The Villainess Route Has Completely Collapsed (The Villainess Route Is Broken #3)

If you can’t achieve exile through failure, achieve it through success—then abuse it spectacularly.

Dara’s latest problem: she’s accidentally too good at her job.The roads work.

The districts thrive. People love her.And now the Crown Prince is courting her, which should be a disaster but might actually be an opportunity.Because if Valerius wants her as his fiancée, then she can leverage that into something far more useful:

temporary governorship of Ambervale.Official authority. Real power. And the perfect platform to finally, deliberately fail in the most public way possible.

The plan is simple: accept the courtship, secure the position, then abuse it thoroughly.Blackmail nobles. Harass council members.Impose arbitrary taxes. Extort cooperation.Be so spectacularly terrible that formal accusations become inevitable and exile becomes mandatory.It’s manipulative, calculating, and honestly her best work yet.The gifts are excellent, the authority is intoxicating, and if she has to fake intimacy with an inconveniently competent prince to get what she wants, well—that’s just good strategy.

Except Valerius is dangerously perceptive.The council is more complicated than expected.And somewhere between accepting courtship gifts, wielding official power, and pretending this is all still part of the plan, Dara realizes that the line between performance and reality is becoming distressingly unclear.

Sometimes the most dangerous schemes are the ones that start feeling less like schemes.