Chapter 41
Alina
My life had become a sick joke that served no one, least of all myself. I was exhausted by Balthazar’s endless pursuit. Exhausted by Zara’s and the Scholar’s suffocating threats, their words coiling like smoke around my mind, trying to choke the will out of me.
I needed help.
I needed space from Jack, the voices, all of it. So, I went to Lee’s.
I banged on his door, fists trembling, heart thundering in my chest like it was trying to escape. I half expected no one to answer, already reaching into my bag for my key—
But then the door flew open.
I staggered back in shock, blinking up—not at Lee, but someone else entirely.
“Good,” the man said, voice smooth and cold. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He loomed in the doorway like something conjured from a nightmare—inhumanly tall, with long, lean limbs that seemed to stretch beyond logic.
His expression was feral, unsettling, and his steel-gray eyes glinted like a storm waiting to break.
Just one look, and I felt exposed, as if every secret I’d ever buried had been yanked into the open.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely holding steady.
“Salvatore,” he said. “I am your ally.”
“My ally?” I scoffed. “I don’t think so.”
His dark eyes held mine—and for a terrifying moment, I felt all my fear melt into stillness. It was unnatural… but also strangely comforting.
He stepped aside without a word. And I, against all reason, walked in.
The living room was cluttered and dimly lit. Familiar but tainted now with unease. I perched cautiously on the worn sofa, eyeing him with suspicion. Two empty beer bottles sat on the side table—Lee’s coping mechanism.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He’s not here.”
A shiver raced up my spine. “You didn’t… he’s not dead, is he?”
Salvatore let out a low chuckle. “Of course not. I have no reason to harm him.”
Then he stepped closer, a strange satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.
“I’m here to help you, Alina. And together, we will bring Balthazar to his knees and deceive him.”
A chaotic surge of emotion rippled through me—fear, anger, guilt, longing—all tangled together until I could barely breathe.
I wavered, dizzy, uncertain. My gaze searched Salvatore’s storm-colored eyes for even a hint of familiarity, of trust. But there was none.
He was still a stranger—dark, unreadable, impossibly calm.
And yet… the power radiating from him was undeniable. It clung to the air like static before lightning. I felt it in my bones, in my blood. It frightened me. But it also made me hope. For the first time in weeks, someone seemed to have a plan.
With nowhere else to turn, I surrendered to that sliver of hope. I had no choice.
“Deceive him?” I asked, voice thin. “How can we possibly pull that off? He’s a cunning monster. He knows every weakness in my armor.”
Salvatore exhaled sharply, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “That’s why it’ll work. We’re not going to fight him head-on. We’re going to play him.”
He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me.
“My power eclipses his,” he said. “You’ll rewrite your journal—but not as yourself. You’ll write as if you are in love with him. Adoring. Loyal. Let it drip with passion. But beneath that layer, it has subtext. Fear. Hatred. Regret. Let it be a weapon masked in longing.”
My heart pounded, the idea latching onto something primal in me. A lie so perfect it becomes truth to him.
“I could do that,” I whispered. “I will do that.”
But another fear seized me by the throat. “What about my daughter?” I said, barely getting the words out. “If she ever inherits the power of time travel… I want her blade to carry poison. I won’t let her end up like me. Not trapped. Not manipulated.”
Salvatore’s expression didn’t shift.
“Let’s not pretend you only want to protect her.” He tilted his head, gray eyes gleaming. “You fear her. You envy her. You want her dead.”
I flinched, as if he’d struck me.
He wasn’t wrong. But I didn’t confirm it. I couldn’t.
“To what end?” I finally asked, my voice brittle. “Why are we doing this? What happens when we draw Balthazar out?”
Salvatore smiled—a patient, dangerous curve of his lips.
“We destroy him,” he said. “But not before we make him bleed.”
He took a step closer, voice curling like smoke. “You’ll see. This is part of a far greater plan than your own selfish vendettas. Go to Raul Costa. Beg, if you must. He’ll help you create something perfect… and deadly.”
My stomach turned. Raul and I hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. This would be a test of more than pride.
“So,” I said, piecing it together. “I obtain the poison from Raul. I rewrite the journal as if I still love Balthazar. Then what?”
Salvatore’s grin widened, wicked and knowing. “Go to John James. Ask for his help.”
I narrowed my eyes, incredulous. “John James? What kind of twisted game is this?”
“It’s the only kind that matters,” he explained.
“A game of deception. We lay breadcrumbs. We craft the illusion. You’ll go to John James, trembling and broken, to play the frightened woman haunted by Balthazar’s wrath.
He’ll believe you. He’ll tell you exactly what we need him to—where to take the journal. Where to carry the Sun Dagger.”
“And then?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Salvatore’s eyes locked on mine with predatory intensity. “Then you follow his instructions. Word for word. Step by step. And when the time comes…”
He leaned in. “You bring it all crashing down.”
A cold tremor ran through me. But I nodded.
“I won’t fail.”
His smirk returned. “Good girl.”
Then he vanished.
After he was gone, the weight of what I had just agreed to settled over me like ash.
I sat in the dim light of Lee’s living room, fingers trembling as I reached into my purse and pulled out my weathered notebook. The leather was worn, softened by time, and my breath caught as I flipped through its pages.
Memories clawed their way up from the ink—versions of me I scarcely recognized. Stories etched in chaos and fire. Nights soaked in pleasure and power. Laughter echoing off bloodstained walls. I had been untouchable. Unrepentant. A queen cloaked in ruthlessness, grinning like the devil himself.
And I had loved her—every wicked inch of who I once was.
But that version of me couldn’t exist anymore.
Now, as I stared down at the smudged, worn words chronicling that past life, one thought echoed louder than the rest—
It’s time to destroy who I was… to rewrite who I must become.
I had to move forward. Had to craft a new narrative—one designed not to reveal truth, but to weaponize it. A lie so intricate it would seduce and mislead—a story tailored to Balthazar’s pride and obsession.
Drawing a deep breath, I picked up my pen.
I began writing a journal filled with illusions—fabricated hopes, dreams I never held, emotions I’d long since buried. Each entry dripped with false vulnerability and devotion. Carefully placed phrases acted as breadcrumbs—subtle clues meant to pull Balthazar deeper into the snare.
For two days, I barely left my seat. I wrote relentlessly, forging a new identity on paper.
My words conjured entire lives—characters who danced and wept, lovers who burned, cities that rose and crumbled—with every pen stroke, truth and fiction blurred into something alive and dangerously believable.
I wrote through the night, my body protesting with hunger and exhaustion, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Each word was a step toward power. Toward freedom. The ache in my fingers became the pulse of creation.
And in that process… I rediscovered something.
The thrill of storytelling. The pure, unfiltered power of creation. The electric rush of spinning lies so carefully that they tasted like truth.
By the end of the second day, I set the pen down, blinking against the haze clouding my vision. My body screamed for rest, but a deep, visceral satisfaction settled in my chest.
This was no mere journal.
It was a masterpiece of deceit.
A spell woven in ink.
I had turned myself from a feared villain into a hunted, helpless woman—an image so convincing that even I felt the shift. And when Balthazar read these words, he would see not a threat… but prey.
And that would be his first mistake.
Clenching my fists and grinding my teeth, I forced myself to keep moving, fighting the exhaustion that pricked at my mind like a thousand needles. Sleep threatened to pull me under, but I wouldn’t surrender. Not yet. Not here.
I stumbled through Lee’s condo like a ghost, disoriented and restless. Though I had known him for years, the space felt foreign, like a museum curated by a man I barely recognized. Secrets clung to the air like cobwebs, and every corner whispered with mystery.
Could I find the truth about him in these walls?
Everywhere I turned, there were Native American artifacts—delicately preserved in glass cases or strewn casually across tables and shelves.
Totems, feathers, flint blades. Pieces of forgotten history that Lee had gathered like trophies.
But I couldn’t tell if he revered them or used them. Nothing here was innocent.
Then I entered his bedroom—and stopped cold.
A wave of something nauseating hit me. Sentiment. Affection. It crawled across my skin like rot.
The walls were covered in photographs—Jack. Olivia. Lee. All of them laughing, embracing, immortalized in moments I hadn’t been part of. Their smiles felt like teeth.
I moved through the room quietly, rifling through shelves, lifting objects that felt too carefully placed. Picture frames. Trinket boxes. Drawers.
And then—
In the drawer of a corner table, I paused. Something tugged at me.
I pulled it open.
Beneath a neatly folded scarf, it waited.
Her dagger.
Olivia’s time-travel blade—gleaming under the soft amber light. Small, elegant, lethal. It shimmered like it knew I’d come for it. Like it wanted to be found.