Chapter 41: The Break_ of the Shadow Beneath.

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• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 177: The Space Between Us.

  *****************************POV: Mack************************* --- Caleb? I’d trusted him. Hell, I’d looked him in the eye two nights ago and handed him the keys to the northern gate. Said something like “stay sharp,” because that’s what we did—we guarded this place like it was a goddamn castle, and Claire was the crown we’d kill to protect. And he smiled. Polite. Steady. Loyal. Now, I knew better. Now, I couldn’t stop seeing the way his hand hovered over his belt too long. The way he asked to rotate shifts near the eastern fence. Subtle, careful, and quiet. Like Liam. That was the part that pissed me off most. Caleb wasn’t just a traitor. He was a reflection. Another piece Liam had moved into our house. Into her safety. “Are you okay?” Claire’s voice pulled me back. She stood in the doorway of my office, wrapped in one of my old button-downs—too big, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Barefoot. Her hair pulled into a messy knot that looked like she'd done it while pacing. S

• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 176: The storm

  ***************************POV: Rowe*************************** The storm hadn’t even cleared before we were moving again. Rain drops still drummed on the rooftop like the ticking of a war drum, fast and relentless. But inside the estate, everything was different, louder. Barked orders. The clatter of weapons being loaded. The panic buzzed under everyone’s skin like an electric wire. Especially Claire. “Double coverage at the northeast fence. I want drones up within five,” I barked into my comms as I rushed down the hallway toward the server room. “And somebody find out why the hell Liam’s signal jammed ours for a full sixty seconds.” I barked again. My heart jumped down to my stomach as I recalled what had happened a few hours ago. I dropped the comm. The jam. That click through our comms. That single static whisper that told me he was there and we still missed him. We were played. Again. As I inside the room to sit down. Mack slammed the door open behind me. His

• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 175: Aliana’s POv

  **********************Ghosts in My Skin. The silence wasn’t just silence anymore—it had weight now. A presence. It pressed in from all sides, thick and heavy, like the house itself was holding its breath. I could almost feel it—this quiet tension slithering through the walls, curling in the corners, watching. Not with eyes, but with something colder. Smarter. It wasn’t just quiet. It was waiting. And every breath I managed to take felt like something I had to steal—like I no longer had the right to it. Like the air wasn’t mine anymore, and maybe it hadn’t been for a while. Not after what I’d seen. Not after what I’d done. There was a time I thought silence meant peace. Now I know better. Sometimes, silence is just the space where guilt sits—alive and whispering. --- They’d moved me again. I didn’t know where this place was. Another safe house. Another locked room pretending to be a sanctuary. The walls were painted a pale yellow—meant to calm, to comfort—but it only ma

• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 174: Two steps Ahead

  *****************************Henry’s POV************************ --- I used to believe time was a kind of mercy. That if I just held on long enough, the pain would lose its sharpness. That the weight I carried would somehow feel lighter with each passing year. I thought age would bring distance—that the memories would fade, that the wounds would scab over and stop aching every time I breathed too deep. I told myself healing was inevitable, that one day I’d wake up, and the hurt would feel like it belonged to someone else. But it didn’t. Time didn’t ease anything. It just taught me how to hide it better. How to smile through the ache. How to live around the emptiness instead of in it. And that… that was the cruelest part of all. But tonight, peace feels like a lie. I sat in my private study, the fire crackling low, casting long shadows across the walls. I held a picture in my hand—Liam at ten, wearing a paper crown and chocolate smeared across his cheeks. His mother l

• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 173: The Breaking Point.

  ****************************POV: Morgan************************** --- It was the silence that got to me. Not the news. Not the headlines. Not the whispers from politicians pretending they didn’t see the monster growing under our roof for years. But the silence. The kind that hangs in a room after someone you love stops breathing. I’d heard it the day they told me Sadie fell. I heard it again the night Henry said he couldn’t reach Liam. Now it was back, dragging its cold fingers across the mahogany of my office desk. And I hated it. --- The footage came in a private package—no return address, no name. Just a thumb drive wrapped in thin white paper with my initials written in red ink. It was him. I didn’t need confirmation. Only Liam could mock you and still make it feel like mercy. The footage wasn’t long. Claire, walking the garden. The bracelet was missing. Liz nearby, pretending not to scan the bushes. Then static. A flicker. A shadow. Liam didn’t show his face, but I

• The CEO’s Temptation    Chapter 172: Blood Debt

  ****************************POV: Liam**************************** --- Pain wasn’t a stranger—I’d known it before. But this… this was something else. This pain didn’t just hurt—it hollowed. It reached places I didn’t know could ache. Not from the bullet wound in my shoulder or the blood soaking through my shirt as the SUV barreled down the gravel path. Not even from the metal digging into my side as Marlo tried to stop the bleeding without killing me in the process. This pain lived deeper. It nested behind my ribs, curled into the silence Claire had left behind. She had the syringe. She had the key. And I had nothing but blood and fury. “Faster,” I rasped. My voice came out low, cracked. The driver didn’t argue. The engine growled louder as we tore through the trees. Marlo didn’t say much either. He was focused on the wound, on keeping me alive. Which was funny, considering I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be. --- “You’re lucky it passed clean,” he sai