I said quietly.

“What do we do?”

I didn’t answer.

I walked straight to the box, hands clenched at my sides.

“Remove the contents. Set it on my desk.”

“Are you sure, Mrs. Blackwood? You don’t have to—”

The look I gave him shut him up.

Thaddeus moved forward and began to peel back the inner layers. As he reached in, the silk and petals shifted, revealing what lay beneath.

A human head.

Baron’s.

Severed clean, eyes half-lidded in frozen horror. The once-vibrant skin had already dulled, with dried, crusted blood blackening the collar where his neck had been. His lips were parted slightly, as if about to make another stupid joke. His hair, disheveled and still soaked in blood, clung to his face like he’d fought ‘til the end.

The room was still.

Thaddeus looked away, jaw tight. But I didn’t.

I stared at Baron’s face until it blurred behind tears. I’d been warming up to him, hadn’t I? Letting my guard drop. Trusting him.

And now, because of my own decisions... because I put him in the line of fire… he was gone.

How many times had he saved me? Covered for Axel? Kept the gears turning when I couldn’t lift a finger?

I remembered the way he used to tease Serena until she’d huff and roll her eyes. The way he always volunteered first for the most dangerous tasks. The way he hummed old rock songs under his breath when we were deep in planning sessions.

And now this—this mutilated end.

I swallowed hard.

“Arrange a proper burial,” I said softly, eyes never leaving him. “Find out if he has family. I want full details. They will be compensated.”

Thaddeus nodded tightly. “Yes, Mrs. Blackwood.”

“Use every eye, every hand, every drop of blood we own. Find out who did this.”

“Of course.”

“Keep it quiet. No leaks. I want no pity, no public display. If he has loved ones, spare them the pain. Handle it with respect. But—”

I turned to him, my voice like steel.

“—Baron’s name should strike fear in anyone who hears it. And when we find whoever did this?”

I paused.

“I’m going to personally make sure they bleed for it.”



Baron’s funeral was private, just like he would’ve wanted it. No spectacle. No noise. Just the people who truly mattered, and the silence of a loyalty that ran deeper than blood.

It broke me.

He’d gotten married barely a year ago. Her name was Elise—a soft-spoken woman with kind eyes and a quiet grace. She stood there at the graveside, clutching a tiny blanket-wrapped bundle to her chest.

His daughter.

Two months old.

A beautiful baby girl with dimples that mirrored her father's, though she would never know the sound of his laugh or the way he always made a bad day tolerable with a ridiculous joke.

The moment I saw them, I couldn’t hold back.

I cried.

Harder than I ever thought.

There was just so much grief. Everyone wore black, eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

My men carried his coffin—six of them, stone-faced but shaking beneath the strain. Not from the weight of the wood, but from the reality of what they were laying to rest.

Loyalty. Brotherhood. A man who would’ve taken a bullet for any of them.

He did more than that.

He took mine.

We laid him to rest beneath a patch of trees upstate, where the wind could whisper through the branches and keep him company. I stayed long after the last shovel of dirt hit the coffin, watching as the ground swallowed the only man who never once asked for anything in return for his loyalty.

I found out Elise never knew the truth—just that he worked in “private security.” A noble lie. One meant to keep her safe.

So I did what he couldn’t do anymore.

I bought her a home in the north—remote, heavily secured, surrounded by green hills and quiet. A bulletproof SUV was parked in the driveway before she even arrived. And one hundred million dollars transferred into an account in her name.

A start. Because there was no price for what Baron gave me.

When it was over, I dismissed everyone.

"Go home," I told them. “Take the night.”

Thaddeus stepped in immediately. “Mrs. Blackwood, protocol says—”

“I said go home.”

He looked like he wanted to protest again, but he knew better than to cross me today. Not today.

I had one thing on my mind.

Sea.

I needed to see her. Her energy. Her warmth. The calm she carried when everything else burned.

I ordered the most discreet bulletproof car in our fleet. No flash, no flags. Just plain black steel with tinted windows and reinforced tires. I avoided major routes, weaving through old industrial roads and silent neighborhoods.

About thirty minutes away from Wilder’s, I noticed it.

A black SUV in my rearview.

Too clean. Too steady.

At first, I thought I was imagining it. But every time I made a turn, it followed.

Then I made a hard right at a quiet intersection—off route, unexpected.

It followed.

I hit the gas.

They did too.

I tapped the wheel, thinking. "Let’s see how bad you want it," I muttered under my breath.

The chase escalated fast. I darted through narrow backroads, swerving through traffic, trying to lose them. But they were relentless. Another car joined from a side alley—then another. This wasn’t random.

It was an ambush.

Bullets suddenly tore through the quiet.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

I ducked instinctively as glass spiderwebbed beside me, the bulletproof windows holding—for now.

And then I saw it.

A bulldozer.

What the hell—

They’d planned this.

It lurched from the left, trying to ram me off the road.

I swerved hard, tires screeching against gravel.

But I wasn’t fast enough.

Another SUV slammed into my side, forcing my car into a tailspin. I gripped the wheel, heart hammering, trying to correct the motion—but the ditch came fast.

A violent tumble.

Metal crunched. Glass shattered.

My body slammed into the restraints over and over, bones screaming with every jolt until—

CRASH.

Everything went black.

I don’t know how long I was out, but I came to the sound of groaning metal and approaching footsteps.

Then—glass shattering beside me.

Rough hands yanked the door open.

“Get her!” someone barked.

A hand fisted in my hair and dragged me violently out the window. My body scraped against broken metal as I was yanked through the frame.

I screamed—instinctively, reflexively—but it was cut short.

My head slammed into something hard.

And then nothing.

Just black.