The morning of the fifth day before the wedding, the estate was too quiet.
It wasn't peace.
It was breath held before a scream.
Elena stood on the terrace, barefoot in the dew, watching mist slither between the hedges of the south garden like a warning. She wore black—again. Not out of mourning, but because it made her feel sharper. Less like a girl being hunted. More like the weapon Nadya feared she might become.
Behind her, footsteps approached.
Lucian.
She didn't turn.
"She's escalating," he said.
"She's taunting."
He nodded. "Both."
They stood in silence until Elena finally turned, eyes hard.
"Do you think she'll come to the wedding?"
"She's already here."
"What do you mean?"
Lucian hesitated, then pulled a small phone from his jacket and handed it to her. "Security detail found this planted in the fountain this morning. Motion activated. She's been watching."
Elena's pulse jumped. "How long?"
"We don't know. Could've been days. Weeks. She's mapped every inch of the estate."
"And we've mapped none of hers."
Lucian looked at her like he already knew what she was about to say.
"I want to go to her," she said. "Before she comes to me."
He shook his head. "It's a trap."
"I know. But it's mine to walk into."
Lucian crossed the distance between them. He reached out, slow, and rested his hand at the side of her neck.
"Don't make me lose you," he said quietly.
"You won't," Elena whispered. "But if I don't face her first, I'll never be more than the girl waiting for someone else's gun."
--
Dr. Velasquez returned that evening, summoned by Lucian's encrypted call.
He met Elena in the library, his expression tense as he laid out the new intel.
"Nadya has set up a temporary base. A villa on the outskirts of Lake Como. Not fortified. Not guarded—at least not in any way that suggests she's afraid of company."
"She's inviting me," Elena said.
Velasquez nodded. "She's testing what kind of woman Claire raised. And how much of Antonina's blood survived the quiet."
Elena folded her arms. "Then I'll show her."
"Not alone," Lucian said, stepping into the room. "I'm coming."
"No," Velasquez interrupted. "You shouldn't."
Lucian's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because she doesn't want you. She wants Elena. If you show up, it becomes a war. Let her walk in alone, and it stays a conversation."
"She's not walking into anything unarmed."
"She won't be," Velasquez said. "Not if she knows who she is before she opens the door."
--
The car ride to Lake Como was silent.
Lucian didn't sit beside her. He sat across from her, like he was afraid if he touched her, he'd change her mind.
She didn't flinch.
She didn't look away.
Only once did he speak.
"If she hurts you—"
"She won't."
"Elena—"
"She needs me alive," she said. "To make her look legitimate. To make her enemies nervous. She won't ruin that by killing me. Not yet."
Lucian's eyes burned. "But she could break you."
"Only if I let her."
--
The villa was perched above the lake like a crown—white stone, rusted iron gates, a façade too elegant to be innocent.
No guards.
Just a single woman standing at the top of the steps, dressed in gray.
Nadya.
Elena stepped out of the car alone.
Lucian stayed inside.
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done.
--
Nadya didn't smile as Elena approached.
She didn't reach for her.
But her eyes—pale, piercing, wrong in a way that had nothing to do with color—tracked Elena's every breath.
"So," she said. "The ghost walks."
Elena stopped three feet from her. "I'm not the ghost. You are."
Nadya tilted her head. "You have Claire's jaw. But Antonina's eyes. That sharpness. That suspicion."
"You know what suspicion is, Nadya?" Elena said. "It's what keeps prey from becoming dinner."
The older woman's lips curved. Barely.
"Come inside."
The villa was quiet.
Lavender-scented. Overwhelmingly still.
They moved into a sunroom, glass walls overlooking the lake.
A single tea set sat between them on the table.
Nadya poured, graceful and unhurried.
"You've made quite the name for yourself," she said. "Lucian's little bride."
Elena didn't sit. "I didn't come here to play tea party."
"No," Nadya said. "You came to see if you're the kind of woman who survives me."
They stared at each other.
And in the silence, something else passed between them.
Recognition.
Elena saw the lines on Nadya's hands. The bruises faded and old. The too-perfect posture of someone who'd learned never to show weakness.
This woman had suffered.
But she'd also chosen cruelty.
That was the difference.
"You think because we share blood that makes us sisters," Elena said.
"I think it makes us weapons forged in the same fire."
"I'm not your weapon."
"No," Nadya said softly. "You're your mother's mistake."
Elena's hand tightened into a fist.
Nadya watched it.
"Claire ran from legacy," she continued. "She let herself rot in a suburban tomb. All that power—wasted on lullabies and school lunches."
Elena's voice cut sharp. "She chose love."
"She chose fear."
"No. She chose to live."
Nadya leaned forward.
"She chose wrong."
They were eye to eye now. Breath to breath.
Elena's pulse roared in her ears.
"She raised me to fight for what mattered," she said. "Not to kneel to ghosts."
"You think Lucian will protect you?"
"I don't need him to."
Nadya's eyes narrowed.
And for the first time, there was real emotion there.
Not anger.
Something older.
Jealousy.
"She loved you," Nadya whispered. "You got everything."
"No," Elena said. "I got what she refused to give you."
Nadya sat back, expression carved from frost.
"You think you've won this."
Elena turned to leave.
"I know I haven't lost."
--
She didn't speak in the car.
Lucian didn't ask.
When they reached the estate, he followed her into her room without permission.
He didn't touch her. Just stood there, quiet.
"I saw it," she said finally.
"What?"
"The girl she used to be. The one who wasn't chosen. The one who was left behind."
Lucian sat beside her. "Does it change anything?"
"Yes," Elena said. "It makes me more dangerous."
He didn't smile.
But something in his eyes shifted.
Pride.
Or maybe fear.
For what she'd become.