CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: THE ART OF DYING

Aria Vale

They say pain teaches.

That's a lie.

Pain strips. It tears. It silences.

But I'd learned something else in this place, this reeking, windowless hell dressed in fluorescent lights and chemical stench.

Pain doesn't teach.

Control does.

Control over your breath when your ribs are cracked.

Control over your voice when they ask about Damian Wolfe.

Control over your tears when you see your father's face on a screen and they say,

"He begged for mercy too."

I let them think I broke.

I gave them the tremble in my hands, the empty stare, the rehearsed sob as I said into the camera:

> "There's nothing left to save, Damian. Stay away."

I made it real.

Because they needed it to be.

Because if I showed them the burn beneath the ash, they'd kill me before I could kill them.

And I planned to kill them all.

---

My handler wore leather gloves.

Not for warmth.

For grip.

His name was Vic. Or at least that's what the others called him.

He liked stories. About my father. About me. About how Damian would eventually "trade his empire to watch me die screaming."

Today, he brought photos.

Damian's penthouse. A shot of him drinking alone. Another paused mid-speech at the gala.

> "He's not coming for you," Vic said. "He's already written your obituary. Just hasn't signed it yet."

I tilted my head, blank-eyed.

> "You're not special, sweetheart. Just a failed asset. Leftovers."

"Then why," I whispered, "are you still afraid of me?"

That made him laugh. Too hard. Like someone who didn't know he'd already been marked for death.

I waited until he leaned close.

Until his breath hit my cheek and his gloved hand gripped my jaw to inspect the bruises he left the day before.

That's when I moved.

Not a scream. Not a punch.

A twist of my wrist and the sharpened cufflink slid from my sleeve into his throat.

Not Alexander's. Mine.

He gurgled.

I smiled.

"Didn't your files mention I was left-handed?"

He fell like a marionette with its strings severed.

I took his keycard, his gun, and his boots.

Then I set the room on fire.

---

The halls weren't empty.

They were full of men trained to break women like me.

But I wasn't broken.

I was redefining ruin.

One shot to the kneecap. One blade to the neck. One blackout grenade stolen from the weapons locker.

I moved like the Kira taught me. Low, fast, merciless.

By the time I reached the control center, alarms were blaring.

I didn't care.

Let them know I was coming.

I wanted their fear to travel faster than my bullets.

I found the footage last.

The uncut version.

Everett watching as Jasper leaned against a wall, arms crossed, eyes cold as my father screamed and choked on blood.

No rescue.

No hesitation.

Just silence.

I stared at the screen until my nails bled into my palm.

Then I erased everything.

> Memory. Record. Mercy.

---

The exit was sealed.

I had one grenade left.

I pulled the pin, turned my back, and walked into fire.

By the time I reached the alley behind the Briarpoint facility, the rain was falling sideways.

A black SUV screeched to a halt.

Bishop was behind the wheel.

Kira was already out, gun up, eyes sweeping.

She didn't speak.

She didn't need to.

She just looked at me, took in the blood, the soot, the fury and nodded once.

"You ready?" she asked.

My voice was cracked, quiet.

But not weak.

"Time to end this."

---

We didn't go back to the city.

Too obvious.

Too fast.

Bishop drove us through back roads and rain-slick tunnels, never staying on one highway for longer than twenty minutes. The safehouse was an old industrial chapel in the woods, converted into a black-site decades ago by some arm of government that no longer existed.

Now it was ours.

Stone walls. No windows. No prayers left in the mortar.

I slept for two hours. Maybe three.

Then I showered with the water ice-cold. Scrubbed the blood away until my skin felt new. Raw. Unwritten.

Kira handed me fresh clothes and coffee. No questions. Just her presence like a shield.

Only once did she pause and say, "You saved yourself."

I met her eyes in the mirror.

"No," I said. "I came back so I could finish what I started."

---

Later, we laid everything out on the table literally.

Blueprints. Files. Drive backups. Monarch's satellite comm logs that Bishop hacked. Wolfe Enterprises' internal security systems. My father's final transactions.

The pieces clicked.

One by one.

And the picture they painted wasn't what I expected.

It was worse.

Monarch hadn't just killed Alexander Vale.

They'd built him.

Funded him. Protected him. Used him to steer acquisitions under the table for decades. And when he'd tried to step away, when he'd tried to protect me...

They slit his throat and offered his daughter the same knife.

A test.

A joke.

An insurance policy.

> "You were just the means to an end."

Everett's words echoed, venom sweetened with civility.

They thought they could control me.

They still didn't understand what they created.

---

I traced a finger along the edge of the table.

"There's a room in the Syndicate's lower vault," I said. "Redundant server access. Security logs. Private footage. It's how they watched me."

Bishop nodded. "You want the records?"

I shook my head.

"I want to burn what's left of their history. I want to rewrite it in blood."

He tilted his head. "You planning on telling Wolfe you're alive?"

Silence stretched.

Kira looked up from her tablet.

"He thinks you're dead. Or disloyal. Or worse, bought. If he moves on Monarch, it'll be without you."

"I know."

The ache was there. Sharp. Buried beneath too many layers to name.

I remembered his hands on my waist.

His voice in the dark.

His rage turned soft, just once, when he thought I was asleep.

> "He'll come for you."

I almost said it aloud.

But I didn't.

Because even if he did… I couldn't wait anymore.

Damian had his war.

Now I had mine.

And when we met again, it wouldn't be reunion.

It would be reckoning.

Kira slid a burner phone across the table.

It buzzed once.

Message from an encrypted line.

I picked it up.

One sentence.

> They think you're dead. you have three days before the vote.

No signature.

No name.

Just a clock, now ticking faster.

Three days until Monarch voted on its next sovereign leader.

Three days until Everett Vale crowned herself in ruin and deception.

Three days to steal that crown or crush it under my heel.

---

Kira looked at me.

"What's the plan?"

I picked up the Monarch ring from the burn bag. The onyx was cracked now, from where I'd driven it into Jasper's chest.

Good.

Let them see it broken.

"I walk into the vote," I said, slipping the ring back on.

"And?"

I met her eyes.

"Let them try to stop me."