Empire of Lies and Flames (Ruins of Power #1)

Chapter 26

RENéE

Javier placed a hoodie and a pair of shorts on the bed, then stepped back, his eyes fixed on me. I couldn’t bring myself to meet his gaze—not with his hands still stained in blood, not with the weight of what he’d just done hanging between us. The blood of the men he killed.

“I’ll let you freshen up,” he said, his voice steady, too steady. Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the suffocating silence.

I stood there, frozen. My legs felt like they were made of lead, and my heart pounded in my chest. Blood. Death. Violence. I’d been running from those things my entire life. It’s why I left Belgium. Why I walked away from my family. I’d seen enough blood to haunt me for a lifetime, and no amount of distance ever felt like enough. I thought I could escape it. But here I was, and it had caught up to me again.

And Javier...

I knew. Deep down, I knew. There were always signs. The calm, controlled way he moved. The sharpness in his eyes, like he was always calculating. I’d suspected he wasn’t just a man in a suit, but nothing prepared me for the cold, detached way he took those men’s lives tonight. He did it for me—I knew that. But how do I accept it when blood and death are the very things I’ve been running from? How do I reconcile the man who protected me with the one who ended two lives without flinching?

I stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. The cold water hit my skin, shocking me into the present, but it couldn’t wash away what I’d seen. It couldn’t wash away the blood on my hands—hands that trembled as I stared at them. My knuckles were bruised, and raw from the punches I’d thrown. Kian would’ve been proud. After all those years of training, all those lessons drilled into me, at least I hadn’t frozen. But I hadn’t won either.

The trauma hadn’t hit me yet, not fully. I could feel it lurking, though, just beneath the surface. My body was here, but my mind kept slipping, back to the past, back to him .

Henri.

I squeezed my eyes shut, letting the water pour over me, but it didn’t help. His voice cut through, sharp and cruel.

“I’ll let them have their fun with you, and then it’ll be my turn.”

My breath hitched. I could still hear it so clearly, that sickening promise.

“Your brothers won’t be here to save you this time.”

My hands started to shake again, but I couldn’t stop it. My family—Belgium’s most powerful crime syndicate—and they couldn’t stop him. They couldn’t protect me. The biggest, most feared organization and Henri still found a way. He had come after me, broke me, and when I thought I’d escaped... here I was, drowning in the same nightmare all over again.

I scoffed bitterly; the sound was hollow in the quiet room. No matter how far I ran, no matter how strong I tried to be, it was never enough.

I stood there under the water, letting it flow over me, washing away the dirt, and the sweat, but never the memories. Never the blood.

“You can’t leave. You belong to me.”

Henri’s voice echoed in my head, over and over, each word searing into my memory like a brand. I winced as the memory of his grip tightened around my hair, yanking me back to a nightmare I’d spent years trying to forget.

“Please, let go.” I’d begged him, my voice breaking, but it only made him grip harder, his fingers tangling in my hair like chains.

“How dare you think you can leave me?” he hissed, yanking me so hard my scalp burned. Tears blurred my vision as I cried out, but he wasn’t done. He was never done.

“If you try that stunt again,” he growled, his breath hot against my ear, “I’ll make sure none of your family lives to see another day.”

“As if you can do anything to them!” I spat, summoning courage from a place I didn’t know I had. “They’ll skin you alive!”

His smile—the one that made my skin crawl—spread across his face. “Only if they catch me. Only if they find you .”

That smile haunted me. Even now.

Kian and Hael found me eventually, but by then, Henri was long gone. Just like he said. They couldn’t find him. Not with all their power, not with half the world in their hands. The man who turned my life into hell disappeared like smoke, and there was nothing they could do. Nothing I could do.

The scene shifted, the nightmare pulling me deeper. I wasn’t with Henri anymore. I was kneeling in front of my father in his massive office, his cold green eyes boring holes into my soul.

“Papa, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t... I’m breaking.” My voice cracked. I hated how small I sounded.

His silence was worse than any shouting. His eyes stayed on me, unblinking, and the weight of his judgment pressed down on me until I couldn’t breathe. After what felt like forever, he gave a single nod.

“Go, then,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. Just like that, he let me walk away.

And then Henri was back. His ugly smile. His filthy hands. His boot slammed into my stomach. I couldn’t stop him. He kept coming closer and closer until there was no space left, nowhere to run.

“Renée! Breathe. Please, just breathe!”

Javier’s voice cut through the nightmare like a lifeline, pulling me back. My eyes snapped open, my chest heaving, but I still couldn’t catch my breath. His arms were wrapped around me, holding me tightly.

“You’re safe. It’s okay. I’m here.” His voice was steady, soothing.

I hadn’t even realized I was hyperventilating. My whole body shook in his arms, my breath coming in short, frantic gasps.

“Renée, breathe, baby. Please.” His voice cracked.

I sucked in a shaky breath, trying to focus on his words. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly, the tightness in my chest began to ease. Javier held me closer, his warmth grounding me, his heartbeat steady against mine.

I let him hold me. I didn’t pull away. I let myself sink into his embrace until the tremors subsided until the panic loosened its grip on me.

Eventually, I fell asleep in his arms.

JAVIER

As I watched Renée sleep, the soft rise and fall of her chest finally steady, my mind wouldn’t stop racing. The pieces were starting to fall into place, forming a picture I didn’t want to see but couldn’t ignore. My gut twisted, the kind of pain that comes when the truth starts staring you in the face.

The panic earlier, her nightmare, the way she had shattered in my arms—it wasn’t just fear. It was terror , raw and bone-deep, the kind that leaves scars no one else can see. My chest tightened, and a helplessness I wasn’t used to crept in. I didn’t have the full story—hell, not even half of it—but I knew enough. That guy, that motherfucker had hurt her. He hurt her enough that she completely shut down on the chapter and moved on. He was her past—and that past was still gripping her like a goddamn vice.

The guilt hit me like a punch. How long had she been carrying this? How much of it had she buried, so far down I hadn’t even noticed? Renée—so fiery, so quick with a sassy comeback or that defiant little smirk she wore like armor. She’d hidden it so well; that I hadn’t seen a single crack in the surface. And that made me feel like a goddamn fool.

I couldn’t get the bastard out of my head. Just the memory of his shadow was enough to set my blood on fire. That son of a bitch was like a chain wrapped around her ankle, dragging her down, drowning her. Tonight, just the thought of him—or maybe it was the ghost he left behind—had unraveled her, tearing open wounds she’d probably spent years trying to bury. And here I was, chasing after the aftermath, powerless to fix any of it.

A hundred different ways to kill him ran through my mind, each one slower, crueler, more unforgiving than the last. I could see it, feel it—the satisfaction of making him suffer. But no matter how much I wanted to, it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing could ever make up for the damage he’d done to her.

But despite it all, all the anger, all the frustration, what hit me hardest was this: she had survived. My Renée had lived through a nightmare I could only begin to imagine. She had endured, shoved it all down, smiled through it, laughed like she didn’t have the weight of a thousand goddamn heartbreaks pressing on her shoulders. She had walked through hell and come out the other side, pretending like the flames hadn’t licked at her heels.

And yet, she had done it alone. That’s what gutted me. Even now, with me here, holding her, she hadn’t let me in. She hadn’t felt safe enough, trusted me enough, to share those shadows that still haunted her. That hurt more than I wanted to admit.

I let out a quiet sigh, my gaze lingering on her face. She looked peaceful now, her features relaxed, free from the fear that had consumed her earlier. I wanted to protect her from that past, from anything that could hurt her again. But I couldn’t just fix this. Not yet. This wasn’t something I could fight off with my fists or chase down in the dark. The only thing I could do was stay. Be here. Wait for the day she felt safe enough to let me in.

But staying wasn’t enough. Not for me. Not when that fucker was still out there, still breathing the same air she did. I wasn’t going to sit around and let his shadow keep haunting her.

Careful not to wake her, I reached for her phone. My hands were steady as I scrolled through the contacts. And when I found the number, I was looking for.

One ring. Two. Then a voice on the other end.