Chapter 4 Bloodlines Burn Brighter in Flame

The Alaric Estate sat like a predator in marble - regal, immovable, cold. Nestled in the hills outside Geneva, its towering columns and silent fountains gave no hint of the rot that dwelled inside. It was the place where Vera once learned to curtsy, to bow, to shrink. And now it was where she would strike next.

Vera hadn't seen the inside of her childhood home since the night before her wedding-the night Edwin Alaric kissed her forehead, offered a hollow smile, and then fed her to the wolves.

Now she was returning not as Seraphina Alaric, daughter of power, but as Vera Dae, destroyer of kings.

The car cut through the snow-lined roads, her security team trailing in a discreet black SUV. She watched the gates open ahead of her, each iron bar parting like a reluctant truth.

Cassian, seated beside her, broke the silence.

"Do you want me inside with you?"

She shook her head, eyes fixed forward. "No. This is blood."

The car stopped.

She stepped out in a long white coat, her heels crisp against the polished stone. Two guards glanced at her, unsure whether to stop her.

She gave them one look.

They stepped aside.

Old power met new in the silence between those steps.

Inside the House of Alaric

The estate hadn't changed. Oil paintings of ancestors. Crimson rugs woven in Persia. The scent of sandalwood and secrets. Even the fireplace crackled the same way it had when she was seven and reading Tolstoy beneath her father's cold approval.

And then he appeared.

Edwin Alaric.

Tall. Impeccably groomed. His silver hair swept back. Eyes like cut steel. The man who built empires with a whisper and buried reputations with a phone call.

He stood at the base of the staircase, as if expecting her.

"Seraphina," he said, voice composed. "It's been a long time."

She stared at him. "It's Vera now."

He didn't blink. "You always did like drama."

"You always did like betrayal."

He smiled faintly. "And you always misunderstood the value of sacrifice."

She moved closer. "You sacrificed me."

"You were weak," he said coldly. "Soft. In love with a man whose family wanted our name buried. I did what I had to do."

"You gave Adrian my family's company. You let him ruin me."

"I positioned the company for survival. You wouldn't have done it. You were too naive."

"I was your daughter," she spat.

"And that's why I gave you a choice," he said, voice sharpening. "You could have walked away quietly. But you chose to disappear, and now here you are, playing the villain with a new name and a vendetta."

She took a breath.

Then handed him the folder she'd carried since Venice.

"What's this?"

"Proof," she said. "Of your deal with Daemon. Of the account you set up under a false identity to launder shares through a Luxembourg firm. I had to hire hackers in Prague to find it. Do you know how far I had to go just to uncover what my own father did to me?"

Edwin's hand hovered over the file, but he didn't open it.

"I don't need to look," he said. "I remember every move."

She wanted to slap him. But she didn't.

Instead, she smiled.

"I came here to offer you one chance. Publicly confess your role in the Daemon conspiracy. Step down from the Alaric Trust. Hand control to me. Or I will burn your legacy to the ground and rebuild it in my name."

Now he laughed.

Not a chuckle.

A deep, cold sound that echoed off the marble like mockery.

"You think I care what the world says about me? I am the reason this family is feared in every boardroom from Shanghai to Wall Street. You are nothing more than a tantrum in heels."

Her smile vanished.

"I'm a reckoning in heels," she said softly. "And your time is up."

Later - Geneva, A Private Penthouse

Cassian poured her a drink. "I take it the reunion was... pleasant?"

She sipped her whiskey, no ice. "He laughed."

Cassian sat beside her. "Good. That means he's scared."

"No," she said, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. "He doesn't scare easily. He thinks I won't go through with it."

"Will you?"

She turned to him.

And for the first time in days, he saw a flicker of something beneath the steel-grief.

"I loved him once. As a daughter should. And now, I have to destroy what he built."

Cassian nodded. "He destroyed you first."

She nodded, slowly.

"Call the Zurich press," she said. "Set the interview. It's time the world knows what Edwin Alaric did."

The Press Bombshell

The article dropped at midnight.

"Heiress Turned Power Broker Vera Dae Exposes Billion-Dollar Betrayal by Alaric Patriarch"

Within an hour, it went viral.

News anchors speculated. Investors panicked. Half the Alaric Trust board members called for an emergency meeting.

The next morning, Edwin Alaric held a press conference.

He stood behind a podium, the Swiss flag behind him, flanked by cold-faced advisors.

"My daughter has chosen to make public what should have remained private," he said. "Her claims are exaggerated, her conclusions incorrect. But I will step back-for the good of the company."

He didn't name her.

He didn't apologize.

But he stepped down.

And the empire shifted.

Three Days Later - Paris

Vera stood on the rooftop of the Ritz, overlooking the city of light, flame, and revolution. Paris had always been her mother's favorite city. Vera remembered visiting once as a girl, dressed in white, holding her mother's hand and staring at the Eiffel Tower.

Now, she was holding something else.

A folder marked: "Black Swan – Operation Reclaim"

Cassian stood beside her.

"New target?" he asked.

She nodded. "The Alaric offshore weapons contracts. There's a shell company registered in Seychelles. My father used it to launder military assets. If we expose it, we cripple his remaining political ties."

"You'll make enemies in defense."

"I already have enemies in every room," she said.

"What's a few more?"

He smirked. "And what do you want me to do?"

"Send it to the Geneva Tribunal. Let's make it legal. But also send a leak to Le Monde. Let's make it loud."

He saluted.

"I live to serve the phoenix."

One Week Later - Geneva

Edwin Alaric sat in his private library when the news hit.

International Tribunal Opens Probe into Alaric Defense Contracts

His phone rang off the hook.

His lawyers called in panic.

And his secretary whispered that one word he feared most:

"Dae."

Across the ocean, Vera poured herself another drink and raised her glass.

"To the ghosts that made me," she said.

And then she turned to her next file.

Because the war wasn't over.

Not yet.

There was still the man known only as The Architect.

The one who gave her father the blueprint to destroy her.

And now, it was time she found him.

End of Chapter Four