Chapter 5 GHOSTS WEAR CROWNS

Dominic couldn't stop thinking about her.

Every file he opened, every strategy session he led, every move he planned - haunted by flashes of the woman with ice in her veins and secrets coiled in her smile.

She moved through his mind like smoke, leaving behind a trail of questions he couldn't answer.

No background.

No footprint.

No past.

It was as if she had fallen out of the sky - fully formed, deadly, and wearing the face of a mystery he couldn't unravel.

The polished oak desk between him and Angelo was littered with empty folders, reports that yielded nothing but dead ends. Frustration crackled in the air.

With a grunt, Angelo tossed another file aside. "Nothing. No social security number. No birth certificate. No bank accounts, no tax records. No trace before three years ago."

Dominic leaned back in his chair, the worn leather creaking under his weight, his fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the armrest.

"Everyone comes from somewhere," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Ghosts don't wear crowns unless they're hiding the blood underneath."

He didn't trust riddles.

He conquered them.

Angelo shifted uneasily, sensing the gathering storm inside his boss. "Boss... maybe she's not here to hurt you. Maybe she just wants something else."

Dominic's lips curved into a humorless smile - a sharp, cold thing that didn't touch his eyes.

"In our world, Angelo," he said softly, dangerously, "wanting something is the first step to taking everything."

Want was just another weapon. One he'd seen wielded far too many times by those who smiled sweetly before they struck.

And he had the scars to prove it.

---

Catalina moved through the Moreau estate like a shadow stitched into the night.

Every corridor she walked, she mapped in her mind.

Every security guard she passed, she memorized - timing rotations, studying blind spots.

Every subtle flaw in the fortress's defenses she cataloged for the perfect moment to shatter it all.

The grand chandeliers, the velvet-draped halls, the illusion of invincibility - she saw past it all.

She knew where the real weaknesses lived: behind gilded doors and mortal arrogance.

Tonight, she wasn't dressed in disarming white.

Tonight, she wore black.

Silent.

Invisible.

Inevitable.

The study was her first target.

Nestled deep within the west wing, Dominic's personal sanctum was protected by layered security. Guards outside. Cameras angled just wrong for perfect coverage. An aura of unspoken power.

But Catalina had watched. She had listened. She had waited.

Patience was a skill sharpened by survival.

The heavy oak door creaked slightly as she slipped inside, closing it silently behind her.

Inside, the room smelled of leather, smoke, and something darker - the scent of old secrets hoarded like treasure.

Behind the second shelf of the built-in bookcase, just to the right of an ancient Greek statue, hid Dominic's personal safe.

She knelt before it, pulling thin gloves over her hands - a ritual as familiar as breathing.

Her heart didn't race.

Her breathing remained slow, steady.

Emotion was a luxury she had burned out of herself long ago.

The lock was biometric - cutting-edge, expensive, arrogant.

Catalina smirked faintly.

She had studied Dominic long enough to know how to break it.

A captured fingerprint, a slight disruption in the sensor's calibration cycle, and a little sleight of hand - child's play compared to the nightmares she had endured.

A soft click rewarded her efforts.

The safe swung open on silent hinges.

Inside:

Ledgers - coded transactions and bribes scrawled in meticulous handwriting.

Blackmail files - leverage over senators, businessmen, generals.

Offshore accounts - passports to untouchable wealth.

And tucked away, almost forgotten among the rot -

A thin, battered journal bound in cracked leather.

It didn't fit the rest of the ruthlessness inside.

It was personal.

It was valuable.

Catalina's fingers brushed over the journal, the leather cool under her touch.

She slipped it into the inner pocket of her jacket without flipping it open.

There would be time later.

Time to dissect the pieces of the man who once thought he could bury her.

She closed the safe softly.

Turned.

And froze.

A faint creak - the whisper of a floorboard under weight - snapped through the silence.

Catalina pressed herself into the nearest shadow just as the door opened.

Dominic stepped inside, a storm cloaked in human skin.

He moved with quiet authority, every line of his body taut, predatory.

He hadn't expected to find anyone here.

But instinct, that primal hunter's instinct she remembered all too well, had pulled him in.

Catalina watched him from the darkness, heart steady, body coiled tight, ready to vanish if needed.

Not tonight.

Not yet.

Dominic's eyes swept the room, sharp and searching.

For a heartbeat - a long, taut breath suspended between predator and prey - Catalina thought he might see her.

Some ancient part of him seemed to sense the disturbance in the air. A ripple in the calm.

His gaze passed within inches of her hidden form.

She held her breath.

He cursed under his breath, low and bitter, and moved toward the liquor cabinet instead.

Catalina slipped out the door like mist before the latch even clicked shut.

No footprint.

No sound.

Nothing left behind but the ghost of her presence, lingering like a threat.

---

Outside, under the sharp, merciless eye of the crescent moon, Catalina paused at the edge of the gardens, hidden behind a row of sculpted hedges.

The cold night air kissed her skin, carrying the distant hum of Dominic's world - so sure, so untouchable.

She tilted her head slightly, studying the house she had once called home in another life.

The lights from the study still burned, a beacon of false security.

Inside, Dominic poured himself a drink, unaware of what had already been stolen from him. Unaware that the foundations of his empire had shifted while he wasn't looking.

Catalina's gloved fingers brushed over the hidden pocket where the battered journal lay against her heart.

The real battle hadn't even begun yet.

But he would feel it soon.

The unease.

The questions.

The cracks forming beneath his carefully controlled facade.

She could already imagine it - the way doubt would coil around him, tightening like a noose. The way trust would erode among his men. The way fear would slip into the places loyalty once lived.

And when he finally realized the storm was coming...

It would already be too late.

Catalina turned away from the house, her steps silent on the dew-slick grass.

But just as she reached the cover of the trees, a sharp prickle crawled down her spine.

She wasn't alone.

Some instinct - older than memory, sharper than fear - made her glance back.

In the window of the study, framed by the warm golden light, Dominic Moreau stood still, glass forgotten in his hand.

Staring directly at the spot where she had just been.

Their eyes didn't meet.

But somehow, she felt it - he felt it - a thread stretching taut between them.

A hunter's instinct.

A ghost's promise.

Catalina melted into the darkness before he could step closer.

The war had begun.

And this time, there would be no survivors.