Chapter Twelve: Ashes and Inheritance
777 Words
The walls of the old estate were still smoldering, the scent of ash lingering like a memory that refused to fade. Areniel stood in the heart of the ruin, her boots crunching over broken glass and scorched marble. Behind her, Renelle tended to Kendra’s wounds—nothing fatal, just a gash across her shoulder from the firefight.
The gala had descended into a bloodbath. What was meant to be a silent infiltration had erupted into war. Don Cataldo had escaped, but not without losing more than half of his elite guard. And most importantly, he had left behind something far more dangerous than bullets or money.
He had left behind his secrets.
In the inner chamber of the estate—a room few even knew existed—Areniel found a vault sealed by a biometric scanner and an old passphrase etched into its steel: Ashes remember what fire cannot consume.
Salvadore had whispered those words to her once, years ago when they trained by the sea. She placed her hand on the scanner, her fingers trembling, and whispered the phrase.
The vault hissed open.
Inside were files—old, dusty, some even singed at the edges—and rows of data drives. Photos. DNA results. Contracts written in blood and sealed with silence. She reached for a black folder marked “Project Inheritance.” Her heart pounded as she opened it.
Inside was a single birth certificate.
Her name was there. Areniel. But under father’s name—the ink was a lie.
Not Salvatore. Not the man who raised her. But Don Cataldo himself.
Her breath caught.
She was his blood.
The truth hit her like a steel rod to the chest.
She wasn’t just the enemy’s victim. She was his heir.
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Renelle barged in, her eyes wide. “We need to go. Police are sweeping the ruins.”
Areniel didn’t speak.
Kendra came next, limping slightly. “What did you find?”
Areniel handed them the folder.
Kendra stared at it for a moment before snapping it shut. “We burn this.”
“No,” Areniel said, her voice sharper than the blade at her hip. “We use this. He hid us because we’re his weakness. We use that. We turn it on him.”
Renelle’s brows furrowed. “You want to claim his inheritance?”
“I want to destroy it from the inside.”
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The next few weeks were spent underground, both figuratively and literally. With Salvadore’s help, the sisters vanished from public view. Their faces—once plastered across Orenia’s billboards—were now ghosted from the media. Rumors spread. The Cartel was collapsing. Don Cataldo had grown old. Paranoia filled his halls.
Riley, his daughter, became more vicious. She executed traitors in cold blood. Took over operations. But even she noticed it—her father’s growing distance, his sudden disappearances, his obsession with an old safe box he kept locked in his study.
He knew.
He was afraid.
And for the first time in decades, the predator felt hunted.
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In a dark corner of Orenia’s docks, Areniel met with a man named Jezz Salem—a former cartel strategist turned ghost. No one knew why he’d disappeared, only that he once held Don Cataldo’s war maps, trade routes, and assassination orders.
“You're her,” he said, leaning against a rusted shipping crate.
“I need everything you know,” Areniel replied.
Salem took a long drag from his cigarette. “Why should I help you?”
She tossed the folder at his feet. “Because he lied to you too. Because he lied to all of us.”
Salem opened it. His face changed.
“I can get you his travel plans. I know his safehouses, his routes, even his old alliances in Paris.”
“Paris?” Areniel asked sharply.
Salem nodded. “That’s where it all started. That’s where he buried his sins.”
She clenched her fists. “Then that’s where we burn them.”
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By the end of the month, the sisters were ready.
Each had a part to play:
Renelle would handle media manipulation and public narrative.
Kendra would lead the strike teams trained by Salvadore.
Areniel would go straight into the lion’s den—with Salem at her side.
Paris would not be a concert this time.
It would be a reckoning.
A stage where shadows would reclaim their place under the sun.
And as the private jet hummed to life on the runway, Areniel whispered into the wind:
“For every child he buried. For every lie he told. We are the ashes… and we remember.”
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- Writer
