"I don't like 'perfect,'" Max muttered, his hand resting on his holster.
"Perfect usually means the storm is about to hit. Are you sure you don't want me to check the perimeter?"
"No, Max. Give the men a break tonight. It's a quiet night.
Let everyone rest."
Max hesitated, his instincts screaming that something was wrong, but he looked at the joy on Sofia's face and couldn't bring himself to crush it.
He nodded and left the room, leaving Sofia to count the seconds until midnight.
When 1:00 AM arrived, the mansion was silent.
Sofia dressed in her simple black silk dress—the one she had worn to the club on the night everything changed.
She didn't take a weapon. She didn't take her phone.
She wanted to meet him exactly as she was: his Sofia.
She slipped out of the side entrance, moving through the shadows of the garden.
She drove her own car, a small, unremarkable vehicle they kept for errands, and headed toward the coast. The drive was long and lonely.
The city lights faded behind her, replaced by the dark, churning waves of the ocean.
As she approached the old pier, her breath became shallow.
The wooden structure looked old and rickety, stretching out into the black water like a skeletal finger.
She parked the car and stepped out.
The wind was cold, whipping her hair across her face, but she didn't feel the chill.
She walked toward the end of the pier, her heels clicking softly on the weathered wood.
At the very end, a figure was standing.
He was tall, wearing a long dark coat that fluttered in the wind.
His back was to her, his silhouette framed by the pale moonlight reflecting off the water.
"Alfred?"
Sofia called out, her voice trembling with emotion. "Alfred, is it really you?"
The figure didn't move at first. Sofia ran the last few steps, her arms ready to throw themselves around him.
She was so happy, so convinced that her long nightmare was over.
She was ready to tell him about Leo, about the Syndicate, about how much she loved him.
But as she reached out to touch his shoulder, the figure slowly turned around.
Sofia froze.
Her heart, which had been soaring, suddenly crashed into the depths of her stomach.
The face looking back at her wasn't Alfred's.
It was a man she didn't recognize—a man with cold, calculating eyes and a scar running down his cheek.
He was smiling, but it wasn't a smile of love. It was a smile of a predator who had finally caught its prey.
"You really are a romantic, aren't you,
Sofia?" the man said, his voice echoing the note but sounding wrong—cruel and hollow.
"You wanted the King so badly that you walked right into the trap."
Sofia stepped back, her vision blurring with a different kind of moisture.
The "real truth" hit her like a physical blow.
Alfred wasn't here. This wasn't a miracle. It was the beginning of a nightmare she hadn't seen coming.
She looked at the dark water below, and then back at the stranger who had used her heart against her.
The Queen was alone, far from her guards, far from her son,
and the man in the shadows was finally ready to take everything she had left.
The silence of the pier was gone, replaced by the jagged, terrifying reality of a trap.
Sofia stood frozen, the wind whipping her hair across her face, but she no longer felt the cold.
She felt a burning, agonizing shame.
How could I be so stupid?
she thought, her breath coming in ragged gasps. How could I be so blind?
She had wanted the miracle so badly that she had ignored every instinct she had spent months sharpening.
She had left her son, she had left Max, and she had walked right into the hands of the wolves.
She looked at the man with the scarred face, and for the first time, she saw the truth..
This wasn't a game of shadows; this was an execution.
The man stepped forward, the wood of the pier creaking under his heavy boots.
Behind him, four other men emerged from the darkness of the nearby warehouse,
their faces obscured by caps and masks.
They held handguns, the cold metal glinting in the pale moonlight.
"The King is dead, Sofia," the man said, his voice dripping with a cruel satisfaction.
"He died in the fire, just like the reports said. And now, the Queen has to follow him.
We waited for the perfect moment—the moment when your heart would override your brain. And you gave it to us on a silver platter."
Sofia stepped back, her heels clicking near the edge of the rickety wooden planks.
Below her, the dark ocean surged and crashed against the pilings, a hungry, black void.
"Who sent you?"
Sofia demanded, her voice trembling but her eyes narrowing. Even in her terror, the Queen was still there.
"Was it Borov? Lorenzo?"
The man laughed, a dry, hollow sound.
"It doesn't matter who signed the check, Sofia. What matters is that by morning, the Syndicate will be headless.
And don't worry about your little Prince," he added, his smile widening into something demonic.
"I'll send you to Leo soon enough. Once you're gone, he has to die too.
We can't have a bloodline left to seek revenge, can we?"
The mention of Leo acted like a lightning strike to Sofia's soul.
The grief and the shame vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp survival instinct. She couldn't die here.
If she died, Leo was defenseless. Max wouldn't know where she was.
The mansion would be over-run.
I have to run, she thought, her eyes darting around the pier.
I have to get to the car. I have to tell Max.
"Capture her!" the man barked, gesturing to his subordinates.
"But don't make it too clean. I want her to feel the fear before the end."
As the men lunged forward, Sofia didn't wait.
She kicked off her high heels, the silk of her dress fluttering as she turned and bolted. She ran toward the land, her bare feet hitting the rough, splintered wood of the pier.
"She's running! Get her!"