The odor of the shooting remained the same despite the rain. Rather, it turned road dirt into a black grease that clung to the tires of the SUV.
Elara didn't see the attorney she had been for the last ten years as she gazed outside the window.
She appeared hard and empty; the woman who defended clients in London courts.
The chilly Beretta on her backside was all she could think about, even though her black wool coat was worth a fortune.
Elara didn’t recognize the attorney she’d been for the last ten years as she stared out the rain-streaked window.
“Donna Elara, five minutes out,” the driver said. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Marco. Twenty years old looking terrified.
“Don’t call me that, Marco,” she hissed. Her voice came out sharp, razored. “I told you. It’s just Elara.”
He swallowed, eyes flicking to the rearview. “With all respect, ma’am… there is no ‘just Elara’ anymore. Not after last night.”
She didn’t argue. He was right.
“After last night, the only name this city knows is Valenti,” Marco added, quieter now.
Last night was turned into a massacre by The Volkov Bratva. Twelve senior Valenti council members, men she had grown up calling ‘uncles’ gunned down in thirty seconds.
Now, in a privileged wing of a hospital that the family practically owned, her father, the Great Lion, was hooked up to a ventilator, his brain activity a flat, mocking line.
The SUV entered the Valenti estate through wrought-iron gates. The mansion's limestone walls towered over the mist, resembling a tomb more than a house. The grounds were typically immaculately maintained. With their long rifles pressed close to their chests, hundreds of troops stood guard today, their boots turning the grass into muck.
The moment the door opened, the smell hit her: expensive cigars and cheap fear.
Elara stepped out, her heels clicking against the wet pavement with the rhythmic precision of a ticking clock. She didn't wait for Marco to lead the way.
She knew every inch of this house. She knew which floorboards creaked and which paintings hid wall safes.
As she crossed the threshold into the grand foyer, the silence was deafening. Groups of men, some bloodied, all haggard, stood in clusters. They stopped talking the moment they saw her. They looked at her with a mixture of hope and deep, seething resentment. To them, she was the girl who ran away to play at being a saint while they stayed in the trenches.
She headed straight for the library. It was there that the war was managed.
"She’s here," a growling voice said as she pulled open the huge oak doors.
The room was filled with blue smoke. Four guys stood around the mahogany table that had formerly belonged to her grandfather. These were the survivors, the lower-level capos who had been too unimportant to be present at the event that deteriorated into violence. Initially, they were the leaders by default.
When Elara noticed a figure in the corner, standing in the shadows that the firelight was unable to reach, her heart skipped a beat.
Julian, He had the same appearance, but he was completely different. His face was harder, and his shoulders were wider. His eyebrow bore a jagged scar, a memento from a decade she had not spent with him. He remained stagnant.
He was not grinning. With those stormy, sea-grey eyes that seemed to see right through her silk blouse to the weapon concealed beneath, he simply observed her.
“Elara,” Silvio said. He’d put on weight thanks to Valenti kickbacks, and he didn’t bother standing. “We didn’t think you’d show. London’s a long way from a war zone.”
Elara crossed to her father’s chair at the head of the table and dragged it out. Wood screeched against marble. The room went dead quiet.
She sat. Folded her hands.
“My father’s dying,” she said. Voice steady. Flat. “The council’s gone. And I’m hearing the Bratva already took the docks. So tell me, Silvio — why are you sitting in the dark, smoking, waiting for Viktor Volkov to come light your cigars for you?”
Silvio laughed. Wet. Ugly. “Listen to the little lawyer. Think passing the bar means you know how to handle Russians? This ain’t a classroom, sweetheart. This is blood. We’re already talking about surrender terms.”
The word hung there. Surrender. Like a bad smell.
“Surrender?” Elara leaned in. She didn’t look at Silvio. She looked at Julian. He hadn’t moved, hand resting loose on the knife at his belt. “You give up and you lose more than the business. You lose your lives. Viktor Volkov doesn’t take prisoners. He takes trophies.”
“We don’t have a choice!” Silvio’s palm slammed the table. The crystal decanter jumped. “The vaults are empty! The soldiers are spooked! We don’t have a boss. Your dad is in a vegetable state, Elara. We cut our losses and run while we still got our heads.”
Julian finally spoke. Quiet. “Is that what you want, Silvio? To run?”
“Better running than dead,” a younger guy near the door muttered.
Elara’s eyes didn’t leave Julian. “And you? Are you running too?”
Julian’s jaw tightened. “I’m waiting to see if we’ve got someone worth bleeding for.”
She stood. The chair scraped again. “Then look at me,” she said. “Because I’m not running. And I’m not surrendering.”
Cold settled into Elara’s bones. This was it, the point of no return, walk out now, and she could have London, safe, boring, long, and her father would be dead by morning.
“The vaults aren’t empty,” Elara said. Quiet.
“Don’t lie to me, girl. I know the books,” Silvio snapped.
“You know the books my father let you see,” she said. “You’ve been skimming five percent off the construction contracts for three years. Did you think he didn’t know?”
Silvio froze. Three other capos at the table turned on him, eyes narrowing.
“I’ve got the offshore ledgers,” Elara went on. Her voice sharpened, went predatory. “I’ve got the keys to Zurich. You stay, you fight, that money rearms your men and keeps your families breathing. You run? I freeze every cent you’ve ever touched. You’ll be broke and hunted by Russians before sunrise.”
“You little bitch,” Silvio hissed. He shot to his feet, hand diving for his jacket.
He was fast. Julian was a ghost.
Before Silvio’s fingers cleared his lapel, Julian was behind him. One hand drove Silvio’s face into the mahogany with a wet crack. The other put a serrated blade against his throat.
The room detonated. Chairs scraped. Guns came up. Then they saw Julian’s eyes.
No anger. Nothing. Just a terrifying, empty calm.
“Sit. Down,” Julian said. First time he’d spoken. Low. A growl that vibrated in Elara’s spine and made obedience feel like gravity.
The men sat. Slowly.
“Good,” Elara said, not looking at Silvio. “Now. Who else thinks surrender sounds smart?”
Nobody answered.
Julian didn’t move the knife. “She asked you a question.”
Julian looked at Elara, waiting for a command. This was the man who had been her first love, the man who had promised to protect her before she fled.
Now, he was a monster, and she was the one holding the leash.
"Let him up, Julian," Elara said.
Julian released Silvio, who slumped back into his chair, blood dripping from his broken nose onto his white shirt.
"As of this moment," Elara said, standing up and towering over the broken men, "I am the acting boss of the Valenti family.
There will be no surrender, there will be no negotiations. We are going to find what the Russians took, and we are going to take it back with interest."
She walked toward the window, looking out at the rain. "Julian, stay. The rest of you, get out and start counting the men we have left. If anyone even thinks about leaving the city, kill them."
The capos filed out, casting glares at her, but none dared to speak.
The door clicked shut, leaving Elara alone with the man who was her only ally and her greatest danger.
Julian stepped out of the shadows. He walked towards her, stopping just inches away. She could smell the rain and the metallic tang of blood on him.
"You shouldn't have come back, Elara," he whispered.
"I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice. You just made the one that’s going to get you killed."
He reached out, his gloved hand hovering near her throat before dropping to his side. "The Russians aren't your biggest problem. Your father’s 'friends' are already circling. And I can't protect you from everyone."
Elara looked up at him, her eyes hard. "I don't need a bodyguard, Julian. "I need an executioner. Are you still that man? A flash of something—guilt? Hesitation? —crossed Julian’s face before his mask of stone returned.
He was thinking of the wire hidden in his watch, the federal handlers waiting for his report, and the fact that he was currently looking at the woman he was supposed to put in a cage. The library window's hefty glass suddenly broke. Elara was hit by a high-caliber bullet that whizzed past her ear and lodged in the oak bookcase behind her. Julian didn't think twice.
A second gun rang out as he tackled her to the ground, his heavy body protecting hers.
The alarm started to go off all throughout the estate. Julian growled in her ear, "The Russians are here," his heart pounding into her chest. Elara's knuckles were white as she clutched his arm.
The princess had passed away, and the attorney had vanished."Let them come," she muttered. "I'm not leaving until the city is ashes.”
