Along the central aisle, thirty masked members of the Obsidian syndicate sat in silence in the wooden pews, wearing signets of black stone. At the high altar stood an elevated dais draped in black silk.

Standing atop the dais was Lord Malachar.

He was an imposing figure in his late sixties, with snow-white hair, sharp aristocratic features, and cold, calculating eyes that looked as though they had never once registered human compassion. In his hands, he held an ancient, gold-bound tome: the Sovereign Ledger of the Treaty of 1792.

“Ethan Vance,” Malachar’s voice rang through the vaulted nave like a funeral bell. “You fought well in the Alps. You survived our extraction team. But your presence here changes nothing. You are two people against an order that has outlasted empires.

”

“We are not here to negotiate, Malachar,” Ethan said, taking three slow, deliberate paces forward, his hand resting near his lapel. “You targeted my daughter. You used my mother’s wretched greed to wage war on my household. You have reached the end of your lineage.”

Malachar laughed—a cold, dry sound that echoed off the stone saints.

“Your mother?” Malachar sneered. “Patricia Vance was a worm. Did you honestly believe we needed her? We planted her in your life from the day your father died. She was our creature, Ethan. Her endless abuse, her cruelty, her hatred toward your common life—it was all designed by this council to break your spirit so you would never ascend to the throne!”

Chap 50

Malachar’s gaze locked onto me, his lips curling into an arrogant sneer.



“Ah, the watchmaker’s granddaughter,” Malachar purred. “You carry the royal blood of Montclair, yet you were raised washing dishes and clipping coupons in an American suburb. You think putting on a signet ring makes you a queen? You don’t have the stomach for the blood this empire requires.”

“Try me,” I said, stepping level with Ethan.

Malachar raised the golden ledger. “This book requires the physical thumbprint and genetic verification of both the Vance Sovereign and the Montclair Regent to seal the total liquidation of Europe’s sovereign reserves. I have already drafted the decree. Once your blood touches this altar, the Obsidian Hand will assume control over eighty percent of the continent’s central bank assets.”

“And if we refuse?” Ethan challenged, his voice dripping with venom.

Malachar’s smile vanished. He raised his left hand,

and from behind the high altar’s marble pillars, two mercenaries dragged out a bound, sobbing figure in an orange prison jumpsuit.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was Patricia.

Her once-perfect salon-styled hair was a wild, matted mess. Her face was bruised, her designer clothes replaced by the coarse fabric of a federal detainee. When she saw Ethan, she let out a pathetic, hysterical wail.

“Ethan! Oh God, Ethan, help me!” Patricia shrieked, tears and mascara running down her wrinkled cheeks. “They took me from the transfer van! They told me they were going to kill me! Tell them who I am, Ethan! I’m your mother! Tell them to let me go!”

Ethan stared at her. His eyes were utterly blank, devoid of pity, devoid of hatred—only pure,

absolute emptiness.

“You traded Lily’s location for your freedom,” Ethan said, his voice flat.

“I didn’t mean to!” Patricia sobbed frantically, crawling toward him on her knees until a guard yanked her back by her chain. “Julian told me they were just going to hold her for ransom! I needed the money, Ethan! You took everything from me! You took my house! You gave me thirty days to leave! I built that life! You owe me!”

Even now, kneeling on the cold stone of a desecrated cathedral with a gun to her back, her narcissistic delusion remained unbroken.

Chap 51

Silence hung in the Grand Basilica so thick it was suffocating.

Patricia looked up at Ethan, her eyes wide with frantic, begging desperation. “Ethan, please! I’m your mother! You can’t let them kill me! Clara, tell him! You’re a mother too!”

I looked at the woman who had slapped me three times at Christmas dinner. The woman who had sneered at my tears, who had called my innocent child “trash,” who had evicted us into a winter blizzard, and who had ultimately sold her own granddaughter to a syndicate of ruthless butchers.

“You gave me thirty days to leave,” I whispered, my voice echoing off the stone walls. “And you traded my daughter for thirty pieces of silver.”

Ethan didn’t flinch. He slowly raised his right hand and tapped his earpiece.

“Execute Protocol Alpha,” Ethan whispered.

Above us, the massive stained-glass rose window detonated inward in an apocalyptic shower of colored crystal!

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