Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60 — The New Genesis
Three days later. London, England.
A torrential winter rain washed over the crowded streets of Piccadilly Circus. Valeria sat in the corner booth of a small, anonymous subterranean cafe, wearing a simple wool sweater she had bought with cash.
She sipped a cup of black tea, watching the reflections of the neon billboards dance on the wet pavement outside the window. Her phone—a cheap, burner device purchased at a train station—sat silently on the wooden table.
The seat across from her slid open.
Valeria didn't flinch. She looked up. It wasn't Victor. It wasn't her mother.
It was a young woman, no older than twenty-two, her eyes wide with terror, clutching a bruised arm against her chest. She looked exactly like Valeria had looked ten years ago.
"Are you the woman from the Alliance?" the girl whispered, her voice shaking violently. "A man in Chicago told me if I escaped, if I could get to Europe, you were the only one who could hide me from my family. They told me you have no assets, no legal backing, but that you know how to defeat the monsters."
Valeria looked at the girl's bruised wrist. Then she looked toward the entrance of the cafe.
Standing across the street, half-hidden under a black umbrella in the pouring rain, was a tall man in a dark charcoal coat. His face was obscured, but his posture was unmistakable. Victor. Or a phantom that looked exactly like him.
Beside him, an expensive black sedan with diplomatic plates idled at the curb. The rear window rolled down an inch, revealing the glint of a polished silver locket hanging from a manicured hand.
Valeria slowly turned her attention back to the terrified girl sitting across from her. A slow, calm, and terrifyingly powerful smile settled onto her features. She reached across the table, her hand completely steady, and covered the girl's trembling fingers.
"I don't have an alliance anymore, definitionally," Valeria whispered, her dark eyes flashing with a dangerous, new dawn. "But I have something much better."
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She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a single, small piece of paper she had pulled from her father's hand before the server room exploded—the manual bypass key to a completely separate, unlisted shadow network known only as The Genesis Vault.
"Tell me your husband's name," Valeria said, her voice dropping into a low, resonant purr as the car across the street clicked its headlights on. "And let's teach him what happens when you make a queen bleed."
