All Chapters of The Mafia King's Collateral : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

99 Chapters

She's not done

Liora's POVThe mansion smelled like gunpowder and regret.I stood in the middle of the shattered east wing, glass crunching under my shoes, blood still drying on my hands. The adrenaline had crashed hours ago, leaving behind a hollow exhaustion that made every breath feel heavy.Alora was safe. That was the only thing that mattered.She slept in Nikolai’s arms now, her small body curled against his chest like he was her entire world. He held her gently, rocking her even though she was already deep asleep, his large hand stroking her back with a tenderness that made my chest ache.But I couldn’t stop shaking.I had killed tonight.Not in self-defense like before. I had aimed. I had fired. I had watched men fall because of me.The guilt sat like stones in my stomach.Nikolai looked up and saw me standing there, frozen among the wreckage. His stormy gray eyes softened with understanding. He carefully handed Alora to Maria, who carried her away to the reinforced safe room, then crossed t

No more offers

Liora's POVI was no longer an ornament in Nikolai’s world.I sat at the head of the long mahogany table beside him, back straight, chin high, wearing a tailored black dress that made me look every bit the queen I was becoming. The war room was filled with Nikolai’s most trusted captains and advisors, hard men with scarred faces and colder eyes. They had all stared when I walked in.Some with respect.Most with open skepticism.Nikolai’s hand rested on my thigh under the table — a silent show of support. But I could feel the tension radiating from him. He was proud. He was also uneasy. His queen was stepping into the light, and some of his men weren’t ready for it.“Gentlemen,” Nikolai began, voice low and commanding. “The Ghost and Sofia are still out there. We need new strategies. Liora has been working on intelligence from the inside. She’ll speak first.”The room went dead silent.I felt every pair of eyes on me. Some curious. Others hostile.I didn’t flinch.I leaned forward an

Race against death

Liora's POVAlora was dying.The thought repeated in my head like a broken record as I watched her small body tremble on the hospital bed we had set up in the reinforced medical wing. Her skin was too pale. Her breathing too shallow. The slow-acting poison Elias had designed was shutting her down piece by piece.We had 47 hours left.Nikolai hadn’t slept in two days. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles had split open. He paced the room like a caged animal, every step heavy with barely contained rage and terror.“We’re running out of time,” I whispered, voice cracking as I held Alora’s tiny hand. “The labs say the antidote is custom-made. Only Elias has the formula.”Nikolai stopped pacing. For a moment, the king disappeared, and all that remained was a desperate father.“I’ll kill him,” he growled. “I’ll drag him here and carve the formula out of his skin if I have to.”I stood up and grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at me. “No. We do this

The tortureous bargain

Liora's POVThe waiting was torture.I paced the war room like a caged animal, every second stretching into eternity. Alora lay in the medical wing, her small body growing weaker by the hour. The poison was winning. Her skin was too pale, her breathing too shallow. The doctors could only slow it down.Nikolai had gone alone.Against my pleas. Against every instinct screaming inside me. He had kissed Alora’s forehead, then mine, and whispered, “I have to do this. For her. For us.”Then he disappeared into the night.I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t eaten. I just waited, heart in my throat, staring at the secure line that refused to ring.Maria brought me tea I didn’t touch. The guards watched me with wary respect. They had seen me fight. They had seen me stand beside their king. But right now, I was just a mother terrified of losing everything.Two hours passed.Then three.When the secure line finally buzzed, I nearly dropped the phone trying to answer it.Nikolai’s voice came through, rough

You've earned your space

Liora’s POVThe medical wing smelled of antiseptic and quiet hope. Machines beeped in a steady rhythm, no longer the frantic, erratic symphony that had haunted my nightmares for the past forty-eight hours. I sat beside Alora’s bed, my hand wrapped gently around her tiny fingers, watching the slow rise and fall of her small chest. The antidote had worked its miracle overnight. Her skin had lost that terrifying gray pallor, and a faint flush of pink now touched her cheeks.She was still sleeping, but it was peaceful now. Not the drugged, death-like stillness that had nearly broken me.I hadn’t left her side since Nikolai returned at dawn. My body ached from the hours of pacing and waiting, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Every breath she took felt like a gift I was terrified to lose.Nikolai stood like a sentinel at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his broad chest, his stormy gray eyes fixed on our daughter. He hadn’t slept either. Bruises still darkened his jaw and knuckles

I don't know it!

Nikolai’s POVThe encrypted message burned in my mind like a brand as I descended the stone steps into the basement. The air grew colder, heavier, carrying the familiar metallic tang of blood and fear. This level of the mansion wasn’t for the faint-hearted. It was where secrets died and truths were carved out of unwilling flesh.Dmitri followed a step behind, but I waved him off at the reinforced door. “Alone.”He hesitated only a fraction of a second before nodding. Smart man. They all knew the Reaper was awake again.Inside the dimly lit room, the defector sat chained to a metal chair bolted to the floor. Mid-thirties, wiry build, face already bruised from whatever resistance he’d put up during capture.His eyes darted up when I entered—wide with recognition and a desperate kind of hope. Pathetic. But useful.I didn’t speak at first. I simply circled him slowly, letting the silence stretch until it became a living thing. My knuckles still ached from the night with Elias, but the pa

Treat me like one

Liora’s POVThe war room felt different now. Not the cold, intimidating chamber it had once been when I was nothing more than Nikolai’s collateral. I stood with my arms crossed, staring Nikolai down across the table. He had just finished briefing a small group of his most trusted men about the defector’s information: the secondary base, the routes, the chilling confirmation of another mole still breathing inside our walls. The men had nodded, eyes hard with loyalty, and filed out after Dmitri’s sharp orders, leaving us alone.Nikolai leaned against the edge of the table, powerful arms folded, watching me with that stormy intensity that always made my pulse race. Bruises still marked his jaw, but the Reaper was fully awake now. I could see it in the set of his shoulders, the calculating glint in his gray eyes.And yet… he was still trying to shield me.“You’re shutting me out again,” I said, voice steady but edged with steel. I wasn’t the broken woman who had first walked into this

Talk or die slow

Nikolai’s POVThe night air clung to my skin like a shroud as our unmarked SUVs cut through the fog-shrouded eastern corridor. Three vehicles. Eight men total—my most elite shadows, handpicked and loyal to the bone. No unnecessary risks. Liora’s voice still echoed in my head from the war room earlier, sharp and strategic as she traced the routes on the screen.“Approach from the old drainage tunnel,” she had insisted, her finger stabbing the blueprint. “It’s their blind spot. And Nikolai—don’t go in blind with rage. You’re smarter than him.”Her words had grounded me. My queen, no longer collateral but the mind sharpening my blade. I carried that with me now, a tether against the darkness threatening to swallow me whole.“Pakhan,” Dmitri murmured from the driver’s seat, eyes on the infrared feed. “Perimeter sensors bypassed. We’re green for insertion.”I nodded once, checking the magazine in my silenced pistol. The Reaper stirred beneath my skin, cold and precise. Elias thought his

Let them come

Liora’s POVThe war room lights cast long shadows across the mahogany table, but the real darkness clung to the encrypted hard drive sitting between us like a coiled serpent. Nikolai had returned from the raid bloodied yet triumphant, his shoulder stitched and bandaged, the Reaper’s fire burning brighter than ever. Now, hours later, we sat side by side, shoulders brushing, as his tech specialist finished the initial decryption and slipped out discreetly.Alora was sleeping soundly down the hall under heavy guard, her soft breathing monitored on a tablet beside me. The antidote had given her back to us, but the fear of losing her still lingered like smoke in my lungs. I refused to let it choke me.“Ready?” Nikolai asked, his voice low and rough. His large hand covered mine on the mouse, guiding it to open the first decrypted folder. The graze on his shoulder didn’t seem to bother him, but I could see the faint lines of pain and exhaustion etched around his stormy gray eyes.I nodded

Misunderstanding?

Nikolai’s POVThe basement lights hummed with a cold, unforgiving glow. Blood had already stained the concrete earlier this week, but tonight the air felt thicker, charged with the weight of betrayal that ran deeper than Anton’s pathetic games. I stood in the observation room, arms crossed, watching the feed from the main interrogation chamber. Liora’s words from the war room still burned in my chest: We do this together.She was right. But some shadows I had to handle alone.The mid-level advisor—Gregor Ivanov—sat chained to the same bolted chair where the defector had spilled his guts. Mid-forties, slicked-back hair, the kind of face that blended into boardrooms and back alleys alike. He’d been with the Volkov organization for twelve years. Trusted with logistics. Trusted with just enough access to feed Elias real-time poison about Alora’s movements.My jaw clenched. The new intel from the raid drive had been crystal clear: encrypted messages routed through Gregor’s private server

...

5 6 7 8 9 10

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP