Page 142 of The Silent War

Relief and horror sat tangled in me, neither one giving space to breathe.

“Emilia.”

Alexander’s voice snapped me back. He strode in, furious, phone still clutched like he’d just ended a call he hadn’t wanted to.

“Months of negotiations,” he bit out. “Wasted.”

I blinked, throat dry.

“All three families,” he snapped, pacing. “Salvere. Vale. Galleo. They had agreed. They were ready to sign the Accord—give it back to us. Now—” he flung his hand toward the screen. “Now it’s gone.”

The television showed the wreckage again. Dead heirs. Burned contracts. My engagement over before it had even been announced.

Alexander’s voice kept cutting, sharper each word.

“Three men. Three futures for you. Approved. Protected. And now—dead. Do you know what this means?”

My lips parted, but nothing came out.

It meant I was free. For now.

It meant every dynasty daughter’s nightmare, that the child she carried would be claimed at birth, wasn’t mine. At least not yet.

But to Alexander, it meant something else.

“Execution,” he spat. “The Crows claimed it this morning. Bastion Crow himself issued the statement.”

My chest seized. “No… no, they wouldn’t?—”

But Luca’s voice was still in my head. Dead by morning.

And I knew.

I reached for my phone, my fingers trembling as I typed to Luca.

If anyone asks, you were with me all night.

Send. I typed another message to Bastion.

if this gets bad, Luca was with me.

I would swear it in court, bleed it into oath, lie until my last breath if I had to. Because if the dynasties came for him, if Sovereign Codex demanded retribution, Luca’s future would burn. And I would not let that happen.

Alexander’s pacing turned sharper. “Three families growing too fast. Getting bold. The Crows don’t wait for rivals to become problems. They cut them down.”

I stared at him.

He almost sounded impressed.

“This was dynasty strategy,” he pointed at the television “Kill three heirs at once, and every other house falls back in line.”

I tasted bile. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. That Luca had whispered it to me like a vow before the news had ever broken.

“Will they get in trouble?” I asked.

Alexander’s laughed. “Anyone else would. Any other family would already be buried under sanctions. But not them. Not the Crows.”

He stopped in front of me. “They walk away clean every time. Because the dynasties are too afraid to call them what they are—criminals with a crest. Parasites pretending to be bloodlines.”