Chapter 22
༨ ༣ 97%●
I had the route. The private garage. The window of time her driver always took a smoke break. No cameras. Clean job. I hired two guys from an old military contract, and they owed me enough to keep quiet.
Amelia never saw it coming.
They grabbed her mid–step. Chloroform. Duct tape. Quiet. Efficient.
We took her to the old estate–the one with the broken columns and the overgrown roses. The place we used to take wine and cigars and pretend we were gods.
Now it smelled like gasoline.
Caroline had gone full theatre. Amelia was tied to a thick wooden post like Joan of Arc. Four barrels around her, the scent choking the air. Her clothes were torn from the struggle, but her spine was still straight. Eyes full of fire even now. Even now.
Caroline walked toward her, barefoot, hair wild like a pagan priestess. She crouched beside Amelia, close enough to spit on her.
“You took my legacy,” she whispered, lips trembling. “Now I’ll take your skin. Let’s see how pretty you are when the fire kisses you.”
Amelia didn’t flinch.
I stood behind Caroline, bottle of bourbon still in my hand, watching it all unfold like it was someone else’s movie. Like this was just an ending we’d always been heading toward.
And maybe it was.
Because you can only push people so far before they stop trying to survive and start trying to end the story themselves.
And tonight? Tonight, we were the authors.
And this was her final chapter.
Or so we thought.
AMELIA’S POV
I woke up to the sound of something dripping.
At first, I thought it was rain. Some distant storm battering a cracked window. But no. It was slow, steady… too rhythmic to be weather. My blood, maybe. Or the leaky tap of madness.
My arms were tied to the chair–leather straps, not rope. Professional. Expensive. Favio always did like appearances, even in crime.
My head lolled for a second. My cheek was hot, pulsing where Caroline had slapped me so hard earlier I’d tasted blood. But I didn’t cry. I never cried. Not for them.
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Caroline stood a few feet away, cradling a baby monitor like some deranged nun. It was playing the heartbeat.
My baby’s heartbeat.
She’d pulled it from the hospital tapes. The ones no one was supposed to have access to, And she was playing it over and over and over like it was some cursed lullaby,
“You remember that sound?” she whispered, walking closer, tilting her head like a twisted porcelain doll. “You should. It was the only moment your child was ever alive.”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t flinch. I just stared her down like I was staring through her–because she was hollow now. A shell of her former self, coated in venom and desperation.
Favio stepped in from the side, holding my burnt blazer like it was a funeral flag.
“This?” he sneered, raising it up before tossing it into a tin bin and lighting a match. “This is just the beginning. Everything you built… everything you stole… we’re burning it down, Amelia.”
The flames danced, eating the fabric like it had been waiting to be consumed.
They brought out the documents next.
A thick stack of legal nightmares, handwritten and forged. My signature already scrawled at the bottom of the first page in someone’s crooked imitation.
Corporate share transfers. Public confessions. An NDA that’d erase me from the world. Legally dead. Conveniently suicidal. Tied up in a neat little bow so their broken dynasty could rise from my ashes.
Favio slammed the papers on the table in front of me.
“Sign it. Do it now. You want this to end? Sign your name and be done.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I barely even looked at the papers. Because I wasn’t there to
surrender–I was there to outlast.
Caroline snapped.
She grabbed a switchblade and dragged it across my forearm without warning. I hissed, breath catching, but I didn’t give her the pleasure of a scream.
Favio uncapped a bottle of vodka, poured it slow into the gash. It burned like acid, and my whole body arched against the straps as fire crawled under my skin.
“Sign the goddamn paper, Amelia!” he roared, veins bulging in his neck. “Sign it, and we stop. No more blood. No more games. Just a quiet little ending for all of us.”
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to laugh. A low, bitter thing. It scraped my throat.
Then I leaned forward, just enough for the blood to drip onto the corner of their papers.
“I’d rather sign my soul to the devil,” I whispered, my voice hoarse but sharp enough to cut.
I smiled then.
Slow. Unafraid. Defiant. “Oh wait-“I looked them both dead in the eyes. “-you already did
that Tanother”
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12:42 Tue, 24 Jun M.
that. Together.”
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Caroline went still. Her hand trembled. Favio looked like he wanted to tear me apart with his bare hands.
But I didn’t care.
Favio was pacing now, that bottle of whiskey practically glued to his hand. Sweat on his brow. His shirt, half unbuttoned, clung to him like regret.
“Alright, fuck it,” he muttered, his voice low, mean, broken in a way he didn’t want to admit “You wanna play games, Amelia? Let’s show the world what happens when you cross the Cunninghams.”
He turned toward me, pulling out his phone with a trembling hand. “We’ll livestream it. The whole goddamn thing. That what you want? Your blood on screen? You think your little empire survives that?”
I spat–hard. A red splatter hit the floor between us. Some of it stained his expensive shoes. I looked up at him, one eye nearly swollen shut, lip cracked wide open, and I still
smiled.
“Do it,” I said, voice raw and rasping. “Let the world see the cowards you really are.”
That was the last fuse for Caroline.
She screamed–high, shrill, unhinged–and lunged at me again. Her hand cracked across my face once, then again, and again. Her nails tore at my cheek like she wanted to rip off the skin.
“Why won’t you break, you bitch?!” she shrieked. “Why can’t you just fucking break?!”
I laughed.
