Chapter 15 - The Bloodline of the Serpent
"Helena," Arthur snarled, his voice trembling with a mixture of hatred and absolute dread. "You were supposed to be rotting in an Italian grave."
Helena Castiglione stepped gracefully over Marcus’s motionless body, her diamond-heeled shoes clicking sharply against the polished marble floor. She didn't spare Arthur a second glance; her predatory eyes remained locked onto Lily.
Lily shrank back against the steel vault lockers, her knuckles white as she gripped the cassette tape behind her back. The resemblance between this terrifying stranger and her deceased mother was suffocating. It felt as though a demon had stolen Rachel's face and stepped into the room.
"A convenient lie whispered to the tabloids to keep your American investors happy, wasn't it, Arthur?" Helena said, tilting her head. "You took my infant daughter thirty years ago when my brother lost the succession war. You raised her in your gilded cage, named her Rachel, and thought you could erase our bloodline."
"I saved her from your butcher family!" Arthur shouted, stepping directly between Helena and Lily, his hand reaching for the holster inside his coat.
Before his fingers could graze the grip, two silenced pistol rounds slammed into the concrete inches from Arthur’s boots. The two armed operators behind Helena moved with terrifying, robotic precision, their laser optics fixed on Arthur’s chest.
"Move an inch, old man, and I'll have them sever your spine," Helena warned, her voice dropping into a razor-thin whisper. "Rachel was weak. She grew up poisoned by your pathetic bourgeois morality. When she realized who she truly was, she tried to flee both of us. And so, she had to be disciplined."
Lily’s heart stopped. "Disciplined? You... you killed my mother?"
Helena looked at Lily, a cold, maternal smile curling her lips. "Your mother refused to take her rightful seat at the head of the Covenant. She fell in love with that spineless idiot Daniel, thinking domestic life would hide her. When she stole the syndicate’s master encryption keys, we cut the brakes on her sedan. But Rachel was clever... she didn't get into that car that night, did she?"
Arthur’s eyes widened. "Where is she, Helena?!"
"Come with me, little flower," Helena ignored Arthur completely, extending a black-gloved hand toward Lily. "Come see what happens to mothers who abandon their heritage. Come claim the empire that Daniel was never worthy to touch."
Lily looked at the woman’s outstretched hand. In the palm of the black leather glove was an identical silver medallion—a serpent biting its tail—matching the chain link she had buried in the dirt.
"No," Lily said, her voice small at first, then hardening like tempered glass. "You aren't my family. You're the monster who put that chain around my neck."
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Helena’s smile vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, murderous disgust. "Then you will learn obedience the hard way. Seize the girl. Kill the old man."
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