Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY-TWODEVAN.I woke to the metallic taste of iron coating my tongue and something tacky and half-dried flaking against my cheek. For a moment, the world refused to settle into a single shape. The ceiling above me flickered like bad footage, the light bulging, stretching, and shrinking again. My heartbeat thudded so violently in my ears that I couldn’t tell where the pain ended and where my fear began.I sat up too fast and the room spun before my eyes. My skull felt split at the center; not from the fall alone, but from what clawed in my mind. I still felt that presence… that pressure. It had been scraping memories loose, shredding time until I couldn’t tell what belonged to yesterday and what belonged to some nightmare future.Every blink brought a different flash.I saw Clarissa’s face, wet with tears, her mouth forming words he couldn’t hear. I could see Marcus collapsing on the floor, his eyes already vacant. I saw Bruce’s mansion swallowed in shadows. I also saw Isabella screaming but
Last Updated: 2025-11-25
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONEISABELLA.The Cloak sat across from her with the sort of unbothered calm that made me bothered instead. One leg crossed over the other, his fingers draped lazily along the velvet armrest, his posture relaxed in a way that dared me to challenge him. He didn’t just occupy space; he owned it. He controlled it and manipulated every breath I took inside it.Her voice, hoarse and strained, cut through the thick air.“Who are you?”The words carried more force than I expected. It carried more desperation, too. I hated that. I hated giving him any hint of how deeply the mystery behind him gnawed at me.He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his masked head as if studying an amusing pet. The silence stretched long enough to feel like a punishment.Then a soft, humorless laugh slipped from under the mask.“If you want my face,” he said calmly, “earn it.”My stomach twisted. He wanted a game. Of course he did. Men like him always did. The kind of men who believed torment was a form of
Last Updated: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SIXTYISABELLA.I barely remembered the discharge papers. They had been waved in front of me, signed automatically, with the nurse’s voice floating somewhere above my head like a distant radio signal. The hallway spun a little, and the sharp white lights buzzed too loudly. I couldn’t tell if it was the medication, exhaustion, or the lingering fog of trauma that made everything float around me instead of sitting still.But I did remember the man who came to wheel me out. He had broad shoulders, was dressed in a black uniform, had perfectly pressed gloves on, and the letter C stitched into his left sleeve, in crisp white threading.I had tried to speak, tried to dig my nails into the armrests and force myself out of the wheelchair, but my body refused to obey. My limbs dangled like borrowed parts, my voice cracking into ragged breaths. Yet, he never said a word.The man rolled me through the sliding doors, down the ramp, and toward a waiting black van. The moment I saw it, dark, unmarked, and
Last Updated: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINEFREDA.I felt just the impact at first, the violent jolt that slammed through my body like I had been struck by a hammer. My breath ripped out of me as my knees buckled, and I hit the floor hard. The ceiling spun above me in fractured pieces, shadows smearing into streaks of white. Heat spread across my abdomen, thick and fast, pooling beneath her like a sinking tide. I blinked, dizzy, feeling the warm wetness soak through my clothes before my mind caught up to reality.I had been shot.A sound tore through the room, and I realized belatedly it was Alexandro. He materialized from the corner like a nightmare spilled into the waking world. His face, always so calm even in crisis, had collapsed into terror. He dropped to his knees beside me, hands trembling as they pressed desperately over the wound.“Freda—Freda, stay with me. I’m so sorry. I’m so damn sorry.” His voice was cracking everywhere, splintering under panic.I wanted to answer him, to say something cutting or sarcastic or jus
Last Updated: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHTCLARISSA.My fingers dug into the doorframe hard enough to make my knuckles ache, but it was the only thing keeping me upright. My legs felt numb, my lungs tight, my pulse hammering in frantic bursts that refused to settle. I sensed Bruce behind me before she heard him. It was the shift in the air; the sudden drop in temperature, the suffocating heaviness that always arrived like a warning whenever Bruce decided to ruin something. I didn’t want to turn around. I already knew what would be waiting for her. But I turned anyway.And there it was, exactly what she expected. Exactly what I feared. The same thing that sickened me.A gun.Bruce held it steady with both hands, the barrel leveled directly at my heart. His hands didn’t shake. He had just the same composure he had once used in their marriage to mask the rot underneath his skin.The sight didn’t shock me. I had lost the privilege of shock years ago, but it hollowed my chest, scraped something raw inside me that I had been trying
Last Updated: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVENBRUCE.I didn’t see her until it was too late. One second the road ahead was empty and then the next, a blur of white blouse and frantic movement burst out from between the trees. I slammed the brakes so violently the tires screamed, the car almost fishtailed, my seatbelt carving a bruise across my chest. The hood clipped the running figure with a sickening thud before the car finally came to a stop.Heart pounding and hands trembling, I shoved the door open and stumbled into the night air.I had expected a stranger. A drunk or a terrified runaway, probably. Anything or anyone other than the woman lying crumpled on the asphalt. But when the headlights swept over her figure, the breath strangled in my throat.Clarissa.Her body was twisted awkwardly on the ground, her hair fanned out across the pavement like a dark halo. She wasn’t moving. She was just barely breathing, her chest rising in shallow, uneven pulls of air. Her skin was ghost
Last Updated: 2025-11-24
Chapter: CHAPTER 5“I can't leave…” A muffled sound boomed in the quiet room.Nora turned immediately at the sound of the voice, shock, and excitement bursting within her. Never in a lifetime had she thought that she would hear her mother’s voice clear and sharp again.But all she saw was an old fragile and frail woman back in her confused, delusional state. She turned back bitter and dejected, the only string of hope she had was lost. How could she have imagined that her mother would be lucid again?She was now at the mercy of a stranger. Who she believed had a hand in the underworld- she was a hundred percent sure. That did not amaze her, after all, she just discovered the hidden identity and operations of Darius, Landon's father.Tyler’s men dragged her out of the room, doing the same with her mother. “Please be careful with her. She is very weak.” She pleaded as they walked out.“And wear her coat.” She screamed again.Landon collapsed on the bed when it was just him. He was glad to have gotten rid
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: CHAPTER 4Tyler leaned back in his chair, his expression blank and unreadable as he listened to Landon speak with rapt attention.He let him believe he was convinced, watching the excitement in his voice and the sparkle in his eyes as he continued to explain why Nora was a better hostage to her even stating Nora’s benefits to him as a woman.His voice brimmed with confidence, his pitch exaggerated with excitement of his brilliance.“You don’t understand, Tyler,” Landon insisted, almost rising to his feet. “She won’t resist. She has no choice! I have leverage over her; her mother is in my hands.” He leaned forward, his lips curling into a satisfied smirk. “She’ll do anything to keep her mother safe.”“Not only that, she is also good in bed.” He winked at Tyler. Tyler threw his face away, remembering their fleeting moment of romance.However, Nora felt her world collapse upside down. The breath in her throat ceased for a moment and she almost choked, her body locked in place as the weight of his
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: CHAPTER 3Nora stood rooted in the ground, at a loss of what to say. She fixed her eyes on the ground, unable to look at him and to prevent him from discovering her trembling sight.Tyler frowned when she didn’t say a word, he pushed her back into the room and came into contact with her mother. He eyed them before asking, “What are you doing here?”“Ehm…” she struggled to find the right excuse to give. “I'm a nurse here… I mistakenly entered the wrong room.”“Oh! And the woman?” “She is my patient.” She lied and fortunately, her mum didn't say a word.“Take her to the toilet.” He commanded and Nora had no choice but to do that.Tyler switched on the bedside lamp, and the moment he saw her face, he was momentarily stunned, falling into silence.Just as Nora was getting more nervous, he suddenly smirked. "Well, that works out. I need someone to check my wound."With that, he casually pulled open his shirt, revealing his broad shoulder. The wound wasn't deep, but under the dim light, the blood sm
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: CHAPTER 2Nora took a moment to calm herself down despite the surge of adrenaline rushing through her. She was disgusted at the mere sight of looking at them alone but a small smirk formed at the corner of her lips.“Okay but do you mean the one beside my bed, Josephine?” “Hmm, the one by the right stand.” Nora paused, that meant she needed to make a turn to the right. A thought appeared to her and she dropped to her knees, crawling her way through the bed stand.From a reflection, she saw that the two had gone back to their irritable affection. She reached the bed stand and held the wood for support before turning, holding it still.She opened the large cabinet and seeing that they were still engaged, intentionally she let the contents fall to the ground causing them to panic.“What are you doing Nora?” The nurse screamed out.“I'm so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” She fell to her knees, picking up the bottles on the floor.“Just bring the medicine,” Landon spoke out, not wanting the plan to fail
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
Chapter: Chapter 1Nora turned uneasy on her bed, sweating profusely. Her body was drenched in sweat and it didn’t seem like it was going to get better.“Where the hell is Josephine?” She murmured to herself, anticipating the arrival of the nurse assigned to her. Or even Landon. She needed a miracle person to step in and adjust the room temperature.‘I can't take this anymore.’ She frowned in frustration, deciding to do that herself.She groped the bedspread tightly, still hoping for someone to walk in. But after a moment she decided to do it herself, secretly praying that she would not be caught.Her eyeballs moved gently under her eyelid and she slowly opened her eyes. The direct beam of sunlight on her made her shut her eyes back.‘No wonder it was so hot.’ The bed had been moved to face the only window where light radiated in and unfortunately for Nora, it was doing exactly that.Nora sighed in frustration, she needed to open her eyes despite how unsafe it was for her. She was just starting to reco
Last Updated: 2025-06-22
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