Jason sank to his knees as smoke swallowed the sky, the color of it an angry crimson, like the world itself was bleeding. The house before him, her house, collapsed in slow motion, boards shrieking and crumbling as if mourning their own destruction.

His chest caved with a ragged sob, the kind that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs, deeper even than his body. Everything around him blurred—faces, sirens, flames—until all that remained was the ash.

He should have looked away. Should have closed his eyes.

But he didn't. He couldn't.
The paramedics moved solemnly through the smoke, their silhouettes stark against the firelit haze. The stretchers were draped in white sheets—too still, too final. He counted them without meaning to.
One... two... three.
Jason didn't flinch. His heart was hollowed out, like something had been carved from within him with a hot blade.
It should've been him.
Not Selena.
"No," he whispered hoarsely, his voice splintering. "No, it can't be."
He stumbled backward, eyes wide, brain refusing to bridge the gap between what he saw and what he believed. Reality came in slow waves, each one more unbearable than the last. And then he was moving, sprinting toward the stretchers with a desperate, raw urgency. A rescuer with no one left to save.
"Selena," he choked, reaching trembling hands toward the nearest form.
The heat of the fire still lingered in the air, as if the world itself was scorched. He lifted the sheet with shaking fingers. What stared back at him was no longer her face—just blackened skin, unrecognizable. His mind rejected it. It can't be her. It isn't.

The city never sleeps, but tonight it felt like it was holding its breath.


I stood in the shadow of the Black Marble Hotel, watching the skyline glisten with a mix of promise and menace. The Queen Bee, Selena was a force unlike any I'd ever seen. Ruthless, sharp, and unyielding. She didn't just rule her world; she owned it.


But owning a throne in this city meant something else entirely.


It meant enemies on every side. Old alliances crumbling. And the constant, choking pressure of proving yourself not once, but every day.


I felt it in my bones. The weight of a legacy I never asked for but had no choice but to claim.


When I left the garden, the severed head of Dino Krajic still fresh in my mind, I knew I wasn't just a visitor anymore. I was a player.


Selena's offer wasn't just an invitation, it was a challenge.


I didn't come here to be a footnote in her story.


Chapter 80 - The Viper’s Venom