CHAPTER 16 — The Devil Remembers
Lucian's Pov
Serena Vale.
Michael Vale’s daughter.
The name rang like a cracked bell in my mind, reverberating through the marrow of a past I’d buried beneath seven years of blood, control, and silence. The report Kael had left on my desk still lay open, the ink not yet dry. But the words had seared themselves into me with the finality of a brand.
Subject: Serena Vale. Parentage: Michael Vale. Deceased.
I sat in the amber-lit hush of my study, the broken pieces of the glass on the floor.
Michael Vale. The man who had nearly unraveled everything.
The man I had killed.
Exhaling slowly, The sound was not relief. It was resignation.
And with it came memory—slow, sharp, and unavoidable.
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Seven Years Ago
The voice on the recording was ragged, ter
