Page 167 of The Silent War

She slept upstairs on the couch.

Blanket slid half off her legs, one hand curled around her phone like she still thought it could protect her.

Leaving her felt like theft.

Every time we stepped away from her it was borrowed time. Borrowed meant it could be taken.

The elevator carried us down. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to. We both felt the same weight dragging us floor by floor.

When the doors opened, the air sharpened—steel, glass, black light humming over maps and contracts.

The War Room stretched out like a machine. Black glass tables. Dynasty ledgers stacked neat.

On the map, two colors bled against each other: Adams blue, Crow black.

I put my palm flat to the glass, tracing the blue lines. Her inheritance.

The Liria Accord in its raw form.

“Three years,” Luca muttered behind me. His reflection caught mine in the glass. “Three years we’ve beentightening the net. Nightclubs, casinos, ports, logistics, construction, resorts. Every dollar the Adams touched—we tied a string through it. Half their money runs through Crow veins now.”

My jaw locked. “And they still thought they could sell her.”

“They can’t anymore.” His mouth curled, sharp. “Their crest might as well already be black. We won the war, Bas. Their legacy bleeds through our hands. They just don’t know it yet.”

I pressed harder against the glass. Blue routes bled into black, veins becoming ours.

“She doesn’t understand what her father left her with,” Luca said. “She thinks it’s weight. But it’s leverage. Every port. Every toll. Every dynasty choking to keep Liria alive.”

“She wants it gone.” My throat burned with the memory of her against my chest, whispering she didn’t want any of it. “Why haven’t the Adams clawed it back?”

“They can’t,” Luca said. “Not without her signature. Alexander bought six months of breathing room. But after that, every cent freezes unless it runs through accounts in her name or her husbands.”

“This isn’t gold,” I said, my chest tightened. “It’s air. Whoever controls it decides who starves.”

“And they’ll never hand it to us.” Luca’s voice dropped. “Not unless we force them.”

“They’ll kill her first.” The words scraped my throat raw. “If they can’t strip it, and get it back.”

He didn’t argue. Just nodded once.

“So we close the trap,” he said. “Blackmail. Every secret, every siphon, every crooked deal we’ve already buried—we put the noose around their neck. Tight enough that the only way out is giving her to us.”

I let out a slow breath. The map glowed in front of us, arteries like veins under glass.

“We tell Damius,” I said.

Luca’s eyes cut sharp. “He’ll greenlight the marriage the second he sees the scope. He’ll want the Accord under Crow law more than air.”

Our grandfather would sell his own blood for power. He wouldn’t just approve. He’d demand it.

“The issue isn’t him,” Luca continued. “It’s the gap. The thirty days between Adams agreeing and the vows.”

Dynasty law carved the rules in stone. Mergers of bloodlines had to be announced publicly, then held thirty days for contest. Only on the thirty-first could vows be made.

A month.

A month to keep her alive.