Chapter 3 - Playing with Fire
I left the diner before the sirens finally started to wail.
I didn't go back to my apartment.
My apartment was a decoy.
I went to a warehouse near the docks, a place that didn't exist on any map.
Inside, the walls were covered in photos, maps, and financial records.
The map of the Valentine empire.
Matthew was the face of the organization.
But the real power lay with the "Board"—four men who had funded the betrayal.
They thought they were safe behind their glass towers.
They thought the past was buried under the ashes of the Thorne estate.
I stripped off my grease-stained uniform.
Underneath, my body was a map of scars and tattoos.
Each one represented a lesson learned.
Each one was a debt I intended to collect.
I put on a tactical suit, black and silent.
I checked my gear.
Custom-made suppressed pistols.
A set of throwing knives.
And the ring around my neck.
I wasn't a waitress anymore.
I was the Red Serpent of the Thorne family.
My first target was Silas Vane.
He was the one who managed the money.
He was the one who had profited most from my father's death.
He lived in a penthouse that required three security codes to enter.
He thought technology could keep him safe.
He was wrong.
I entered through the elevator shaft.
I moved like a ghost through the vents.
When I dropped into his bedroom, he was asleep next to a woman half his age.
I didn't wake her.
I pressed a needle into Silas’s neck.
He woke up instantly, his eyes wide with terror as the paralytic took hold.
He couldn't move. He couldn't scream.
He could only watch as I sat at the foot of his bed.
"Hello, Silas," I said softly.
"Do you remember the girl with the red ribbons?"
His eyes darted back and forth.
"She remembers you," I said.
I pulled out a tablet and connected it to his home network.
"You're going to give me the access codes to the offshore accounts."
"You're going to return every cent you stole from my father."
He tried to resist, his jaw locked by the drug.
I leaned in close, showing him the ring.
The moment he saw the black lion, the defiance left his eyes.
He knew the Thorne code.
Death was the only alternative.
He blinked once for 'yes'.
"Good choice," I said.
It took twenty minutes to drain his accounts.
Millions of dollars, moving through the digital ether.
Money that would be used to dismantle the very city he helped build.
Before I left, I whispered one more thing.
"Tell Matthew I'm coming for the rest of them."
May you like
"Tell him the Queen has returned."
***
