The blast shook the entire east wing.
Dust rained from the vaulted ceilings. Luna stumbled but stayed upright, one hand pressed to the vault's cold wall, the other clutching the blood-stained journal close to her chest.
"Stay behind me!" Damien barked, stepping in front of her as three of his guards surged forward, weapons drawn.
But Luna wasn't listening. Not entirely.
The world had narrowed to the pounding in her ears, the heat in her veins, and the memories the journal had just unlocked. Her mother's voice. A lullaby in a language Luna barely remembered. The words etched in the journal's margins weren't just secrets they were hers. Her family's truths, long buried beneath ash and silence.
"They breached the main corridor!" someone shouted.
More gunfire erupted. Luna flinched but didn't retreat.
"We need to move," Damien growled, grabbing her arm.
Luna turned to him, eyes blazing. "No. They want the past buried. That means the journal is the key."
He frowned. "This isn't the time for history lessons, Luna."
"No, it's time for truth," she said, stepping past him toward the hallway. "If I keep running, more people will die. If I confront them use the name they fear I might end it."
Damien stared at her, then to the journal. His jaw tightened. "You're starting to sound like a Virelli."
"I am a Virelli," she said, spine straightening. "And I'm done hiding."
Another explosion rocked the estate, but this time, Luna didn't flinch.
She turned the corner toward the corridor, heart hammering. And there through the smoke came the figure she hadn't seen in over a decade.
Scars lined his face. His eyes were sharp, calculating.
"Giovanni," she breathed.
The man who had betrayed her family. The one she'd seen in her nightmares.
And behind him, more soldiers. Armed. Merciless.
But for the first time, Luna didn't feel like prey.
She raised her chin. "You came to erase a name. But I'm here to remind you… that name lives."
Giovanni's eyes narrowed. "Luna Virelli. I thought I killed every last one of you."
"You missed," she said coldly. "And now it's your turn to run."
From behind her, Damien raised his gun. "No one touches my wife."
The hallway became a storm of bullets and fury.
But Luna didn't run.
This time, she stood her ground.
Gunfire erupted like thunder in the corridor.
Luna dropped behind the marble pillar, heart racing but eyes clear. For the first time in years, she wasn't the girl running from a shadow. She was the heir of two legacies Cross and Virelli and tonight, she would choose who she truly was.
Damien fired with lethal precision, his frame moving like a shadow between cover and chaos. Two of Giovanni's men went down before they reached the second archway, their bodies thudding against the cold floor.
"Luna, fall back!" Damien shouted, voice sharp, controlled.
But Luna didn't move.
She turned her gaze to the journal again its pages fluttering open, as if guiding her and there, scribbled in faded ink, was a symbol she hadn't noticed before. A wolf and a dagger, entwined in thorns.
Her mother's crest.
And beneath it: "Only the blood of the heir can open the Vault of Ashes."
Luna's fingers trembled.
There was another vault?
"Damien!" she shouted over the roar of gunfire. "The real vault it's not this one. This was a decoy."
He glanced her way, ducked a bullet, then growled, "What are you talking about?"
"They were never after money," she said, rising to her feet. "They were after what my father hid the ledger, the alliances, the names. All of it. Hidden beneath the chapel."
He froze. "The underground chamber."
She nodded. "That's where he left the Virelli legacy."
Another round of gunfire interrupted them, this time hitting closer. A bullet grazed the edge of her coat. Damien was on her in seconds, shielding her behind his body.
"Then we need to get out of here now," he said, voice low, urgent.
But Luna held his arm.
"No. We finish this."
Damien's eyes searched hers, then softened just slightly. "You've changed."
"No," she said. "I finally remember who I am."
Behind them, the mansion shook again. Giovanni and his men were pushing forward, confident, ruthless.
Luna stepped into the open.
"Giovanni!" she called out, voice sharp as steel. "You murdered my father. You tried to erase me. But you forgot one thing Virelli blood doesn't kneel."
Giovanni laughed, raising his gun. "Then die with pride."
But before he could pull the trigger, Damien was there.
Fast.
Deadly.
The shot rang out and Giovanni dropped to one knee, his shoulder bleeding.
"You won't touch her," Damien snarled.
"You think this ends with me?" Giovanni hissed. "The families will come. They'll bury you both."
Luna stepped beside Damien, eyes cold. "Let them try."
And for the first time, Giovanni looked afraid.
Not of Damien.
But of her.
Because she wasn't the pawn anymore.
She was the Queen.
And she was ready to burn the board.
Giovanni clutched his bleeding shoulder, rage blazing in his eyes. "You think this is over?" he spat. "You're a girl clinging to ghosts."
Luna stepped forward, unfazed. "And yet here you are brought to your knees by a girl and her ghosts."
Damien kept his gun trained on Giovanni, but Luna raised her hand.
"No more blood," she said. "Not tonight."
Damien's jaw ticked. "He'll come after you again."
Luna's voice didn't waver. "Let him. But next time, I'll be ready and I won't show mercy."
She turned to Giovanni, her expression like steel. "Tell the others. Tell the remaining families that Luna Virelli has returned. And she's not hiding anymore."
He sneered, but the look in his eyes had shifted. She saw it fear creeping in where arrogance used to live.
Damien nodded to one of his men. "Drop him at the city limits. Disarmed. Bloodied. Let them see what happens when they challenge a Virelli under my roof."
As Giovanni was dragged away, the tension in the air began to loosen. But Luna's body remained tense. The fire wasn't gone.
It had just been lit.
She looked to Damien. "There's more. In the chapel. The real vault. My father didn't just leave names. He left something else."
Damien narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Luna didn't answer right away.
Instead, she walked to the shattered window, overlooking the vast estate beyond.
"Proof," she said. "Of the betrayal. Of who in the inner circle turned on my father. If that gets out, the entire hierarchy falls."
Damien stepped beside her, silent for a long moment.
"Then we dig," he said at last. "And we burn everything that tried to bury you."
Their eyes met not just as reluctant allies, but something more. Equals. Forces. A storm that was just beginning.
"Ready to rule your empire?" Damien asked, his voice low.
Luna let out a slow breath, staring into the night.
"I was born ready," she said. "They just forgot."
And deep beneath the mansion, behind stone and silence, the secrets of the Virelli bloodline waited to be unearthed.
The Queen was no longer hiding.
She was coming for her crown.