Chapter 116: Surrender
Jane's expression darkened instantly. She snatched the tiny hairpin from Sophie' hand, her tone carrying the unmistakable edge of an interrogation as she gritted her teeth.
"Sophie, we've only just left Volterra, and you're already this impatient? You're actually planning to wear another coven's crest right in front of me?" She lifted the hairpin as though preparing to hurl it into the roadside brush, determined to crush Sophie' thoughts of ever wearing another family's emblem before they could fully take root.
Unfortunately for Jane, Sophie was the one behind the wheel.
With the driver firmly in control, there was no way she would let the passenger get her way, especially when that passenger had stubbornly refused to wear a seatbelt. Exercising what she considered perfectly legitimate driver's authority, Sophie decisively jerked the steering wheel.
The sports car swerved violently at high speed, and no matter how powerful vampires were, even they remained subject to the laws of inertia. Jane immediately lost her balance and lurched sideways, crashing against Sophie just to keep herself from being thrown across the cabin.
"Sorry," Sophie said with suspicious innocence. "My hand slipped."
Without the slightest hesitation, she plucked the hairpin from Jane's grasp before calmly tucking it into her own pocket instead of putting it on. Then, wearing a smug little smile, she added, "Looks like seatbelts really do have a purpose after all."
Far away from the castle and the rigid structure of the Volturi Guard, the balance between them quietly shifted. Jane might possess over a thousand years of experience while wearing the face of a teenager but Sophie was a twenty-two-year-old woman raised in the modern world. Outside the familiar rules of the castle, it was genuinely difficult to say which of them held the advantage.
Making absolutely certain Jane couldn't steal it again, Sophie tucked the hairpin securely into the inner pocket of her jacket.
Jane's irritation eased slightly after seeing Sophie compromise, though she still asked rather stiffly,
"Where did you get it?"
Seeing Jane's attitude soften, Sophie happily continued the conversation.
She enthusiastically praised the remarkable efficiency of the Volturi's roaming guards. A guard stationed in northern North America had traveled all the way to her apartment, collected everything she requested, packed it neatly, and shipped it directly to the Palazzo dei Priori.
"It was unbelievable!" Sophie exclaimed. "It's the first time I've ever seen an international package delivered overnight without charging a single cent for shipping. Did Aro negotiate some kind of annual contract with an airline?"
Online shopping had only recently begun becoming widespread among humans, yet international deliveries still routinely took one or even two months to arrive.
Jane looked entirely unimpressed.
"Shipping fees?" she scoffed. "The Volturi's influence is worth far more than money."
Sophie immediately nodded in exaggerated agreement.
"Of course, of course. The royal family of the vampire world taking over one tiny human apartment is practically effortless."
Jane frowned slightly.
"Wasn't that apartment yours?"
In Jane's understanding of the world, wherever someone lived naturally belonged to them.
Sophie couldn't help laughing.
"Jane, you think far too highly of me. I was renting that little apartment. It wasn't in the best neighborhood, but that was exactly why it was affordable. I paid a year's rent in advance. Otherwise, my landlord probably would've thrown everything I owned onto the street by now."
What Sophie didn't know was that the Volturi had already purchased not only her apartment but the entire building.
And then...
They rented the entire property to one person.
Her.
The realization made Sophie silently resolve to stay on excellent terms with Jane from now on. Maybe someday I can negotiate a discount on the rent. After all, someone as wealthy as Aro surely wouldn't care about the tiny amount she could afford to pay each month.
Jane reached a simple conclusion.
"Your human life was truly miserable."
She had thought exactly the same thing countless times before but had never voiced it aloud.
Each time, Sophie had somehow sensed it anyway and immediately argued back.
"It really wasn't that bad," Sophie replied almost word for word, just as she always had. "I didn't have many expenses in the first place."
This time, however, neither of them sounded argumentative.
The conversation remained unexpectedly peaceful.
Meanwhile, Sophie continued driving with increasing confidence. The speedometer climbed all the way to one hundred and eighty miles per hour, an utterly reckless speed for any ordinary human. Felix had extensively modified the sports car to accommodate vampire reflexes, raising its performance far beyond factory specifications. The only downside was that it devoured fuel at an astonishing rate.
Only then did Jane suddenly remember what she'd actually intended to ask.
Her real question had never been about shipping or apartments.
She wanted to know why Sophie, while still human, had possessed the crest of the Irish Coven.
Yet somehow, Sophie had effortlessly guided the conversation toward international deliveries, Volturi influence, postage fees, and rental agreements, carefully circling everything except the Irish coven itself.
Jane found herself wondering...
Is she really this oblivious?
Or... does she simply answer only the parts that are easiest to answer?
As long as she avoided the heart of the matter, never exposing her true feelings, Sophie could continue smiling through every conversation, cheerfully following wherever Jane led the discussion.
As though every disagreement between them...
Had never existed at all.
"Sophie." Jane suddenly asked, "Did you really like that apartment?"
"Absolutely."
"I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it."
Receiving exactly the answer she'd hoped for, Jane quietly pulled out the mobile phone she carried whenever she traveled outside the palace. Her fingers flew across the screen with supernatural speed as she typed and sent a message.
Sophie caught the movement out of the corner of her eye.
So she really does know how to use modern technology.
A few moments later, a reply arrived. Respecting Jane's privacy, Sophie deliberately pretended not to notice.
Fortunately, Jane volunteered the information herself. Turning toward Sophie, she announced with obvious satisfaction, "Gianna's taking care of it. That entire apartment building is being transferred into your name."
The sports car abruptly lurched. This time, Jane had learned her lesson and braced herself before losing her balance.
Sophie slowly lifted her foot from the accelerator, allowing the car to coast beneath the towering trees lining the countryside road. Bright moonlight spilled through gaps in the canopy while thick shadows divided the ground into alternating patches of silver and darkness.
"I can't accept something like that, Jane. I haven't done anything to deserve it, and besides... I already paid a full year's rent."
Jane smiled faintly. She reached over and gently smoothed the crease that had formed between Sophie' brows.
"It hardly required any effort," she said. "It was nothing more than a single sentence. Why did you stop? Keep driving. We're chatting, not abandoning our real objective."
To Jane, an ordinary apartment building in an average neighborhood wasn't even worth mentioning. Its market value probably didn't equal Felix's beloved sports car.
Given Jane's authority, reassigning a tiny piece of property already owned by the Volturi truly required nothing more than speaking a few words.
Sophie quietly pressed the accelerator again. Jane was right. Healing her injury remained far more important.
Truthfully, Sophie had already decided not to renew the apartment lease anyway. Living so close to humans no longer suited her current condition.
Considering her newborn instincts, she honestly believed an isolated hunter's cabin deep within the mountains would make a much safer home. Yet Jane had silently made the decision for her without asking.
Just like that...
The way Sophie had planned to repay her kindness disappeared once again.
If Jane keeps giving me things like this... I'll spend the rest of my life owing her.
Sophie sighed. "The moon's making you lose your mind."
She couldn't help thinking about how werewolves supposedly went mad beneath the full moon. Tonight's moon was nearly perfect.
Jane seemed just as irrational.
Jane immediately caught the hidden jab. "So you're mocking me now?"
Deliberately softening her voice into an ethereal, youthful tone, she feigned wounded innocence. "How heartbreaking. You've become such an ungrateful, heartless woman."
As she spoke, the hand that had smoothed away Sophie' frown slowly continued downward, tracing lightly across her brow, her eyes, her cheek, her shoulder, her upper arm, then her forearm before finally hooking its little finger around Sophie' own.
"Sit still," Sophie protested, wriggling her shoulders slightly. "Stop distracting me. You're making me ticklish. And besides... 'heartless' isn't a word people use between friends."
Perhaps the moon truly possessed some mysterious power to cloud the mind. Jane suddenly found herself remembering the night she and Alec had been transformed.
Towering flames and choking black smoke had surrounded them while an endless sea of ignorant humans eagerly awaited the deaths of two frightened children. Their fear had twisted into cruelty, ringing the bell that announced Jane and Alec's execution with relentless enthusiasm.
Then Aro appeared.
He had charged straight into the inferno. He had rescued both of them and slaughtered every human responsible.
From that day forward, Jane and Alec escaped despair forever, ascending to become two of the Volturi's most feared and revered legends.
Yet only a few hours earlier, that same Jane, who had stood atop the vampire world for centuries, had shut herself inside the Black Room, quietly drowning in hopeless resignation.
Then everything changed.
She stepped through a tunnel and walked beneath the setting sun. She felt the evening wind and waited until brilliant moonlight illuminated the world.
Driven by impossible determination, Sophie had gathered nearly everyone in the Palazzo dei Priori, united them beneath the absurd excuse of a fairy tale, and quite literally carried Jane toward a place that should have existed only in stories.
Once, only Aro had ever rescued Jane from darkness. Now, there was someone else.
It's you. Sophie...
It's you.