Chapter Nine –
Corvane was burning again.
From the south docks to the glass districts, every street was marked by fire and gunpowder. The Seraphs were collapsing, the police had given up, and the few who still had weapons were carving their initials into the city's corpse.
In the middle of it all, Rhea walked through the chaos like a ghost made of purpose.
Every step was a promise. Every target a name on a list.
It took her two weeks to dismantle what was left of the Seraph syndicate — one warehouse at a time, one betrayal at a time.
She didn't sleep. She barely spoke.
Mira followed her because she didn't trust Rhea to come back alive, and maybe because she didn't want to die alone either.
"You're not human anymore," Mira said once, watching Rhea reload her pistol under a broken streetlight.
Rhea didn't look up. "Neither is Corvane."
One night, they raided a convoy moving stolen cash through the eastern pier. The rain fell sideways, hard enough to blind. Bullets sparked off metal. Rhea ducked behind a crate, gun hot in her hands, and shouted, "Flank left!"
Mira moved fast — too fast.
By the time Rhea cleared the last gunman, Mira was on the ground, blood blooming from her shoulder.
"Stay with me," Rhea hissed, dragging her behind cover.
Mira gritted her teeth. "You think this is what Luciana wanted?"
Rhea froze. "Don't."
"She wanted peace," Mira said. "And you're burning the city for her ghost."
Rhea's jaw clenched. "She wanted justice."
"Then why does it look like revenge?"
Rhea didn't answer. She pressed her hand over Mira's wound, her eyes distant, unfocused.
Outside, sirens wailed like mourning bells.
They hid for three days in an old church on the outskirts — the kind where the stained glass still caught light from the fires outside. Mira's shoulder healed slowly. Rhea spent her nights at the window, watching Corvane burn.
On the third night, a man appeared at the church door.
Old, gray, eyes sharp as razors. He wore a suit that didn't belong in this city anymore.
"Rhea Calder," he said. "You're hard to find."
"Not hard enough," she replied.
He smiled faintly. "Name's Venn. I used to work for Luciana. Accounting. Logistics. Clean hands, dirty ledgers."
Rhea's gaze narrowed. "Why are you here?"
"Because before she died," Venn said, "Luciana sent me a file. Told me to give it to you if she didn't make it out."
Rhea froze. "What file?"
Venn pulled a drive from his coat pocket and placed it on the altar. "Everything. The accounts, the bribes, the names. But most importantly… the deal she made."
Rhea frowned. "What deal?"
"The Seraph truce," Venn said. "She offered them half her empire in exchange for protection — for you."
The words hit harder than any bullet.
"She sold them our routes," he continued, "to keep you alive. That's why they found her, Rhea. They never meant to honor it."
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of rain through the broken roof.
Rhea's fingers trembled as she picked up the drive.
"She… traded everything for me?" she whispered.
Venn nodded. "You were her way out. Her fire."
Rhea sat down on the pew, silent, staring at the flicker of flames outside the cracked glass.
She didn't cry — but something inside her finally cracked open.
Mira watched from the shadows. "So what now?" she asked quietly.
Rhea stood, loaded her gun, and slid the drive into her pocket.
"Now," she said, "I end the people who made her bargain useless."
That night, Rhea returned to the Vale tower — or what was left of it.
The building stood like a tombstone against the skyline, glass shattered, walls blackened by smoke.
Inside, she climbed to the top floor — Luciana's old office.
The desk was still there. So was the smell of gunpowder and perfume.
Rhea set the drive on the desk, opened Luciana's old lighter, and watched the flame catch.
It wasn't a decision. It was inevitability.
When the fire reached the walls, she didn't move. She stood in the middle of it, watching the empire she'd once killed for collapse into ash.
Her voice was calm when she whispered, "This is what peace looks like."
Behind her, Mira shouted, "Rhea! We have to go!"
Rhea turned, smoke curling around her like a crown. "You go. I'm done."
"Don't you dare—"
But the explosion drowned the rest.
They said later that half the building came down in the blast. That nobody could've survived.
But Corvane is a city that buries truth under rubble.
And somewhere on the outskirts, weeks later, a woman with a limp and a scar across her face walked through the rain, wearing a coat too big for her frame.
No one looked twice. No one said her name.
But in the distance, the skyline burned faintly red — as if the fire never really died.