Exiled with a Bump, Back with a Crown

Faking your death is an art. Not just smoke and mirrors. It’s blood. Fire. Teeth. The explosion rocked the safehouse at dawn. The flames devoured the walls, the air itself twisted from the heat.

Matteo had everything ready. The dental remains, perfectly matching mine.

My blood, drawn weeks ago, splattered like a sacrifice.

Even the ring—my mother’s—left at the scene like a symbol. I watched from a nearby cliff, far from the chaos. The flames reflected in my eyes, but there were no tears.

I didn’t mourn the woman they thought I was.

She died the day Evander decided I was disposable.

We paid one of his trusted men to “confirm” the body. Loyal enough to be believed. Corrupt enough to be bought. He called it in.

Voice trembling, like a man haunted.

“She’s dead. There’s nothing left but ash.”

The bounty lifted.

The manhunt ceased.

Nerina Mortis was a memory now. A ghost.

***

The jet was sleek. Silent. Fast.

Matteo sat across from me, dressed like a god of war wrapped in custom Italian silk.

No longer the broken-hearted boy I once left behind.

Now, a shadow king feared by all—Mr. X.

But right now?

He was just the man flying me far from hell.

“Facility in Mexico is locked down. Private doctors. Guards. No one gets in or out unless I say so.”

He didn’t need to say it. I trusted him.

The jet cut through the clouds, slicing the sky like a blade. I sat back, fingers curled over my belly.

They kicked at the same time.

I smiled.

“They took everything from me,” I whispered. “Now I take everything back.”

Matteo leaned forward, his eyes steel and fire.

“Do you want me to finish this for you? I can. Say the word, and I’ll erase him. Her. All of them.”

I looked up. Met his gaze.

Strong. Unwavering.

“No,” I said. “I want to end it. On my own terms.”

He smiled, slow and wicked. A man who understood vengeance in its purest form.

I looked out the window again, the stars opening wide above us like gates to another world.

“I’ll be back,” I said softly. “Not as his wife. Not as a pawn.”

Matteo nodded once. “As the queen hunting her king.”

And so the jet flew on.

Carrying the ghost of a woman reborn.

Carrying the reckoning that would shake every throne. They thought they buried me.

They forgot—

I rise.

***

Evander POV

She’s dead.

Nerina fucking Mortis is dead.

The news hit me like a high—pure, intoxicating.

One call, one report, one firestorm.

Burnt body. Ring confirmed. Blood everywhere.

A messy end for a messy bitch.

I poured myself a drink—top shelf, aged in silence like my fury—and sat in my throne of a chair, legs wide, power stretched across every damn inch of this mansion.

“No one crosses me and walks away,” I muttered, tilting the glass.

Arden curled up on the couch like the venomous snake she is, laughing in that annoying high-pitched tone she thinks sounds sexy.

“She really thought she could run. Dumb girl. She left looking like a corpse—guess now she is one.”

I smirked. “Told her. Didn’t I? Told her to be a good fucking girl. Told her I allow her to exist.”

But then—

Then I walked into my office.

Just to grab a file. Nothing big.

Until I opened my desk drawer.

And saw it. A folded sonogram.

Black and white. Unmistakable.

Triplets.

Triplets.

Three. Three goddamn heirs.

My drink slipped from my fingers.

Shattered on the floor like my fucking soul.

“What the—” I snatched the sonogram, eyes locked on those tiny forms. “No. No. No, no, no—”

And then I saw it.