Alya
The words barely registered before the panic took hold. Cold and vicious. Hule was alive. That should've been enough to ease the pressure in my chest, but instead it made everything worse. If Hule had escaped, and I was still here—alone—then the truth was as clear as daylight. Siege hadn't come for me.
It wasn't just about Hule anymore. It wasn't just about the fight for survival, the lies, or the threats. It was about the silence. The same silence that I had known my entire life. Siege had never cared about me, had never once given any indication that I mattered more than his thirst for power, more than whatever his twisted vision of loyalty was. It was all just noise—empty gestures, hollow words, a way to keep me close when it suited him and distant when it didn't. I had always been a part of the plan, never the priority. And now, at this moment, it was finally clear. Siege never intended to save me. Siege wasn't going to come. And suddenly, I hated myself for believing it, for clinging to that foolish hope for so long. It wasn't just Siege that had abandoned me. It was my entire life. The weight of that truth crashed over me like a tidal wave. Siege had only cared about Hule. Not his daughter. Not me. Not the one who had always stood in the background, invisible in his eyes. A part of me had always known this, had always suspected it but hearing it now, in the cold, cruel reality of it all, made it final.
The truth was brutal. I was alone. My chest tightened, my breath shallow, and I could feel the ache in my bones. The kind that had been there for years. The emptiness. The endless cycle of reaching for someone who would never reach back. What did it mean, then? If he could leave me, just like that, what was I even fighting for anymore? A ghost clinging to someone else's war.
I had been a fool. In the end, Hule was the son he could never have, and I was the daughter he never wanted.
A soft tremble rattled the glass on the nightstand. At first, I thought it was nothing, just my own unsteady hand brushing against it, maybe the lingering effects of adrenaline, exhaustion, or everything in between. But then came the second shiver. Stronger this time. Deliberate. Like the house itself had taken a breath. Then another sound. Distant. Muffled. A thud that rolled beneath the floorboards.It didn't sound like a door closing. It didn't sound like footsteps or staff. It sounded like something forced open. Like something broken.
I tried to push myself upright, wincing as pain twisted through my ribs like a blade. Every movement felt heavier than it should. My body didn't want to listen anymore. I wasn't sure if it was the bruises or just the weight of everything. Maybe both. Another tremor, closer now. Then shouts. Orders. Urgent. Sharp. Wrong.
Russian.
My blood ran cold.
They were speaking Russian.
My first instinct was denial. There was no way. That language didn't belong here. Not in Carrizo's estate. Not inside these perfectly constructed halls built on arrogance and legacy.
I sat up fast, ignoring the pain that lanced through my ribs. The ache I had learned to live with was nothing compared to the sudden dread icing my veins. This wasn't a raid. This was a siege.
My father's men.
My stomach turned, nausea rising up like bile as the walls of the room closed in. Of course. Of course he sent them. My father. The man who left me to rot behind Carrizo's walls.
Footsteps thundered toward the room. My head spun to it, expecting salvation but it was James who burst through the door. His eyes were wild, gun half-raised, scanning the room, eyes falling on the other person in the room.
"Fleory!" he shouted, not even glancing at me. I felt something inside me snap, silent and clean. Like a string pulled too tight for too long. My throat ached, but I said nothing. Not a single damn word. Because it didn't matter. None of it ever did.
The world tilted again as I pushed myself off the bed, my hand pressing against my temple to stop the spinning, stepping past him without looking back, my body screaming at me to sit down, to lie down, to stop moving. But I couldn't. I wouldn't. Might as well get it over with.
I limped into the hallway as smoke drifted through the broken windows. The walls were scorched. The air tasted like copper and cordite. My vision dimmed at the edges, flickering like a dying bulb. It all felt unreal—too vivid and too distant all at once.
The enemy, the ones I had called my own at one point, rounded the corner. I once believed they'd protect me. But when they saw me, they didn't hesitate. Pistols raised in perfect, brutal synchrony. Not even a flicker of recognition in their eyes.
I didn't run. I didn't scream.
This was it, then. The grand finale to a story that was never mine. I closed my eyes.
Took one last deep breath. But before the bullets hit, a hand caught my arm and ripped me backward, hard, back into the room.