Page 131 of Her Soul to Own

I stare at it, my teeth grinding, my fingers curling into fists.

I tap to open the message, and it says,You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart. What do you think you’re doing?

There it is.

His first contact in weeks, and it’s not concern or regret. God, not even an attempt at one of his usual backhanded reassurances. Instead, he decides to send a threat. Short and measured. It’s laced with that familiar condescension that always drips from his voice like poison disguised as silk.

He still thinks he owns the board, and he still thinks he can manipulate me like he always has.

Well, not anymore.

I stare at the text until my vision blurs again, this time not from grief but from pure, vibrating fury.

I don’t respond. I won’t give him the satisfaction. He’s not getting any words from me, only war.

My hand tightens around the journal as I set my phone facedown on the table. The vibration dies under my palm like the last heartbeat of something rotten.

I close my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply and letting my rage sharpen into something clearer. This isn’t just about survival anymore. It hasn’t been for a while.

He’s trying to rattle me. To pull me back into his orbit.

But he doesn’t understand. That version of me, the one who trembled under his control? She’s gone. Now all that’s left is the fire.

I stand, still gripping the journal and feeling it settle against my ribs like a silent pact between my mother and me.

She scattered the clues, and I’m piecing them together, one by one.

XXX

The next night, after the drop, I barely get any sleep. The media storm ignites faster than even I anticipated. Within hours, the feeds are a wildfire. My face is everywhere, my voice clipped into a thousand reels, articles, and threads.

Zara sits across from me on the floor of the study, her laptop practically overheating on her legs as she monitors thestorm. Her face is lit by the glow of dozens of windows, journalist inquiries, hate comments, love comments, and wild speculations from people who claim they knew all along.

We’re joined by Noah. We’ve never worked together before, but Silas sent him for extra help. Noah, in his chosen place, is wired into the estate’s secure systems, bouncing off servers faster than my dad’s teams can even detect him. He’s already hacked into several private banking servers, pulling Evander’s accounts apart piece by piece. The evidence mounts like bricks stacking toward a guillotine.

By the time day two hits, the study we’ve claimed as our war room looks nothing like the pristine showroom it used to be. The antique tables are buried under legal files, court documents, half-drunk coffee cups, and rage. Cables snake across the polished marble floor like black veins—tripping hazards and lifelines all at once. The expensive oil paintings, all smug portraits and golden frames, hang above glowing monitors streaming real-time security footage from the estate perimeter. The whole place is a contradiction—every inch of luxury my father built now turned against him, weaponized. And I’m not even sorry.

Every hour brings another revelation. Another mess. Another reason to burn the whole empire down.

My legal counsel, recently hired by Silas after rejecting what felt like half the Ivy League, arrives like a blade in heels. She’s sharp, precise, and terrifyingly efficient. He went through dozens, maybe more. He fired three after the first interview, called one “a walking liability in a designer suit,” and told another she “had the backbone of a wet napkin.” But Ms. Keene? He didn’t even blink before bringing her in.

She strides in dressed in tailored black like she’s here to attend a funeral, preferably my father’s. Without preamble,she slams a stack of folders onto the table, the sound echoing through the room like gunfire.

“Well,” she says dryly, peeling off her gloves like she’s prepping for surgery, “your father’s financial trail reads like a crime novel written by someone with a God complex and no concept of subtlety.” She starts flipping through documents. “Another thirty million rerouted overnight. Two new shell trusts in Luxembourg with imaginative names, by the way—real Bond villain stuff—and…” She slides a folder across the table, her red-lacquered nail tapping it twice. “Several of his major donors are already talking to federal investigators. Quietly, of course. No one wants to spill champagne on their cufflinks just yet.” The, she glances up, smirking. “By the way, tell Silas to stop trying to micromanage my inbox. If he wants me to gut your father cleanly, he needs to let me use my own knives.”

And just like that, the room somehow feels colder and a hell of a lot more dangerous.

I scan the names quickly, my stomach twisting. These were men who dined at our table and smiled at me like I was their niece. But now? They’re flipping to save themselves.

By the third day, sleep is just a fantasy we all stopped believing in. The constant vibration of my phone has become background noise. Notifications from journalists, legal teams, and financial analysts flood every channel.

Zara doesn’t bother with shoes anymore. She paces the estate barefoot, coffee in one hand, tablet in the other. “The Dubai meeting was confirmed an hour ago,” she reports, her eyes wide. “He’s scrambling for foreign investors now. Desperate capital.”

Noah doesn’t even look up from his screens. “The more desperate he gets, the sloppier his digital trails become. I’ve already breached two of his private communications with that Dubai contact.”

Zara smiles darkly. “If we keep applying pressure, his entire offshore empire collapses within weeks.”

My pulse quickens at the thought. Weeks. We’re that close.

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