Chapter: Chapter 58Leon’s POV.The full report came in before sunrise.It was sitting in my inbox with the subject line: Primary Findings: Phase One - URGENT.I sat in my office, the only light coming from my computer’s screen. I scanned the first two pages, and it told me everything I needed to know.This wasn’t a random outburst of spite or some desperate act driven by simple jealousy—No. It was deliberate, methodical, and driven by nothing but pure hate.There was no question about it; this was an attempt to end not one, but two lives.My private team had pulled encrypted communications from Dana—Dahlia’s mother—using her secondary phone. She’d been communicating with an offshore alias that was heavily protected and incredibly difficult to trace. But they’d managed to isolate a few message timestamps that lined up with known events in the timeline.The release of the edited reunion video.The first wave of bot-fueled social media comments.The bakery delivery.The same phone had accessed a digital sm
最終更新日: 2025-07-29
Chapter: Chapter 57Scarlett’s POV.The interview was set up through Olivia’s contact—someone she swore was discreet, seasoned, and immune to bribery. The location was quiet, a small rented office in a mixed-use building downtown.There were no cameras or people around that could potentially add more to the already fake news spreading all over the media.Ezra drove me, because Leon had apparently given him unspoken orders not to let me go anywhere alone anymore. I didn’t fight it. Ezra kept his mouth shut, not passing any judgment, and didn’t get in my way, and for that, I let him stay close.The files were in my bag—printed screenshots, copies of text chains, statements from the hospital, and a highlighted timeline of every event starting from the school reunion. I went over them three times this morning. Every date, every time something significant happened. I knew what I was walking into, and I was ready.When we got there, the woman waiting for me stood as I entered. She was in her late thirties, wit
最終更新日: 2025-07-23
Chapter: Chapter 56Leon’s POV.The report landed in my inbox just after noon. I read it twice.The smear campaign wasn’t something small and insignificant that could be swept away overnight.No. It was much, much bigger than I would have imagined—organized, timed, and executed with professional planning. Dozens of fake accounts across platforms, all created within the same 48-hour window. Same wording, same hashtags, same talking points. Scarlett was being called unstable, manipulative, and dangerous.And it hadn’t happened by accident.The video itself had been edited—segments cut and reordered. Her confrontation with the man at the reunion looked like she’d staged it. Like she’d coached the guy to attack her. There were even clips spliced in from earlier in the night, making it look like she was smirking about it before it happened.Someone had planned this. Someone wanted the world to believe she was faking everything—including the pregnancy.It wasn’t just petty gossip. It was a hit job, and someone
最終更新日: 2025-07-22
Chapter: Chapter 55Scarlett’s POV.I didn’t eat for the rest of the day. I didn’t drink anything unless I saw it sealed myself or watched it being poured from something unopened. I threw out the entire basket with muffins and the pot of tea the housekeeper had served me as well—just in case.You never knew if more of the staff would help themselves to it if it was sent back to the kitchen to be tossed out.I wasn’t risking more people potentially getting harmed because of me.Even the water bottle on my nightstand, the one I always drank from without thinking—I didn’t touch it.I didn’t care if it looked paranoid. I didn’t care if it made people uncomfortable. Someone had tried to kill me, again, and I wasn’t going to act like I was fine.I’d called the hospital an hour after the housekeeper was taken in. I gave my name and explained what had happened. The nurse transferred me to the attending physician. He didn’t say much, but it was enough to put my mind a little at ease.“She’s stable, but unconsciou
最終更新日: 2025-07-22
Chapter: Chapter 54Scarlett’s POV.The following day I kept to myself and didn’t leave my room once. Not even to go down for breakfast or lunch—which in turn was brought up for me instead.I didn’t answer calls, either. Most of them were from my father, stepmother, and an unknown number.After the video went viral, I tried to shut it all out, but the silence didn’t necessarily mean peace to me. It gave me more time instead to think about all my problems, and the more I did that, the worse they appeared to me.But I was also under a lot of pressure. The longer I said nothing, the more people filled the gap with their own version of the story. Their own lies.I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I had to do something.Around noon, I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled myself out of bed and reached for my phone. My hand hovered for a second before I tapped Olivia’s name.She answered on the third ring.“Hey, Scar. I want to ask how you’re doing…” she sighed. There’s no doubt in my mind she had seen the news s
最終更新日: 2025-07-20
Chapter: Chapter 53Scarlett’s POV.It was at breakfast, first thing in the morning, that I saw it on the front page of the newspaper. A picture of me at the reunion, caught mid-act pushing over a man—the exact same man I may add that in reality pushed me—taking up almost more than half of the page.I nearly dropped my tea when I saw it as the housekeeper placed it on the table beside me. Catching a slow breath, I placed down my tea and picked it up, only to toss it aside a moment later.Just like the CCTV footage that had been sabotaged, so had the story. I didn’t need to read past the heading to know I was painted as the problem in the feature.Unfortunately, as the day progressed, I found out that it didn’t stop there. The footage and the story was already everywhere—on news sites, gossip channels, blogs, and pages that usually had no interest in people like me unless there was something to exploit. Apparently, this was worth it to them.Eventually, I sat down and watched the full video again. The ver
最終更新日: 2025-07-19
Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King
I was told to prove my loyalty.
Instead, they left me to burn.
My name’s Calistra Ford—Cali, to the idiots who think they know me. I was born to the mafia—wrapped in elegance, forged in blood under a kingpin who calls himself my father. He gave me one shot to earn my place: infiltrate enemy territory, steal something priceless, and survive.
I did it. Bruised, bleeding, victorious.
And just as I ran for freedom, my brothers—my own family—locked the car doors and drove off without me.
They handed me the gun, but turns out I was the target all along.
Now, I’m a prisoner to our enemy.
And Hale “Hellbringer” Holt is the one holding the chains.
He’s cold. Lethal. Unreadable. Everything I should hate.
He should’ve killed me.
But instead… he married me.
Bound by a contract and shackled in silk. Tied to his empire by blood and silence.
I was raised to bleed for my people—now, my loyalty is dead.
They offered me up as bait. All except my sister, Belle—still trapped in their den of evil.
And if I have to set the world on fire to save her, I will.
Starting with the family that betrayed me.
And I’m dragging Hellbringer into the flames with me.
読む
Chapter: 165. Falling Cali’s pov.The house was too quiet for what we were planning. Not the kind of quiet that offered peace—but the kind that felt like the calm before something ancient cracked open and swallowed you whole.I stood outside Belle’s door for a full minute before I knocked.Not because I didn’t want to see her.But because I didn’t know how to say goodbye.Not this time.Not when we both knew where I was going.And who I might have to kill to make it back.“Come in,” she called softly, her voice thinner than usual.I stepped inside, trying not to show how hard it hit me.She was curled on the small settee near the window, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her legs tucked up underneath her. A tray of untouched food sat beside her. Some steaming herbal tea. A slice of something Hale’s chef had probably handmade like a saint.She hadn’t touched it.Her skin was pale again. Too pale. Like she was fading from the inside out.“Rosalita’s hovering,” Belle said, offering a ghost of a smile. “I told
最終更新日: 2025-07-31
Chapter: 164. Human CurrencyCali’s pov. I didn’t sleep that night.Not because of the adrenaline still crawling under my skin, or because of the shot I fired in that clearing. Not even because of the dead man’s face burned into the back of my eyelids.I didn’t sleep because something was wrong.Not just wrong in the way it always is when Ryker’s involved. Not in the way the world has always felt tilted since the day my mother bled out beside a piano bench.No. This was different.This was the kind of wrong that comes with silence. The kind that whispers instead of screams.Hale had gone downstairs hours ago. He told me to rest. Said I’d done enough for one day.But even as he said it, I knew he wasn’t going to rest. Not with Ryker back in the picture. Not with blood spilled and no answers to show for it.So I sat by the window. Legs pulled up. Face turned to the wind.And waited for something I didn’t have a name for.It came just after three a.m.Not a sound. Not a scream.A flash.A flicker in the surveillanc
最終更新日: 2025-07-31
Chapter: 163. RykerRyker’s pov. There was blood on his gloves again.Not fresh. Not warm. But dried and flaking in a way that left a reddish dust on everything he touched. It didn’t bother Ryker. He didn’t even notice it anymore.The safehouse was quiet, save for the hum of the generators two floors down and the faint whimpering of the idiot who thought tailing a Holt van alone was a good idea. He was duct-taped to a chair now, head lolling, one eye already swollen shut.Ryker didn’t care about his name. Never asked. He wasn’t here for confessions.Only confirmation.“You followed the car,” he said simply, voice flat, even. “Tell me what you saw.”The man tried to speak, lips sticky with blood.Ryker crouched, gloved fingers lifting the man’s chin.“Don’t make me ask twice.”“…a girl…” the man rasped. “Brunette. Thin. Looked like… like Ford’s daughter.”Ryker’s jaw twitched. “Which one?”“I— I don’t know—”“Was she limping?”The man blinked slowly. “Didn’t notice. She didn’t see me. I think— I think sh
最終更新日: 2025-07-30
Chapter: 162. The TeamHale’s pov.The sun hadn’t yet broken through the forest line when I saw her silhouette move through the clearing.Cali walked like a shadow sharpened to a point—precise, quiet, no wasted motion. She kept her head low beneath the scarf, hands gloved, phone already preloaded and tucked against her ribs like it was worth more than her own pulse.And maybe it was.This whole operation hinged on her slipping in and out without being seen, without being recognized. Without being shot.I watched from the northeast slope, crouched beneath the rusted ruins of a derailed transport train. My men were stationed in the brush, two hundred meters out. Far enough not to draw attention. Close enough to strike on command.Through the scope, I tracked Cali’s every step. Her boots pressed into cold, brittle gravel. Her jacket billowed lightly in the breeze. The moment she hit the center of the clearing, she dropped to one knee and placed the burner phone just beneath a broken slab of concrete, exactly w
最終更新日: 2025-07-30
Chapter: 161. Let The Hunt BeginCali’s pov.The stars looked closer from up here.Closer… and colder.The observatory felt like a relic from another lifetime, a place built for watching the sky long before any of us ever came along and filled the ground with blood and betrayal. There were still metal plates bolted into the walls, fractured star charts curling along the ceiling, their faded ink showing constellations that didn’t seem to match anything I recognized anymore.Maybe that was the point.Hale and I had chosen this place for one reason: it was untraceable. No digital signal reached this far out. No wireless connection. No buried bug or camera or soft piece of code feeding back to some mole in our systems. It was off-grid, offline, and—for now—untouchable.But that didn’t mean I felt safe.Safety was a story people told themselves. I’d learned that when I was five.I stood by the old, warped glass of the main viewing room, arms wrapped tightly around myself as I stared down the thick line of trees below. The
最終更新日: 2025-07-30
Chapter: 160. Unexpected TurnHale’s pov.The second I saw that message—Ryker’s smug, digital signature crawling across my screen like a parasite—I shut everything down.No warnings. No system diagnostics. No polite disengage.Just the master override key and a single command: kill the feed.The entire estate went dark from the inside out. Every internal security loop, every backup server, every feed tied to the external sensors—offline. Cut at the source. I didn’t care how many protocols it broke. If Ryker had been watching us, if he’d embedded himself into our walls, our wires, our lives—then I was done giving him the benefit of the doubt.No more waiting. No more wondering.We were at war now.Cali moved the second she saw my face. She didn’t need to ask. She read it the way soldiers read detonators—silent, tight, seconds away from ignition. She walked out of the room without a word, her hand brushing mine as she passed, and within minutes she was back with Belle’s medications and a weatherproof duffel slung ov
最終更新日: 2025-07-30
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