CHAPTER 36: CHAPTER 35: THE COST OF FREEDOM

Victoria’s POV

The mansion gates were open.

No guards. No challenge. No noise.

Just silence.

I stepped past the threshold, heels clicking against the driveway tile. The air smelled wrong. Like iron. Like burnt powder.

I kept walking.

That’s when I saw the first body.

A guard. His head—

"God !".

The skull was split open like a crushed fruit. What was left was unrecognizable. Brain, blood, bone—painted against the ground.

My stomach lurched.

I backed away—but only for a moment. I couldn’t stop now. I had to know.

I broke into a run.

My heels snapped across the stone path, nearly slipping on blood-slick steps. I turned the corner—

Two more.

Both with bullet holes right between the eyes. Dead.

My breath caught.

My thoughts spiraled.

Did Elliot do this?

He was capable of murder, yes. I’d known that

Was this how far he’d gone? Did Franz try to stop him?

What if Franz got caught up in this?

What if he was dead? Killed for helping me?

No.

No no no—

He was just trying to help. Just trying to fix what I ruined. He didn’t deserve this.

He can’t be dead.

I clenched my jaw. "No... please, no."

I shoved the door open, storming into the grand hallway—

Then scent hit me first.

Smoke. Burnt wood. Blood.

Not the clean, metallic tang I’d smelled before. No. This was heavier. Charred and clotted—like it had soaked into the carpet, into the bone. The kind of stench that lingered after the violence was over. The kind that didn’t leave, no matter how hard you scrubbed.

The Ardent mansion stood in silence. Not the quiet of peace, but that eerie, suffocating stillness that settles after devastation. Like the pause between a lightning strike and the thunder.

I stepped through the entrance.

The grand double doors were shattered. One of them was split down the middle, cracked like a broken rib. Glass crunched under my heels. The tile shimmered—but not from polish.

Dark. Sticky.

Blood.

Each step came with a soft, wet drag. A skrrch sound that clung to the soles of my shoes.

It was everywhere.

On the walls. On the railings. Painted across portraits of men who smiled in oil and ivory frames. Across the marble where my daughter used to run as a child. I remembered that sound—her laughter echoing in the halls.

Now the echoes were gone.

Now it smelled like death.

I moved further in..

Bodies.

Guards in black suits lay crumpled in impossible positions. Some frozen in place. Some mid-run. Some still holding their weapons. Their throats were open. Their skulls—caved in. Burned. Slashed. Torn.

One man was missing an arm.

Another had nothing left of his face but a red ruin.

Some of them were barely recognizable.

And then—I saw him.

Franz.

Sitting on the marble steps.

Still.

Back slightly hunched. One arm resting on his knee. A cigarette smoldered lazily between his fingers, glowing faintly in the haze of smoke that hung thick in the air.

His hoodie was soaked. Torn at the ribs. Drenched in blood that wasn’t all his. His hair clung to his forehead in tangled black strands, streaked with red.

His face had no emotion.

Unlike she had seen in the morning which had a carefree smile.

There was no slouch, no slump.

He was coiled. Still dangerous. Still waiting.

Like if someone blinked wrong, he’d start again.

I stepped forward.

The sound of my foot touching the blood-slick marble startled me. Too loud. Like I didn’t belong in this place—this cathedral of death.

He didn’t move.

I took another step.

Then—he rose.

Just... rose.

Our eyes met.

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.

He walked toward me. Slowly. Each step left a wet print—deep red against pale tile.

He stopped in front of me.

Lifted his hand.

The skin was cracked at the knuckles. Blood crusted along his wrist. It didn’t stop him.

He ran that hand through my hair.

Slow. Gentle.

And cold. So cold.

Red streaked through my curls. My breath caught. But I didn’t pull away.

I couldn’t.

"You’re free," he said.

Soft. Barely a whisper.

Then he walked past me.

No glance back. No pause.

His footsteps trailed off behind me, fading into the distance like echoes leaving a ruined church.

I turned.

My body moved before my mind could stop it.

Up the grand staircase—where the gold railing was bent, cracked. Where portraits had been slashed open. Where smoke still curled from bullet holes in the walls.

And at the top—

There he was.

Elliot.

Hung from a beam, limp, neck twisted unnaturally.

My knees buckled.

The bile rose in my throat, but it wasn’t the body that did it.

My mind blanked.

I had asked Franz for help.

I had opened the door.

What if I had invited something worse than Elliot into our lives?

....

.....

Franz’s POV

"Why do I always pick the hard way?" Franz muttered under his breath.

The cigarette was down to the filter, the ash long since fallen into the trail of blood on the marble.

Ding.

A soft sound echoed in his vision. A system notification.

[Main Quest Update: 1st Arc Villain Compromised][Fate is stabilizing. Plot armor is recharging.]

[Main Cast Protection: 5%]

Franz stared at the floating numbers. "5%?"

It means the danger around them is decreasing. So their fate is starting to stitch itself back together.

[ You do realize you finished the entire first arc villain... in your first Chapter, right? There are going to be consequences. ]

franz rubbed his face, eyes sore and heavy. "Yeah, yeah, I will deal with that when it happens why fuss over thing today when its going to happen tomorrow"

[Exactly. That’s why we plan today. So ’tomorrow’ doesn’t kill you.]

A mindset like yours is what gets people killed.

then he heard sound.

"Shut up"

Engines.

A convoy of black SUVs pulled up to the gate, rolling to a stop like military precision. The front passenger door opened, and an older man in a dark coat—graying hair, sharp eyes, phone already in hand.

The old man stepped out first—sharp suit and the look of someone who’d done this cleanup before.

He rushed up the steps toward him.

"Franz—are you okay?" the old man asked, voice low but strained.

"Yeah. Just tired. Clean up the mess inside. And explain what comes next to Victoria. She was handling the business before Elliot anyway."

The old man nodded without further questions.

Franz added, "Also... get me clothes. And car keys. I’m not taking the cab after this."

He nodded again and passed the order.

Another van arrived.

Masked men in black stepped out—cleaners. Suited. Silent. Efficient. They didn’t flinch at the carnage. They got to work.

Franz stood. Changed into the fresh clothes. Tossed the bloody ones aside. He washed his hands and face in the hall’s fountain. Grabbed the car key offered to him.

Then he left.

...

By the time he reached the city again, it was already dark.

He pulled up near a pharmacy, stepped out stiffly, and walked in like just another guy.

Picked up a pack of cotton, bandages, antiseptic. Nodded at the cashier. Paid in cash.

...

At the apartment door, he crouched. Lifted the flower pot. Spare key still there.

He said as he was unlocking the door.

"Did you see how the pharmacy guy looked at me ?"

[Trust me. If you saw yourself right now, you’d look at yourself weird too.]

"I really should shower"

Click.

He stepped inside, still brushing dried blood off his sleeves, the antiseptic and gauze from the medical store crinkling in the plastic bag dangling from his wrist.

He froze.

There—spread across his couch like a pack of stray cats curled up at the edge with a blanket over there head like a cocoon.

Popcorn bowls. A half-played Monopoly board. Someone had kicked over a can of soda on the carpet. His carpet.

Franz blinked.

Then looked toward the ceiling.

"Why the fuck are they still here ?"