Cold Hands, Warm Lies
Two years after her sister vanished without a trace, Sera Duvall is barely surviving emotionally and financially. But when a chance encounter leads her into the arms of Lucien Calder, the tech billionaire who was the last known person to see her sister, she makes a dangerous choice: infiltrate his world and expose the truth from within.
Lucien is controlled, powerful, and hiding something behind every careful word. He offers her a deal: stay with him for one week, and he’ll give her what she wants. But the closer Sera gets to uncovering what happened, the more tangled she becomes in a web of secrets, emotional manipulation, and a slow-burning desire she didn’t see coming. And in a world where love is leverage and lies are currency, the truth may destroy them both.
Lire
Chapter: Chapter Fifty Seven> Mumbai Broadcast Anchor: “In a stunning global reveal, Sera Duvall and Lucien Calder known previously for their controversial link to Amber’s design have launched the Phoenix Protocol, a decentralized, open-source intelligence platform intended to dismantle emotional surveillance as we know it…”> Berlin Network Analyst: “This is war. Against corporate sovereignty. Against psychological control…”> Citizen, New York: “Finally. Someone cracked the glass and let us see.”Screens burned with new fire.Sera Duvall was no longer a mystery. She was a movement.Amber HQ – War Room – 06:03 ESTLucien stood by the glass wall, backlit by static screens as Amber’s global pulse flashed erratically. Sera paced across the room, pacing like she was wired to fire.> Lucien: “We’ve lost six board seats already. Half the world’s calling us traitors. The other half? Revolutionaries.”> Sera: “Let them decide. We’ve already made our choice.”> Ava (typing fast): “We’ve had over 3.2 million Phoenix Prot
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-25
Chapter: Chapter Fifty Six> Ava (over comms): “The file Elise left it's geo-tagged to a location in Manhattan. Midtown. Off-grid.”> Sera: “She’s pulling us back to where it began.”Lucien’s jaw flexed. Snow still clung to his coat, but his eyes burned.> Lucien: “She wants us in the open.”> Ava: “Then let’s not come quietly.”Amber Jet – En Route to Manhattan – 14:03 ESTThe hum of the engines faded beneath the tension in the cabin.Sera sat across from Lucien, elbows on her knees, fingers laced tightly.> Lucien: “You don’t have to go. I can take Ava ”> Sera (cutting): “If she’s there, I’m walking through that door first.”He didn’t argue. He never did when she was like this ice over fire, unstoppable.> Lucien: “I keep thinking about that message. The way she said it. ‘You chose love. I choose peace.’ It sounded... final.”> Sera: “Elise doesn’t do final. She does calculated.”> Lucien: “You think she’s baiting us again?”> Sera: “I think she’s giving me a chance to bury the rest of her. Or resurrect it.”
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-14
Chapter: Chapter Fifty Five> Ava (over comms): “We’re ten minutes out. Temp’s already dropped below -30. You sure you want boots on the ice?”> Sera (flat): “She wants us to follow. We follow.”> Lucien (cutting in): “But we follow smart. No hero moves. No splitting up.”> Sera: “You mean like Elise did?”The jet sliced through the pre-dawn sky, frost veining across its reinforced windows. Below, a frozen stretch of Canadian Arctic came into view barren, brutal, and humming with invisible code.Sera stood by the window, arms folded. Her reflection fractured in the glass. Lucien moved up behind her, wordless, but close.> Sera (without turning): “What if we’re walking into her trap?”> Lucien: “Then we spring it together.”She turned now, locking eyes with him. Snowlight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the steel in his expression. But his voice that was soft.> Lucien: “I lost her once. I won’t lose you too.”Sera searched his face.> Sera: “You never really had her. Not the way you have me.”She brushed her h
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-08
Chapter: Chapter Fifty Four> Lucien: “He’s not testing the system anymore. He’s testing us.”Sera didn’t flinch. Her back still pressed to his, skin buzzing from the kiss, the threat, the choice Aquila had left like a loaded gun on the table.> Sera: “Then we don’t give him what he wants. We give him what he fears.”Lucien turned to face her fully. Hair tousled. Eyes sharp. She wasn’t just surviving anymore. She was becoming.> Lucien: “You really want to bring him in?”> Sera: “No. I want to beat him at his own game.”Footsteps approached from the corridor light, fast, precise.Ava.> Ava: “He’s gone. But not far. And we have a bigger problem.”Lucien’s jaw clenched.> Lucien: “Say it.”> Ava: “There’s a breach in Amber’s Santiago node. Unauthorized uplink. 2:47 a.m. Their time.”> Sera: “That’s one of the three Elise flagged in her journal. It’s a triangulation attempt.”> Lucien: “Someone’s trying to map the neural backbone.”> Ava: “Or corrupt it.”Silence hit them like static. Sera moved first, brushing pa
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-08
Chapter: Chapter Fifty ThreeA red siren jolted through the penthouse. Sera bolted upright, heart spiking. Lucien was already alert, pulse pounding.> Lucien (urgent whisper): “They’re inside.”Still clad in last night’s heat, they raced through dimly lit halls toward the command hub. Crimson warning lights flickered.> Sera (fingers flying on the console): “I’m isolating the node PENTHOUSE_NODE.”Codes streamed across the screen then a new alert: INTRUDER: Basement Safe Room.They exchanged a charged look.> Lucien: “Stay close. Let’s move.”They crept toward the basement staircase, hallway lights flickering with each breath.The basement corridor felt colder, glass walls reflecting metal racks and server cages, silent sentinels of their world. The door to the safe room was ajar.> Lucien (whisper): “I’ll go in cover me.”Sera shook her head.> Sera: “No. I’m not hiding.”They slipped inside.Aquila stood before them, relaxed yet dangerous, rain glistening on his damp coat.> Aquila: “You built a sanctuary but l
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-30
Chapter: Chapter Fifty TwoThe grey dawn in Berlin mirrored the mood on Marktplatz Square, a stark contrast to the soft glow of Amber nodes worldwide. Protest signs littered the plaza: “Don’t Test My Truth!”, “Amber = Surveillance!”, “Free Choice or Digital Cage?”Sera stepped out of the van, bundled in a trench coat beside Lucien and Elise. The air smelled of diesel and damp concrete. They wore earpieces, tablets in hand, not tourists, but peacemakers in a digital rebellion.> Ava (over comm):“Berlin node is live but flagged every 30 seconds. A mass node freeze is pending.”Sera studied the crowd faces alive with rage, fear, confusion.> Sera (into mic, determined):“We’re here to listen. Not lecture.”Lucien wrapped an arm around her waist silent strength beside her.> Lucien:“Let’s show them it’s human-powered.”They approached a line of police barrier tape. A group of protesters surged forward, chanting slogans in German.Sera raised a hand peaceful, measured > Sera (voice calm):“We’re with you. Let us
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-27

Moonbound: The Rise Of The Alpha
In a world where the powerful Elders ruled with iron fists, the Marked Ones warriors cursed and gifted with abilities beyond mortal understanding were bound to serve. Among them, Lyla, a fierce and unyielding leader, emerged from the ashes of war with one purpose: to shatter the chains of the Elders and claim the throne for herself.
After years of bloodshed and sacrifice, Lyla did the impossible she destroyed the Elders, dismantling their legacy of domination. But victory came with a price. Her rise to power awakened something far older and far more dangerous: the Forgotten Kings ancient rulers who had existed long before the Elders, hidden in the shadows of time, waiting for the right moment to reclaim what was once theirs.
The city of ruins that Lyla thought was a stronghold of the past turned out to be a gateway to a prison for the Forgotten. Her mere presence, her power, unlocked the seals that held them back, and now, the ancient kings stir, whispering through shadows, testing her strength with apparitions and phantoms that defy life and death.
Lyla, unyielding and defiant, refuses to kneel. With the Marked Ones by her side, she begins a journey to understand the true nature of the power she wields, a power that may have never belonged to the Elders, but to something much older, much darker.
As the boundaries between past and present blur, Lyla must decide if she will be a mere successor to the throne or its ultimate conqueror. But with the Forgotten Kings watching her every move, and the shadows growing restless, the true war for dominance over the world has only just begun.
Lire
Chapter: Chapter 120: The Heart of the ForestThe moon bled deeper.The crimson halo thickened, swallowing the moon’s pale surface inch by inch. The sky darkened. The stars dimmed.The Bloodmoon was coming.And with itThe breaking of the bond.The forest thinned as they moved.The trees, twisted and weary, leaned away from the path. The ground beneath them shuddered with each step.The bond was fraying faster now.Lyla could feel it.Like a rope pulled too tight. Strands snapping one by one.The talisman in her hand vibrated with each tremor.It guided her forward.To the heart of the forest.To the place where she would bleed.The Bloodmarked followed in silence.Eli stayed close, his jaw set, his eyes shadowed with worry.Dani flanked her left. Jonas her right.Mason brought up the rear, his hackles raised.They didn’t speak.They didn’t need to.The forest's dread was their dread.The bond’s pain was their pain.The Bloodmoon loomed overhead.Watching.Waiting.The talisman grew heavier with each step.The earth shifted benea
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: Chapter 119: The Bloodmoon RisesThe moon was wrong.Too pale.Too still.Lyla stared at it through the thinning canopy. The full moon hung in the sky like a frozen eye, watching, waiting. Its light touched the forest but gave no warmth.The bond stirred beneath her feet. Weak. Anxious.The forest knew.The Bloodmoon was coming.And when it arrived...Everything would break.The Bloodmarked moved through the trees in wary silence.Every step felt heavier than the last.The fight with Kane had left them battered, their connection to the forest frayed. The wolves' steps faltered more than usual. Their senses dulled.The bond was still there, but thinner. Fainter.Lyla could feel its weakness like an ache beneath her skin.Mason walked beside her, his usual confident stride replaced by a limp. His gray fur was streaked with dried blood."This doesn’t feel right," he said, voice low.Lyla nodded. "It isn’t."Ahead, Jonas led the way. His shoulders were rigid, his eyes sweeping the shadows. Dani followed just behind him,
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: Chapter 118: The Shattered BondThe shadows tightened.Cold. Unforgiving.They coiled around Lyla’s throat like a noose.The Hollow King's presence pressed against her mind, vast and ancient. Its voice seeped through the cracks in her resolve, whispering promises wrapped in darkness."Kneel."Her knees shook.The talisman, gripped in Kane’s bloodstained hand, pulsed with crimson light. The crescent symbol glowed like an open wound. The forest’s magic, the lifeblood of the packs, bled through the air with every flicker of red.Behind Kane, the Hollow King loomed.Its limbs stretched like shadowed roots. Its eyeless face tilted toward the moon. Its power swelled with each heartbeat.The forest was breaking.Lyla could feel it.The threads of connection the invisible bond that had once united the wolves, the trees, the earth were unraveling.And with it, their strength.Mason collapsed first.Then Jorah.Then Eli.His voice reached her, ragged and strained.“Lyla...don’t...let it win.”The shadows dragged Eli to the gr
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: Chapter 117: The Rise of ShadowsThe earth split beneath their feet.Again.But this time, it didn’t feel like a wound or a mouth.It felt like a heartbeat.Lyla staggered, the talisman scorching her palms as the ground heaved. The circle Kane had carved glowed with crimson light, its veins spreading like cracks through the earth. The air vibrated with a deep, rhythmic thrum slow, steady, inevitable.The Hollow King's pulse.Across the clearing, Kane grinned, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Blood dripped from the ritual knife in his hand, soaking into the carved runes."You can’t stop it now, Blackwood," he rasped. "The forest remembers its true master."The shadows coiling around the pit swirled faster. The Hollow King’s form stretched from the abyss, taller and more solid than before. Its limbs elongated with each pulse of the crimson light. Its eyeless face turned toward Lyla, and though it had no mouth, she felt the weight of its attention.It knows me.The talisman in her grip pulsed with whit
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: Chapter 116: The Gate UnsealedThe wind turned cold.Not a passing chill.A breath from something beyond.Lyla’s heart slammed against her ribs. The pit roared beneath her feet, no longer just a crack in the earth but a wound splitting the fabric of reality. The shadows were no longer shadows. They pulsed, thick and heavy, like veins filled with molten night.And from that night, it stirred.The thing that whispered her name.Eli reached for her arm. "Lyla"She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move.The forest screamed again, louder than before. Roots shriveled. Branches cracked. The air, once thick with the forest’s ancient magic, grew thin. Brittle.The gate had been unsealed.And something wanted through.The Elder stood at the edge of the pit, his silhouette sharp against the crimson glow. His eyes, pale and cold, locked on hers."You felt it, didn’t you?" His voice was silk over steel. "The hunger. The power."Lyla bared her fangs. "I felt the forest fighting you."The Elder chuckled. "Ah. But the forest isn’t fighti
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-25
Chapter: Chapter 115: The War That Never EndedThe ground split open.Not like a wound.Like a mouth.Lyla moved first, claws igniting with silver fire as she lunged for the Elder.But the Elder did not flinch.Did not defend.Did not even care.Because they had already won.The wind howled.The shadows beneath them unraveled not just darkness, but something alive.Something old.Something returning.Eli’s voice was sharp. “Lyla”Jorah’s golden eyes burned. “It’s not just them.”Dani’s smirk vanished. “We’ve been fighting the wrong war.”Caelum’s silver gaze was steady, his voice quiet. “No. We’ve been fighting the wrong enemy.”Lyla landed hard, skidding back just as the thing began to rise.Not a creature.Not a god.Something in between.Something born from the ashes of a fallen empire.The Elder smiled, stepping backward, into the shifting black."You thought you were the ending."The whispers in the wind became voices."But you were only ever the beginning."Lyla bared her fangs."Then let’s see how this story really ends."T
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-14

Cold As My Heart
Adrian Cain has no past.
At least, not one he remembers.
He woke up at eighteen with a name, a guardian, and a carefully constructed identity that led him to build one of the most powerful tech empires in the world. Now, as the CEO of CainTech, Adrian is feared, admired, and emotionally impenetrable, his past locked behind clinical amnesia, sealed files, and a steel wall he doesn't dare breach.
Until the suicides start.
After two employees from his most classified division die under suspicious circumstances, trauma counselor Sera Vaughn is brought in to assess the psychological impact on staff. But Sera has her own reasons for stepping into CainTech, her older brother vanished fifteen years ago, and the only lead she has left is a face in an old photograph: Adrian’s.
But his name back then wasn’t Adrian.
It was Daniel Ward.
As Sera begins digging into Adrian’s history and as Adrian’s carefully managed psyche begins to crack, long-buried memories start surfacing: a mysterious basement, whispered codewords, and a girl calling his real name. What neither of them knows is that they were both part of a covert experiment known as Project Phoenix, designed to erase identities and rebuild human obedience from the ground up.
Together, they uncover a trail of lies, altered files, and fractured lives along with a chilling truth: Adrian may have been programmed to forget what he did… and who he destroyed.
Now hunted by the people who created him, stalked by a version of himself he doesn’t remember becoming, and drawn to a woman whose trust he doesn’t deserve, Adrian must face the darkest corners of his past before they both disappear into it.
Because some memories don’t stay buried.
Some were never meant to.
Lire
Chapter: Chapter 31 – The Garden Beyond the GateThe first thing Sera felt was warmth.Not the stale, recycled heat of the ship.Not the cold static of metal walls.This was real warm soil under her back, air damp and green in her lungs. Something soft brushed her wrist: grass. Actual grass. It smelled like rain and memory.She blinked.Above her, the sky wasn’t sky at all. It shifted fractals of soft light woven through dense foliage that didn’t look grown so much as rendered. Every leaf shimmered with data veins, every branch hummed faintly like a sleeping circuit.Next to her, Syra stirred.A faint groan escaped her half pain, half disbelief.Sera turned her head.They lay tangled in a shallow hollow of moss and bioluminescent vines. No walls. No steel. Just this impossible garden wrapped in something Astra must have written before her final breath.Syra’s eyes cracked open, dazed but alive. A glint of violet still pulsed faintly beneath her skin.“You’re heavy,” she rasped.Sera snorted, breathless. “You’re welcome.”Syra shifte
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: Chapter 30: The Door That Opens ItselfThe ship’s heartbeat changed.Not engines, not power flow an echo, felt more than heard. A soft hum moving through bulkheads, consoles, conduit lines. Not cold. Not threatening.But alive.Sera stood in the observation bay alone, watching the orbital map redraw itself in real time. The satellites that once served Mira’s fear and Kirin’s recursion now drifted in soft, shifting formations no longer weapons, not yet free.Each pulse synced to a single root signature:ASTRA.ROOTBehind her, Adrian stepped in quiet as a breath. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she let the warmth ground her.The tension between them had never really left it waited at the edge of every crisis, every quiet moment they stole.Tonight, it felt more dangerous than the machines in orbit.“You keep looking at them like they’re going to attack,” he said, his voice low against her ear.Sera breathed out a bitter laugh. “I keep looking at them like they’re waiting for per
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-25
Chapter: Chapter 29: When Gods Go QuietThe next twenty-four hours passed like a half-remembered fever.The ship’s lights stayed low, power rationed to auxiliary mode. Elias and Lira worked non-stop rerouting the power grid, patching the comms, checking the satellite field for signs of Kirin’s ghost.But none came.Kirin was gone.Or so they kept saying.Sera didn’t believe it.She stood alone in the observation deck, staring at the cold swirl of dead orbit. The same satellites that once trembled under Kirin’s voice now just… waited.Not destroyed.Not shut down.Just dormant.Like teeth in the dark, bared but not biting.Adrian’s reflection appeared beside hers in the glass. He didn’t speak at first. Just watched her.Sera felt the weight of him before she turned. The tension they’d kept coiled these past days was still there, brittle and hungry. When she finally faced him, it all cracked open.“You haven’t slept,” he said softly.She let out a bitter laugh. “Neither have you.”He stepped closer. The closeness felt dangero
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-30
Chapter: Chapter 28: The ConsequenceThe ship had stopped moving.But not because it was adrift.Because something was holding it.Outside, beyond the viewing ports, thousands of once-dead satellites had aligned in a perfect arc, a formation too precise to be instinct, too inhuman to be coordinated by chance.They weren’t aimed to fire.They were aimed to listen.To Syra.In the cradle chamber…Sera stood inches from the glass, watching Syra’s body flicker between light and shadow. She was no longer restrained, not physically. The machine around her was breaking down on a molecular level, not due to force, but from a rewrite loop originating inside her neural stem.“She’s not stabilizing,” Elias shouted over comms. “She’s collapsing into an identity recursion.”“What does that mean?” Adrian called back.“It means she’s being overwritten by Kirin.”“No,” Sera whispered, staring at Syra. “She’s fighting it.”Inside the neural planeSyra’s mindscape wasn’t coherent anymore.The battlefield had fractured.She stood ankle-dee
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-27
Chapter: Chapter 27: KirinThe ship’s lights hadn’t just dimmed. They’d shifted.Colors had softened.Sound was delayed by fractions of seconds.The ship itself felt… folded.Sera paced the corridor outside the medbay, where Astra lay unconscious.Not hooked to anything.But still pulsing with a residual signal Elias couldn’t map.“Vitals are fine,” Elias reported. “No system breaches. But her brain activities are off the charts like she’s dreaming with her whole mind.”Adrian stood at the entrance, arms crossed, jaw tight.Lira leaned against the wall, weapon ready.Elias added quietly, “Whatever she saw… it’s still with her.”Sera stepped inside the medbay.Astra lay still, wrapped in a thermal blanket, lips slightly parted. Her hands were curled in loose fists.Like she was waiting to hold something.Sera brushed hair from her face. “Can you hear me?”Astra didn’t answer.But the screen beside her lit up.No signal source.No manual input.Just words.Appearing one by one.> “Are you ready to see it?”Sera f
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-27
Chapter: Chapter 26: The Last Line of MiraThe ship floated in deep drift.No destination.No agenda.Just space.Sera hadn’t spoken in three hours.She sat alone in the lower systems bay, one hand resting lightly against the glass of Zero’s cradle. Not in fear. Not in pity.In something like recognition.She could feel the quiet buzz of the dormant core inside her. Not active. Not threatening.Just waiting.Like a final note that hadn’t been played yet.On the bridge…Lira watched Astra like she was a lit fuse.The girl was calm, too calm. She sat cross-legged beside the nav console, drawing again. Same symbols. Same spirals. Except now, she was starting to repeat them.Lira finally asked, “What are you drawing?”Astra glanced up, then held out the datapad.Lira frowned.It wasn’t a picture.It was a key.A sequence. Old Mira code. Buried formatting decrypted without a guide.Lira stiffened. “Where did you learn this?”Astra blinked. “I didn’t. I just... remembered it.”Below deck…Elias studied the repeating data loop runnin
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-06-25

Trigger Me Gently
Ember Vale, a runaway living under a stolen identity, crashes a mafia auction in search of answers about her missing father. But the moment she’s recognized by Lucien Vairo, heir to the deadly Vairo Syndicate, everything spirals. Instead of killing her, Lucien cages her suspecting she’s linked to the murder of his older brother, Rafael.
Trapped in a world of enemies dressed as family, Ember navigates layers of deception, discovering that Rafael might have faked his death and that both her father and Lucien's powerful family are tied to it. But it’s Lucien she fears most. He’s cold, calculating, and yet... dangerously magnetic.
As Lucien and Ember are dragged into a deeper conspiracy, their relationship evolves from hatred to obsession to a raw, passionate connection that neither of them trusts. Allies fall. Families betray. And old ghosts return with blood in their teeth.
War breaks out between syndicates. Ember’s past comes to light. Rafael returns with his own deadly plans and Lucien’s father, long thought dead, emerges to reclaim his empire. In a final storm of betrayal, the couple must decide whether to fight for each other or let the past consume them both.
In the end, love won’t be enough.
Only survival.
And someone always has to pull the trigger.
Lire
Chapter: CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: THE FIRST WIFEBOY: “Don’t… let her touch me.”The words were weak, almost swallowed by the dark, but they froze everyone.SOLENE: “Stay with me.”Her hands were clamped on his arm, blood seeping through her fingers.WOMAN: “He’s mine, Solene. Always has been.”Lucien stepped in front of Solene without hesitation, his pistol angled at the woman’s chest.LUCIEN: “Take one more step and you won’t walk out.”The woman’s laugh was slow, deliberate.WOMAN: “You think I’m afraid of a man who doesn’t even know the body count tied to his own name?”In the dark, Alpha’s voice slid between them.ALPHA: “She’s not here to kill the boy. She’s here to rewrite him… again.”SOLENE: “Rewrite?”Her voice cracked, but not from fear, rage.The woman tilted her head.WOMAN: “They didn’t tell you? You weren’t the first overwrite. I was. The prototype.”LUCIEN: “And they scrapped you.”Her smile sharpened.WOMAN: “No. I walked away. Took my memories with me. And now ” she glanced at the boy “I’m taking what’s mine.”BOY
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR: NO ONE MARRIES A MONSTERLOCATION: NEW EDEN – FUNERAL OF A TRAITORTIME: 11:47 a.m.The church smelled like lilies and gunpowder.Lucien sat in the front row, black suit, black tie, black mood.Solene was beside him, legs crossed, wearing a dress that could’ve been mourning or a threat depending on the angle.The coffin in front of them wasn’t for Violet. That body had vanished before anyone could bury it.This was for Angelo’s second-in-command.The man Alpha had gutted and left swinging from the pier three nights ago.Lucien didn’t believe in open caskets. The lid stayed shut. The message didn’t.PRIEST: “We commit his soul to ”The doors slammed open.Two Romano soldiers stepped inside, eyes scanning, hands on their weapons.Behind them… walked her.Bianca Romano.Alive.Wearing red.SOLENE (low, to Lucien): “You said she was in hiding.”LUCIEN: “I said she should be.”Bianca’s gaze slid over the mourners like she was scanning for prey, and when her eyes found Lucien she smiled.BIANCA: “I came to pay my
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: THE BLOODY VOWS“Smile for the camera, darling. It’s the last time your enemies won’t know what you’re planning.”Bianca’s voice was dipped in poison and champagne.Solene didn’t flinch.LOCATION: ROMANO TOWER – 57TH FLOOR PRIVATE BALLROOMTIME: 9:02 p.m.Glass chandeliers. Red silk. Wine that tasted like blood.The engagement party wasn’t just a spectacle, it was a declaration of power.Lucien stood beside Solene, sharp in black. The ring on her hand had been polished twice. His arm around her waist was a leash and a weapon.Bianca approached in white.Too white. Like war dressed up as a wedding.Bianca (smiling): “You clean up nicely, Solene. I almost forgot you broke my collarbone.”Solene: “Give me five minutes. I’ll break something you actually use.”Lucien said nothing. Just watched. Assessed. Calculated.Bianca’s voice dropped. “You should thank me. This alliance keeps you both alive. For now.”Solene: “Is that what this is? A peace treaty over hors d’oeuvres?”Bianca’s smile sharpened. “No, d
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-08-22
Chapter: CHAPTER THIRTY TWO: ENGAGED TO SURVIVE“Don’t say it unless you mean it.”Solene’s voice cut through the silence like a blade sharp, raw, final.Lucien stood across the hotel suite, blood drying on his jaw, his jacket still reeking of smoke and gunpowder. He’d just said it.The word she never expected.“Fiancée.”LOCATION: NEW EDEN – UNMARKED LUXURY SUITETIME: 10:14 a.m.Lucien didn’t blink. “I meant it.”Solene laughed once. It wasn’t pretty. “You mean it like a body means rigor mortis. Too late to matter.”She stalked to the window, gripping the glass with white knuckles. “So what now? You parade me around as your shield? Put a ring on me and dare the boy to pull the trigger?”Lucien: “Exactly.”CUT TO: LUXURY SUITE – BEDROOMLucien followed. Slowly. The space between them snapped with something unsaid grief, heat, need.Lucien: “The Romano deal's collapsing. Bianca’s talking again. Angelo’s bleeding loyalty out his throat and the child’s name is spreading through backchannels like fire.”Solene (turning): “And your sol
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-25
Chapter: CHAPTER 31: MEMORY HUNT“Did you ever love me?” Solene’s question hung in the haze of smoke and blood.Lucien’s heartbeat thundered beneath his vest. He didn’t answer, couldn’t. Instead, he kissed her, hard and raw, like it was their last gasp of air.INFILTRATION HALLWAY – 3:22 a.m.Solene, pistol still warm, as Lucien closes the gap, his hand steady on the weapon he dropped.Solene’s voice trembled. “If you did say it.”Lucien murmured against her lips. “I’m still here.”They stood, breath mingling, smoke swirling like ghosts. But Lucien’s eyes flicked to the detonator he dropped now silent. Gunfire echoed in the compound’s depths. The child he’d vanished. And the kill-switch? Still active.A burst of gunfire rattles the corridor’s steel doors. The compound’s power shudders, then blinks lights flicker. They move as one.Lucien whispers: “Security’s collapsing.”Solene nods, voice low: “Then we split.”She heads deeper into the compound; he goes left toward the child’s voice echoing in the network, signs of
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-14
Chapter: CHAPTER THIRTY: THE GIRL WHO KILLED GODLOCATION: ANGELO’S COMPOUND – PERIMETER TUNNELSTIME: 2:07 a.m.The tunnel was dark.Darker than memory. Darker than the guilt Solene couldn’t kill with knives or sex or names no one used anymore.Lucien’s breath rasped behind her. Close. Protective. Tense.They were twenty feet from the gate.Twelve inches from a legacy they couldn’t walk away from again.“Third sensor’s fried,” she whispered, checking the trip wire. “We go in silent.”Lucien’s hand caught her wrist before she moved.“You sure you want to be her tonight?”Solene turned.> “I already am.”He pulled her into him.Hard.No armor. No warning.SHADOWED ROOM – MOMENTS LATERThey kissed like countdowns.Solene pushed him against the wall, tore open his tactical vest. Her teeth grazed his jaw. Her nails bit through his shirt.Lucien flipped her fast hands sliding down to her thigh holster, pushing the gun aside just to get to her skin.> “We could die tonight,” he rasped.She pulled him down with her.> “Then die inside me.”
Dernière mise à jour: 2025-07-08