Reverence In Ruin

Chapter Fourteen

The silver gleamed sharply, reflecting the flickering candles that stood like guards between them. Voss sat at the head of the mahogany table, looking every bit the V Lord, cold, untouchable, and dressed in a charcoal suit that cost more than a teacher’s yearly salary.

Amelia entered the room defiantly, making the heavy air feel even lighter. She wore the emerald silk like armor, her hair swept back to show the bruise on her jaw. She didn't look like a prisoner; she looked like a woman who had already made up her mind about how she would kill him.

"Sit," Voss commanded, gesturing to the chair at the far end.

"I would rather stand. at least, it is easier to see the exits from here," Amelia replied, her voice echoing in the large space. She sat anyway, the distance between them a vast stretch of polished wood.

The meal was served in a rhythmic, stifling silence. Every clink of a fork felt like a countdown. Voss watched her with the stillness of a man waiting for a confession he wasn't sure he wanted to hear.

"You find the house stifling," Voss observed, swirling a wine that looked like spilled blood. "It is quite different from the dirt roads of Bonifacio. Does the luxury make it harder to maintain the lie, or does it finally feel like the payoff you were waiting for?"

Amelia didn’t touch her food. "The luxury feels like a shroud, Adrian. It is heavy, cold, and it reeks of someone else’s misery. You brought me here to show me your power? I hace seen it. You’ve replaced your heart with a vault. Congratulations!" she clasped her hands together for a clap.

Voss tightened his jaw. He leaned forward, the candlelight highlighting the dark depths of his eyes. "I brought you here to see if there was anything left of the woman i knew. But now i see you enjoy the fire. You want to see how far you can push before i decide the debt is settled."

"I want my daughter," she hissed. "Everything else is just theater."

"The girl is safe. Safer than she was with you," Voss countered. "But let’s talk about safety. While you were trying to strangle me earlier, the world didn’t stop spinning."

The heavy doors at the end of the hall swung open. Rino entered, his face grim. He didn’t look at Amelia, his eyes were focused on Voss.

"We have a problem," Rino said, dropping the usual casual tone. "The outer perimeter of the sector we took from the Corsicans. Someone just bypassed the biometric locks."

Voss stood up, his chair screeching against the floor. "Only a few people have those codes, Rino."

"It’s not just the codes," Rino said, sliding a tablet onto the table. "They didn’t steal anything. They left a message on the bay wall."

Voss looked at the screen. Written in stark, dripping white against the black steel was a single word: ADRIAN.

It wasn’t a threat to the V Lord. It was a message for the dead man.

Suddenly, the lights in the dining hall flickered and went out. The backup generators groaned to life, casting a sickly, emergency red glow over the room. The heavy automated shutters on the windows began to slam shut one by one, activated by a remote override.

"What is happening right now?" Voss roared, reaching into his jacket.

"Systems locked out! Someone's inside the internal mesh!" Rino shouted. "Voss, the nursery lock just disengaged."

Amelia’s scream cut through the mechanical chaos. Without waiting, she bolted for the door, her silk skirts hissing against the floor. Voss raced after her, his heart pounding wildly.

They scrambled up the stairs, the emergency lights creating long, distorted shadows. When they reached the nursery, the door stood wide open. The woman guarding Lila was slumped on the floor, unconscious.

Lila was gone.

In the center of the small, empty bed sat the wooden boat, snapped cleanly in half. Beside it lay a small burner phone. It began to ring.

Voss picked it up, his hand trembling with such furious intensity he felt he might explode. Amelia was hyperventilating beside him, gripping his arm so tightly her nails drew blood through the wool of his suit.

"Speak," Voss hissed.

"You really should have kept a better eye on your backyard." a voice purred through the speaker. "I have the girl. We need to discuss what you’re willing to trade for a life that looks so much like yours."

A soft, muffled whimper came through the line. Lila.

"If you touch her," Voss started, but the line went dead.

Voss turned to Amelia, his face a mask of desperation. He grabbed her shoulders, not out of anger this time, but out of shared, jagged fear.

"Get the car!" Voss roared, but as he turned to leave, the heavy security door to the nursery slammed shut and locked. They were trapped in the very cage he had built for her.

The hiss of the vents filled the room, but not with oxygen. It brought the sweet, heavy scent of gas.

Amelia looked at the broken boat, then up at Voss. "Adrian," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Voss slammed his fist against the reinforced door, locking eyes with her in the red light. The war between them was over and the fight for survival had just begun.