Chapter 143

**Emilia POV**

“Ellis!” I scream on impulse.

A bullet whips through him and he drops to the ground. I whirl just in time to spot a sniper perched on the rooftop, his silhouette stark against the dying light. A barrage of gunfire erupts, splitting the air like lightning. I dive behind the hood of the car, my heart hammering as bullets ricochet with ear-splitting clangs. The world dissolves into chaos. Out of the corners of the estate more men materialize, spectral shadows clad in black, descending with inhuman precision. The precision and ferocity of their attack leave no doubt—this is Orian Moon’s force.

Torin’s men, elite soldiers and battle-hardened veterans, crumble under the onslaught like brittle clay, their resistance obliterated in seconds. The crack of gunfire is relentless, punctuated by screams that are abruptly silenced.

I dart a frantic glance around the battlefield. I can’t see Hadassah or Calum in the pandemonium. My gaze locks on Torin, his composure shattered. He bolts toward the house like a hunted animal, panic stripping him of all his bravado. His sprint ends abruptly at the front door, which swings open with chilling calm. Standing in the threshold is Orian himself.

Orian’s Tsuka blade glistens crimson, his face splattered with blood, his expression devoid of anything human. Just emptiness—pure, consuming void. Torin stumbles back, hands raised in trembling surrender.

“Brother,” Torin breathes, his voice brittle and cracked, his attempt at warmth laced with terror. “Brother.”

Orian steps forward, his silence daunting. The blade drips rhythmically, each drop a harbinger of death.

“Please,” Torin stammers, voice breaking. “We should talk—listen, I know I’ve made mistakes. But you know I love you. That is my curse. I always have. Everything I did was to—”

The words die as Torin’s breath hitches, his body jerking violently. My stomach churns as I see the blade’s tip erupt from his back, slick and glistening. Gasps tear from my throat unbidden. Orian yanks the blade free with a brutal efficiency, no hesitation, no remorse. Torin staggers, blood leaking from his lips, but Orian offers no parting words, no acknowledgment. Just a single powerful stroke that severs Torin’s head, sending it tumbling down the blood-slick stairs to land with a grotesque finality.

Orian descends the steps, the embodiment of death, his voice booming with commanding menace. “Where is my Sakura?”

His men appear as if summoned by his will, dragging Hadassah forward, her struggles futile against their grip. When they release her at the base of the stairs, she crumples to her knees, her wide, tear-filled eyes fixed on Torin’s lifeless head. Not in grief for him, but in abject horror at the man who now towers above her.

Orian approaches slowly, deliberately, his gaze locked on Hadassah like a predator savoring its catch. To him, she is no mere woman—she is his obsession, his reverie made flesh. She rises shakily, her every movement taut with apprehension.

When Orian reaches her, his bloodied forehead meets hers, a distorted parody of intimacy. His nose grazes along the bridge of hers with a twisted tenderness as her tears fall freely.

“Somewhere deep inside,” he murmurs, his voice low and hypnotic, “I know you’re happy to see me.” His lips curl faintly as his eyes shift toward Torin’s severed head. “I told you—Torin never cared for you. To hurt me was to take you from me.”

He pulls back slightly, studying her with a mix of triumph and awe, before his gaze shifts, pinning me like a spear. The cold ferocity in his eyes freezes my breath in my chest.

“My Sakura would never forgive me,” he says, his voice smooth and venomous, “if something were to happen to the boy.” He gestures sharply, his men closing in. “Take him. Take her. They come with us.”

***

I can’t believe Torin is dead.

Orian won. No surprise nor is it a welcome.

An hour later, we don’t reach an airport but an undisclosed airfield with a private plane looming in the distance. I look around as discreetly as I can as panic starts to mount because Orian might not kill Calum, but he will extract whatever information he wants from me and kill me. And I see no way out. I’m outnumbered and hilariously outskilled.

A deafening crash jolts the world into chaos as a car slams into ours with devastating force. The impact flips us violently, and my senses spiral into darkness. When I regain consciousness, the air is filled with distant thunder-like booms, but as my awareness sharpens, I recognize the sharper staccato rhythm of gunfire.

The car is upside down, its frame groaning under its weight, glass shards glittering like malevolent stars around me. My head pounds, my body bruised and battered, but I force myself to move, crawling through a shattered window. Each scrape against the jagged edges burns, but I push forward until I spill out onto blood-soaked asphalt.

The scene before me is a macabre tableau of chaos. Bodies are strewn across the ground in a gruesome mesh of limbs and gore—Orian’s elite men mingled with the tattooed enforcers of the Blood and Bone cartel. Gunfire rattles through the air, bursts of light illuminating the carnage as if nature itself has conspired to spotlight the horrors. Dust and smoke twist together, choking the dim darkness punctuated by the stark glare of the runway lights.

Rough hands seize me, yanking me to my feet. I twist, struggling, until I hear a voice over the chaos. “What are you doing?” I demand, breathless and wild-eyed.

“Taking you to safety!” my captor barks, dragging me through the battlefield. Bullets zip past, the ground exploding in plumes of dust, the air alive with death. We weave through the storm of violence, dodging bodies and whistling projectiles. In the melee, Hadassah finds me, and the sheer relief makes me cling to her as if she’s the only thing tethering me to this world. Whatever grudges we harbored dissolve as her hold on me tightens.

We stumble toward the private jet. Before long, Calum bursts into our embrace, a fleeting moment of unity before Orian strides into view, motioning us urgently toward the staircase of the jet. The chaos swirls around us, but his command spares no space for an argument.

Then the world halts.

At the threshold of the jet stands a man dressed in pristine white, the gleam of his suit sharp enough to cut through the carnage. A gilded cane rests in his hand, its ornate head catching the runway light as he steps down with unnerving poise. Santos. His presence is a black hole, sucking the air from the battlefield, his army closing ranks.

“Orian,” Santos announces, his voice an unsettling mix of menace and charm. “How nice of you to join us. You see, your men may be lethal. But my brother Gaza had many loyal men, and I—even more.”

Orian’s men stiffen, ready to act, but Santos’s forces outnumber them a hundredfold. The thud of his cane on the tarmac is a metronome of something foreboding. When he reaches us, his gaze locks on Hadassah, and his smile widens. Four of Santos’s men seize Orian, restraining him as Santos lifts the hooked head of his cane and hooks it around Hadassah’s neck.

He yanks her toward him, her hand tearing from mine. “You did well,” he purrs, his tone almost loving.

The fear etched on Hadassah’s face dissolves into something colder—a smirk. “And you, even better,” she says, her voice like ice.

My stomach churns as Santos leans in to plant a kiss on her temple, her smile blooming in its wake like a poisonous flower.

“Wait—what?” Calum shouts, his voice cracking with disbelief. “You’ve been working with him this whole time?”

Hadassah doesn’t flinch. “And I couldn’t do it without you. I’ve been working with him since my capture in Germany,” she confesses, tapping the crucifix around her neck. “When you bragged about the geo-tracker you installed, I gave Santos the code when I was his ‘captive’. So he could track me anywhere in the world. The best way to evade my enemies was to stay ahead of them, and to do that, I needed to know where they were. I made them believe they found me first. It wasn’t hard. Everyone sees what they want to see.”

Orian growls, his struggle sending ripples through the men restraining him. “You allied yourself with a butcher—a man who slaughters innocents like my obaasan!” he spits.

Hadassah’s expression doesn’t falter. “No,” she replies coldly. “Because she isn’t dead. That video? Staged. After we showed her what you do and who you truly are, she agreed to disappear. She’s alive, living peacefully. Santos and I struck a deal because we had a common enemy—you.”

Orian writhes again, weaker this time—diminished. Destroyed by the very thing he sought.

Santos steps closer, his grin sharp as a blade. “Magnus for you,” he says. “And thanks to Torin, the second piece fell into place. The other three were even easier to find. And now, with you as leverage, Hadassah will secure her freedom—and that of those closest to her.”

Hadassah smirks, turning the knife. “I played my part. Torin thought himself a savior, a genius. But it was all a show, and he was just another piece on the board.”

Her gaze flicks to a combatant then she sends him a nod, before he plunges a syringe into Orian’s neck. He snarls, his resistance feeble, before the sedative drags him under. And his body goes slack.

Calum is silent, stunned into paralysis, and even I can’t piece the fragments of betrayal together fast enough.

“What now?” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the chaos.

Hadassah turns to me, her smirk now a mask of finality. “The war is over,” she declares. “Now we turn ourselves into the bureau. We give them what they want more than us—Orian.”