Ready to Rule: The Real Heiress Strikes Back novel Chapter 422

[Sir, I’m with her. She’s looking out for me. She said if you find this note, you should leave the mountain right away. She has her own way out.]

[If you really have to come up, stay hidden. She’ll be fine.]

Blake could tell things had been tense. The handwriting was a mess, barely recognizable. If he didn’t already know Jonas’s chicken scratch, there was no way he could have made sense of it.

He was never the type to turn back, but reading that his sister was looking out for Jonas made him stop and think.

Had Jonas messed up the wording in his panic? But then the next line, She has her own way out, made it seem deliberate. Maybe Jonas hadn’t made a mistake at all.

So, he’d sent his man to protect his sister, and somehow, now his sister was the one protecting his man? Blake couldn’t shake the feeling she was running the show.

He wasn’t wrong. Lydia had leaked her location on purpose, drawing their enemies to Blackbird Lake and the surrounding mountains.

Viper’s people wanted her dead, but she wasn’t about to show them any mercy. No one who came after her today would be leaving.

With Jonas by her side, Lydia led Viper’s group on a wild chase through the rugged mountains, playing a deadly game of hide and seek.

By nightfall, Viper’s numbers had been cut in half. Only a dozen or so were left.

“Damn it, L! Get out here!” Rex shouted, voice echoing across the mountain. “What a coward. Too scared to fight face to face!”

“Lydia’s trying to make us use up all our ammo,” his right hand man warned.

They’d been chasing her for what felt like forever, but she was always a step ahead. Their ammo was almost gone, thanks to her ambushes and hit-and-run attacks.

Rex knew it all too well.

“So what? How many weapons can she possibly have? When she runs out of tricks, we’ll take her down.”

“Just a little longer,” Lydia told him. “It’s almost over.”

Their enemies were almost out of ammo.

She spotted a new vantage point and launched another ambush. Two more of Viper’s men went down before they even knew what hit them.

Rex’s eyes were wild with fury. “Go after her. Take her out.”

Lydia glanced at Jonas, who was struggling to his feet, steadying himself against a tree. “Let’s get to the summit.”

Moonlight washed over the mountains, cold and pale, turning the forest into a world of shifting shadows. The trees moved with the wind, silent and watchful, like assassins waiting for the right moment to strike.

Far off, the mountain peaks barely showed against the sky, hulking shapes that looked like sleeping beasts, heavy with danger.