She ordered me and my little girl out of “her house” on Christmas night, never realizing that her son owned the deed and was about to give her 30 days to leave.

I kept my boot planted on the operative’s throat. His breath wheezed in ragged gasps.

“Who is your master?” I demanded, pressing the steel barrel harder into his forehead until the skin indented. “Where were you taking her?”

The man spat blood onto the deck, grinning through red-stained teeth. “You’re too late… Countess. The Grand Inquisitor… Lord Malachar… he is already at the Imperial Basilica in Vienna. The conclave… has begun. If the child doesn’t arrive by midnight… the failsafe activates. The entire European sovereign bond market… will be collapsed at sunrise. Your empire… will rule over ash.”

Ethan walked over, carrying Lily with one arm, his expression reverting once more into pure, cold steel.

“Alistair,” Ethan said calmly. “Hand this creature to the Swiss federal black-ops unit. Make sure he lives long enough to spend the rest of his miserable life in an unmapped dungeon beneath the salt flats.

”

“Understood, Sire,” Alistair nodded.

Ethan turned to me, reaching out to wipe a streak of soot and blood from my cheek. “Clara. Vienna is three hundred miles away. The conclave convenes in four hours. If we don’t break the Obsidian Hand tonight, they will hunt our family to the ends of the earth.”

Chap 48

Midnight was forty minutes away when the private supersonic transport touched down at the private military tarmac outside Vienna.

The rain fell in sheets, reflecting the golden streetlights of the historic Austrian capital. But we weren’t here for sightseeing.

Lined up along the tarmac were six armored Maybach limousines bearing the diplomatic crests of the ancient European dynasties: the House of Bourbon, the House of Hohenzollern, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and three sovereign principalities that existed outside of modern democratic records.

Alistair opened the aircraft’s door. Waiting at the bottom of the ramp was an elderly gentleman with silver hair, an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, and a cane adorned with a golden lion’s head: Duke Christian of Bavaria.

“Prince Ethan,” the Duke said, bowing deeply from the waist—a gesture not seen in standard politics for over a century. “The Seven Crowns have answered your summons. But the situation is catastrophic. Lord Malachar has seized the Grand Basilica of Saint Stephen. He has sixty armed zealots inside and holds the historic ledger of the Grand Sovereign Treaty. He claims the Vance-Montclair bloodline has failed and is preparing to enact the Obsidian Protocol.”

“The Obsidian Protocol?” I asked, stepping down the ramp beside Ethan, wearing an elegant, bulletproof velvet evening cloak over my tactical gear.

Lily was safe inside the heavily guarded fortress cabin of our transport, guarded by twelve of Alistair’s most trusted elite veterans.

“The total dissolution of Europe’s oldest private banking trusts,” Ethan answered, his voice dark and commanding. “A coordinated release of financial panic that would plunge twenty nations into instantaneous depression, allowing the Obsidian Hand to purchase half the continent’s infrastructure for pennies on the dollar.”

Duke Christian looked at me, his eyes widening as he noticed the antique silver signet ring I now wore—the signet of the House of Montclair, recovered from Leopold’s safe.

“By God,” the old Duke whispered, dropping to one knee before me on the wet asphalt. “The Lilies of Montclair. The bloodline lives.”

“Get up, Duke,” I said firmly, my voice echoing over the thunder.

“We don’t have time for royal theater. Is the Basilica surrounded?”

Chap 49

The historic center of Vienna was ghostly silent. Fog rolled off the Danube, swirling around the Gothic spires of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.

Through the heavy wrought-iron gates, the massive carved stone entrance of the cathedral loomed like the entrance to the underworld. Inside, behind the stained glass windows, hundreds of beeswax candles cast flickering, blood-red shadows onto the street.

Ethan and I walked side by side down the deserted stone plaza, completely alone. Behind us, hidden in the shadows of the surrounding baroque palaces, three tactical strike teams waited for our signal.

As we reached the stone steps, the heavy oak doors groaned open.

Standing in the vestibule were four men clad in ceremonial black robes over modern body armor, their faces obscured by polished obsidian masks. Each held an automatic shotgun lowered at their hips.

“The Prince of Vance and the Lost Daughter of Montclair,” a voice echoed from the depths of the nave. “Enter. The Court of the Obsidian Hand welcomes its rightful sacrifices.”

Ethan took my hand. We stepped across the threshold. The heavy doors slammed shut behind us with the finality of a crypt, locking with the heavy mechanical thud of magnetic deadbolts.

The grand nave stretched before us, an awe-inspiring cavern of ribbed stone arches and vaulted ceilings dating back to the fourteenth century. But the holy sanctity of the place had been desecrated.