🔥 Chapter 10 - "From Ash To Purpose"
715 Words
(Liana’s POV)
After that day… something inside me cracked.
No—
shattered.
Merel’s last breath didn’t just leave the house empty.
It hollowed me out.
Tore the last warmth from my chest and left a black, burning space where a heart used to be.
The world became quiet after she died.
Too quiet.
I wandered through the rooms of Isaac’s safehouse like a ghost trapped in a place that was never meant to be home. The walls felt colder. The sun felt dimmer. Even breathing hurt.
I slept on the couch because the bed felt too big.
I didn’t open the curtains.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
Sometimes I cried until I fell asleep.
Sometimes I didn’t cry at all.
The silence swallowed me whole.
---
Isaac visited whenever he could.
He brought food I rarely touched.
He sat with me when I refused to speak.
Sometimes he talked about Merel just to fill the room with something other than my grief.
We talked too—
About my father.
About the m******e.
About the lies the world believed.
About the Morettis.
And every time we spoke about them…
something sharp moved inside me.
Something that wasn’t grief anymore.
Isaac saw it too.
“Don’t do this, Liana.”
His voice was tired. Frightened. “You can’t take them alone. They’ll kill you.”
I looked at him.
Not as a scared girl clinging to what little safety I had left.
I looked at him like someone who had already died once.
“Maybe they will,” I said quietly. “Maybe this ends with my blood on their floor.”
Isaac shook his head, eyes burning. “Liana—”
“But before that happens,” I breathed, leaning forward, “before anyone else touches me… I will take one of them with me.”
His breath caught.
“They destroyed my world,” I whispered. “But they won’t walk away untouched. Not all of them.”
He couldn’t save me from this path.
And he wasn’t going to try anymore.
---
Days passed in a blur of darkness and sleepless hours.
I planned.
I doubted.
I calculated.
I stared at Merel’s empty chair and felt the flames inside me sharpen into something cruel.
And then, one night—
Isaac broke the silence.
He closed the file in his hands with a soft thud that made my stomach twist.
“There is someone behind the mafia king,” he said.
My blood turned to ice.
“He had help,” Isaac murmured. “Someone who knew your father’s movements. Someone who knew the exact day, hour… the layout of your home. The timing of your wedding.”
I felt my heartbeat stop.
“You’re saying…” my voice trembled, “…someone betrayed us?”
“Maybe,” he answered. “Maybe someone from your extended family. Close enough to know everything… and silent enough to hide their tracks.”
Everything inside me went cold.
A family member?
Someone who hugged me at my engagement?
Someone who smiled when I wore my wedding dress?
My stomach twisted with nausea.
Isaac leaned forward, voice hardening into steel:
“You must NOT contact anyone. Do you hear me? No cousins. No old friends. No business partners. As far as the world knows…” he swallowed, “…you died in that fire.”
I closed my eyes.
Good.
Let them believe I’m gone.
Let them sleep peacefully thinking I was erased.
Because I would rise again—
and when I did, I would know exactly who flinched at the sight of my face.
---
I spent the next days going through everything.
My father’s offshore accounts.
My husband’s untouched money.
Funds the world forgot existed.
I had resources.
I had time.
I had nothing left to lose.
I stared at myself in the mirror—
at the scars, the burn marks, the girl I no longer recognized.
“Rise,” I whispered to my reflection. “If the world buried you… dig yourself out.”
The fire didn’t burn me anymore.
It fueled me.
And for the first time since the m******e—
I felt something new.
Not grief.
Not rage.
PURPOSE.
A storm was forming.
Inside me.
Around me.
And soon…
they would feel it too...
- Writer
