Chapter 37 - The Mirror Trial
"Treason!" Castlereagh hissed, rising from his gilded chair, his pale eyes bulging with fury. "Guards! Liquidate that imposter immediately!"
"On whose authority, Chancellor?" another voice rang out from the opposite balcony.
The guests turned in collective shock. Standing beneath the western chandelier was a third woman, dressed in the exact same midnight velvet gown.
I stepped into the light, removing my mask, letting the full glare of the chandelier illuminate my face.
A collective murmur erupted across the assembly floor. The oligarchs and bank governors leaned forward in sheer astonishment. Three identical women—flawless, terrifyingly composed, and commanding the room with the unyielding presence of a royal dynasty—stood encircling the high dais.
"Three heirs," an elderly European ambassador whispered in awe, clutching the arm of his seat. "The Trinity Clause... it’s real."
"Silence!" Castlereagh roared, his composure crumbling into unhinged rage. He signaled his head of security. "Kill all three of them! Now!"
Before the lead enforcer could raise his submachine gun, Sophia’s movement was a blur of lethal, calculated grace.
She didn't run. She drove the heel of her hand upward into the guard’s chin with sickening force, catching his sidearm before it hit the floor. In a single fluid motion, she spun around, kicking Castlereagh’s heavy oak desk directly into his knees.
The Chancellor collapsed onto the marble platform with a strangled cry of pain.
Simultaneously, the main power grid of the island plunged into darkness.
Marcus’s voice crackled through our encrypted earpieces: *"Generators disabled. Local law enforcement comms jammed. You have ninety seconds before the backup batteries kick in."*
Emergency red strobe lights painted the ballroom in shades of crimson and shadow. The guests screamed, stampeding toward the heavy double exit doors, which were already magnetically sealed by Marcus’s override protocol.
Castlereagh scrambled backward across the dais, clutching his golden pendant, his eyes wide with terror as the three of us stepped onto the platform together.
Three sisters. Three identical gazes of pure, unfiltered judgment.
"You told me my father abandoned me," Sophia whispered, pointing the captured pistol dead at the center of his forehead. Her hand didn't shake. "You told me I was nothing but an asset."
"Sophia... listen to me," Castlereagh choked out, raising his hands, his aristocratic veneer stripped away to reveal a cowering coward. "I raised you! I made you a queen!"
"You made her a prisoner," I said, stepping forward beside her, Lauren taking the right flank. "And you forgot the first rule of our father's bloodline."
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"What rule?" Castlereagh gasped.
Lauren leaned down, her lips brushing his ear: "Mercers don't surrender their own."