The Reborn Duchess's Ruthless Revenge

The champagne in Isolde's glass had gone warm, but she didn't put it down. She needed the prop. It gave her hands something to do other than strangle the man standing ten feet away.

Senator Jerald Levine.

He was laughing at something the Minister of Defense said, his head thrown back, exposing a thick, fleshy neck. To anyone else in the Royal Hall, he was a pillar of the community. A father. A patriot. A man who had just brought his family back to the capital to serve the crown.

To Isolde, he was a parasite. A carrion crow who had picked her family's bones clean once before.

The memory hit her, sharp and unwelcome as a shard of glass under the skin. It wasn't the warm glow of the gala, but the cold, sterile light of a hospital room. It wasn't the murmur of polite society, but the incessant, cruel beeping of a heart monitor. In her previous life, Levine had succeeded. The grainy, humiliating photos he took tonight had been plastered across every news feed, every tabloid cover. The Queen Mother, her beloved grandmother, a paragon of dignity, reduced to a caricature of shame in her most private moments. The blackmail that followed had brought the Crown to its knees, but it was the public humiliation that had truly broken the old woman's spirit, sending her to an early grave. The ensuing chaos had destabilized the throne, and in the political turmoil that followed, their enemies had closed in. The memory shifted to the scent of rain and twisted metal, to the sight of Elliot's body, broken and lifeless in the wreckage of their car—an "accident" arranged by those who profited from the chaos Levine had unleashed.

Isolde blinked, the magnificent ballroom coming back into focus. The memory receded, but the cold fury it left behind was a fire in her veins. No. Not this time. This time, the parasite would be the one crushed.

She watched him over the rim of her glass. She knew what he was looking at. He wasn't looking at the Minister. His eyes kept darting to the velvet rope at the far end of the ballroom. The rope that guarded the staircase to the private royal quarters. Specifically, the Queen Mother's quarters.

"He's checking the guard rotation," a low voice murmured in her ear.

Isolde didn't flinch. She leaned back slightly, feeling the solid warmth of her husband, Duke Elliot Powers. He smelled of sandalwood and the faint, metallic scent of rain. It grounded her.

"He's impatient," Isolde whispered, her eyes never leaving Levine. "He's been waiting for this gala for months. He thinks the noise will cover him."

"He thinks wrong." Elliot's hand rested on the small of her back. His thumb traced the line of her spine, a possessive, reassuring weight. "Are you sure about this, Isol? Once we do this, there is no going back. The Levine family has influence."

Isolde turned her head, looking up at Elliot. His