UNMASKED HEIRESS: THE BLOODLINE ABOVE ALL

The walk back down the grand staircase felt like descending into the bowels of hell. Smoke from the burning study billowed down the rotunda, curling around the crystal chandeliers. Down below in the foyer, the silence was unnatural.

Victoria supported Elena, guiding her down the steps until they reached the second-floor mezzanine. The estate was eerily still. There was no gunfire, no radio traffic, no sound of approaching sirens. Arthur Vane’s influence ensured that the local police wouldn't respond to this district for hours.

Victoria deposited Elena behind an ornamental marble urn. "Stay here. Apply pressure to your ribs. If anyone comes up these stairs wearing anything other than my colors, kill them."

"Victoria, you can't walk in there alone," Elena hissed, groaning in pain. "Gabriel has been your personal guardian for ten years. He taught you hand-to-hand combat. He knows every defensive reflex you have."

"He taught me how to fight men," Victoria replied, her voice eerily level, devoid of sorrow, fear, or hesitation. "He never taught me how to fight him. Which means I will not fight him like a soldier."

She unbuttoned the blood-soaked overcoat and let it pool onto the marble floor. Victoria stripped away the torn white lace sleeves of her gown, tearing the long train with a violent rip until the dress was reduced to a functional, knee-length armored corset. She holstered Viktor’s Desert Eagle at her hip, took the titanium briefcase in her left hand, and strode toward the bridal suite.

The suite doors were open.

Inside, the room was softly lit by the vanity sconces, which were hooked up to an independent generator.

Silas Thorne was dead. He sat slumped in an armchair, a clean bullet hole between his eyes, his fountain pen still clutched in his stiffening fingers. Julian lay beside the sofa, weeping silently, a pool of urine spreading across his trousers, staring in sheer terror at the man standing by the balcony.

Gabriel stood with his back to the door, wiping a clean microfiber cloth over the barrel of his suppressed firearm.

"You were always too fast for Viktor," Gabriel spoke without turning around, his voice calm, polite, and measured. "I told Arthur that sending the Chechens was a waste of resources. You were his finest creation, after all."

Victoria stepped into the suite, stopping three paces inside the door. "Ten years, Gabriel. You carried my father's casket."

Gabriel turned slowly. His face was entirely devoid of guilt or malice; he looked like an accountant reviewing an inevitable audit. "Your father was a visionary, Victoria. But you are sentimental. You spent six months plotting this elaborate wedding theater just to exact a poetic revenge on the Thornes. Arthur understands that our world does not run on poetry. It runs on cold, uninterrupted profit."

"And what was your price?" Victoria asked. "Thirty pieces of silver? Or the Thorne shipping routes?"

"A seat at the High Table," Gabriel answered simply. "A seat your father promised me, and a seat you would never give me because you saw me as an employee. An enforcer. A loyal hound."

Julian sobbed from the floor. "Please... please just let me go. I won't say anything... I'll disappear to South America..."

Gabriel didn't even look at Julian. He simply raised his pistol and fired a single round through Julian Thorne’s temple, silencing the last heir of the Thorne bloodline mid-sentence.

Julian’s head jerked back, then dropped limp against the carpet.

"He was annoying anyway," Gabriel said smoothly, turning his cold blue eyes back to Victoria. "Now, give me the briefcase, Victoria. Arthur has authorized me to make your passing painless. A luxury Silas and Julian did not receive."

Victoria looked at the corpse of the man she was supposed to marry an hour ago, then looked directly into Gabriel's eyes.

"You taught me to never pull a trigger unless I was certain of the target's demise," Victoria whispered.