Page 164 of The Silent War

Her eyes flickered to me. Just for a second.

Her lips parted, then closed again. Her knuckles went white.

“On my twenty-first…” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “On my twenty-first birthday… I inherited the Liria Accord.”

The words fell broken. The world went still around me.

That wasn’t possible.

The Accord was the Adams dynasty’s spine. Its lifeline. The crown that kept their seat steady. It wasn’t given to daughters.

But she sat there trembling, crying, saying it anyway.

“The advisors—they won’t leave me alone…” she swallowed, words tumbling out in pieces. “They said new contracts have to be signed.”

Her hands twisted harder in her lap. She shook her head, tears gathering.

“Two houses are already demanding renegotiations directly with me. I don’t—I don’t understand the terms. I can’t—” Her voice broke sharp.

My chest burned. Luca hadn’t moved.

“Before he died… Alaric Vale agreed to sign the Accord back into Adams hands. But now he’s gone, and Alexander—” Her breath hitched. “Alexander is furious. And instead of… instead of facing it, instead of fixing it—” Tears slipped, streaking her cheeks. “…he left. He went to fix his marriage. He left me with it. With all of it.”

“And I—” Her stopped and shook her head.

My lungs clenched so tight it hurt.

Luca’s eyes cut toward me—sharp, unreadable, already running strategy. Alexander leaving now. The advisors circling. The dynasties pressing. He was calculating every angle.

Which we would need. But right now, wasn’t the time for strategy.

The migraines. The silences. Every time she rubbed her temple and said she was fine. Every night she turned away and told us nothing.

She’d been breaking under this weight. For months.

“I don’t want it,” she whispered. The words cut me in half. “I don’t want any of it.”

I moved before I knew it.

I bent down pulling her off the edge of the bed and into my chest. She came with no resistance, sobs breaking against me, face pressed to my shirt. My arms locked around her, crushing, my hand in her hair, my mouth at her ear.

“You don’t carry this alone,” I rasped, my lips brushing her hair. I kissed her temple, again, again, desperate. “Never again.”

“Breathe, baby. Just breathe.” Luca leaned in, his hand steady at her back, rubbing circles.

She sobbed harder, shaking. My chest ached with the sound, like every crack in her body was splitting me too.

I kissed her temple again. Her cheek. The tears off her jaw.

She shook in my arms, trembling so hard it made my throat ache. I held tighter, like my strength could keep her together.

And then, through the wreckage of her cries, the truth landed.

The Accord didn’t just belong to her.

It belonged to her husband.

Which meant… it belonged to us.