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THEY TIED HER UP TO RUIN HER LIFE—BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHO HER TRUE PROTECTOR WAS! / Chapter 5 / 6

Chapter 5 - Shadows in the Ballroom

Viral Headline: THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND THE BLOOD FLOWS! THE WEDDING TURNS INTO A DEADLY TRAP!Screams echoed through the dark ballroom. The sound of tables overturning and glass shattering filled the air.

“Mara, stay behind me,” Nikolai’s voice commanded instantly through the gloom. A heavy, protective arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest.

A loud gun report cracked through the room, followed by the muzzle flash illuminating a terrifying sight: Julian Vance stood near the exit, a silver revolver in his hand, his eyes wild with desperation. Behind him stood a group of armed mercenaries who certainly didn't belong to the Volkov syndicate.

“If my family is going down, we’re taking everyone with us!” Julian roared. “My father warned me about you, Volkov! We knew you’d try to take the shipping lines!”

The wedding had been a trap from the very beginning, but not just for Mara. The Vance family had anticipated Nikolai’s intervention and had hired outside muscle to eliminate the mafia boss and seize total control of the shipping infrastructure during the chaos.

Gunfire erupted from both sides. Nikolai pulled Mara behind a heavy marble pillar—the very column she had been tied to earlier.

“Can you use a weapon?” Nikolai asked quietly, pulling a sleek, compact pistol from his ankle holster and pressing it into her hand.

“No, I’ve never—”

“Point and pull. Trust your instincts,” Nikolai interrupted, his own weapon already firing back into the darkness with lethal precision.

Mara pressed her back against the cold marble, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked across the corridor during a flash of gunfire and saw Vivienne trying to crawl away, her ruined dress catching on the debris. Suddenly, one of Julian’s hired mercenaries pointed his weapon directly at Vivienne, viewing her as a useless liability.

Without thinking, Mara raised the pistol Nikolai had given her, leveled it at the mercenary, and pulled the trigger.

The recoil shocked her arm, but the bullet found its mark, striking the gunman in the shoulder and forcing him back. Vivienne looked up, her eyes wide with shock as she realized the cousin she had framed had just saved her life.

“The backup generators are online in five seconds,” Nikolai shouted over the noise. “When the lights come on, this ends.”

The emergency lights flickered to life, casting a stark, red glow over the ballroom. The Volkov enforcers had completely overwhelmed Julian’s mercenary forces. Julian was disarmed, pinned to the ground with a boot on his neck.

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

But as Nikolai stepped forward to claim his victory, Mara noticed something strange on the tablet lying discarded on the floor. The security feed was still recording a different part of the building.

The real mastermind wasn't Julian. And it wasn't her uncle Richard.

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