Isabelle's POV
I don't remember walking out of the Council Chamber.
One second I was standing there, watching Dmitri do the math behind his eyes, weighing me against the Volkov name, against Emmeline, against everything his father was offering. The next second, my heels hit marble, and the doors slammed shut behind me.
The sound echoed down the hallway like a gunshot.
I didn't stop. I couldn't. If I stopped, I'd have to think about what I just saw. That pause. That hesitation. The way he went still when Viktor mentioned the engagement, not angry, not refusing, just... calculating.
Like I was a variable in an equation he hadn't finished solving.
I made it to my room somehow. Don't remember the stairs, the hallways, any of it. Just the door clicking shut behind me and the dark pressing in.
Then my knees gave out.
I sat on the floor with my back against the door, hugging my violin case like it was the only thing left that made sense. The wood was cold. Familiar.
He hesitated. That thought kept circling.
Three days.
That's how long I stayed in that room. I stopped counting the hours after the first night. Meals came and went. Someone left trays outside my door that I didn't touch. The knock came more than once. Familiar. Insistent. I knew it was him.
I didn't open it.
What was there to say? Hey, I watched you consider selling me out for a seat at the table. Want to explain? No thanks. I'd rather stare at the ceiling and let the silence eat me alive.
The third night, I dreamed about my mother.
Not the portrait, her. Alive. She was standing in a room full of light, holding the Stradivarius, and she was laughing at something someone said. I couldn't see his face. Just the back of his head, dark hair, broad shoulders. Maybe my father.
Then the light turned to smoke and she was gone.
I woke up gasping, my hand pressed to my chest like I was keeping my heart from tearing through my ribs.
The room was dark. The same dark it had been for three days. But something felt different.
I got up. Walked to the window. Maybe the morning air would help.
The courtyard below was almost empty except for a few figures walking around. Then I saw Emmeline. She was standing by the fountain with a cluster of girls around her, showing off what had to be an engagement ring. She held her left hand up so the diamond caught the morning light. They were all staring at it. Admiring.
She looked radiant.
I watched for a long moment. Waiting for the anger to hit. Waiting for the grief or the jealousy or something.
Nothing came. Just this hollow space in my chest where all those feelings used to live. Like someone had scooped them out with a spoon.
I turned away from the window.
The fourth morning, I showered. Ate something. Packed my bag.
I wasn't hiding anymore.
The walk to the library felt strange, like my body had forgotten how to move through spaces where people could see me. Students stared. I stared back. They looked away first.
I found a corner carrel and pulled out my father's ledger.
It took me three hours to find it, the Aurelia Maritime Trust. That was where the real power lived. The money that bought silence, politicians, whole careers. And for decades, they'd been hiding it using my family's old port rights.
It wasn't just theft. It was personal. Like they'd wanted to make sure even the memory of us couldn't float.
Three keystrokes. That's all it took. I took back what was rightfully mine. Ownership transferred to Valois Sovereign Holding Trust.
By lunch, Seraphina Schuyler's empire would be missing a chunk the size of a small country. By dinner, she'd know exactly who took it. I closed the laptop and sat back in the chair. My hands weren't shaking this time. I felt... steady.
Disappointment was a luxury I couldn't afford right now. And the hurt? That was starting to feel like a distraction.
I had a name. I had a war.
And I was done waiting for anyone to fight it with me.
Dmitri's POV
The study smelled like my father's whiskey and my own failure.
I'd been standing at the window for an hour, watching nothing. The glass was cold against my forehead. My reflection looked like a stranger, someone who'd spent days not sleeping, not eating, not doing anything except replaying that moment in the Council Chamber.
She saw it.
That's what kept circling. She saw me hesitating. Just the look on Isabelle's face right before she walked out. That moment when she realized I wasn't answering fast enough.
She probably thought I was considering it. She was right.
The door opened behind me.
"She took the Maritime Trust." My father's voice was flat. Like he was reading a weather report.
I felt something twist in my chest. Something that might have been pride if I'd had any right to feel it.
"Are you deaf?! " he snapped. "Say something,"
I turned slowly. He was standing by his desk, holding a tablet, looking like someone had just told him his favorite bank account had died."What do you want me to say?" I asked. My voice sounded far away. "I warned you she wasn't just some girl you could bury."
"She's a problem," he said. "One you created. I instructed you to watch over her and report to me. You disobeyed me and went against my orders. Now she has become a thorn on my side, going around creating more mess she's not going to fix."
I waited.
"The engagement announcement is still happening. It will be aired on Friday. You'll stand next to Emmeline and smile like you mean it. And then you'll figure out how to get that trust back."
"No."
A flicker of irritation crossed his face.
He stared at me. Waiting for me to take it back.
"I'm not fixing anything for you," I said. "Not the trust. Not the engagement. Not your reputation. You want to bury her? Go ahead and try. But don't expect me to hold the shovel."
"You're making a mistake," he said quietly.
"Probably," I said. I walked past him toward the door. "But it's mine to make."
I didn't know where I was going. Didn't have a plan. Didn't have anything except the echo of her face when she walked out.
She thought I was calculating. I was. But not the way she thought.
I wasn't weighing her against the Volkov name. I was weighing how much it would cost to bury it all. How many bridges to burn. How much blood to draw. How long it would take to make sure no one could ever put me in that position again.
She didn't wait for the answer.
Maybe she was right not to.
So I carried the weight of a choice I hadn't made fast enough and a girl who'd stopped waiting for me to make it.