Chapter: Chapter 69: The Food poisoning"Leonard, there were three people in this kitchen. If I go to the hospital for 'food poisoning' and I'm the only one sick…""So we'll say you have a sensitive stomach," Leonard interrupted. "Or allergies. Or anything else that explains why only you're affected. Daveson, you're twelve weeks pregnant and you can't keep anything down. That's not sustainable."Daveson's eyes filled with tears. "I'm scared.""I know," Leonard said softly, taking his hands. "But we're going to Dr. Chen. Right now. I'll drive you myself…""You can't," Daveson interrupted. "Your mother. She's already suspicious. If you personally drive me to a doctor after I was sick in front of staff, it'll look...""Like I care about my employee's wellbeing," Leonard finished. "Which I do. Which anyone would.""Leonard…""Or I'll send Victoria," Leonard conceded. "Would that be better? She can take you, stay with you, bring you back. No one will think twice about my fiancée being kind to staff."Daveson nodded weakly. "Okay
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 68: The Good Father"And I appreciate the loyalty behind that impulse. But Mother, I'm trying to build a life that's not based on violence and fear.""How noble," Lissa said coldly. "And how naive. Leonard, you're about to become a father. That means making hard choices. Doing things you'd rather not do to protect your child.""I know," Leonard said quietly. "But I'd rather teach my child to find solutions that don't involve hurting people."Lissa stood, moving to her window. For a long moment, she was silent."Your forty-eight hours still stand," she said finally. "Morrison may be dealt with, but the core situation remains. In two days, we'll discuss my terms for helping you manage the pregnancy and everything that comes after.""And if we don't agree to your terms?" Daveson asked.Lissa turned to look at him, her expression unreadable. "Then you're on your own. No protection, no resources, no help. Just you, Leonard, and a baby the whole world will want to study like a science experiment. Is that reall
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 67: The ContractMorrison laughed. "You want me to give up leverage worth millions for a corporate job?""We want you to trade a one-time payout for long-term stability," Daveson interjected. "You said yourself you're leaving the country. This way you leave with a legitimate career instead of looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.""Plus," Leonard added, "if you sell that information, you burn every bridge you have. No one will hire you after you've proven you're willing to violate client confidentiality. This job offer expires the moment you sell to anyone else."Morrison was quiet, his expression calculating. Leonard could see him running the numbers, weighing options."Show me the contract," Morrison said finally.Leonard's phone buzzed. A text from Victoria: Contract attached. It's ready.He forwarded it to Morrison's number. "Check your email."Morrison pulled out his phone, opening the document. His eyes scanned the pages, and Leonard watched his expression shift from skepticism t
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 66: The Gambit"You want to do what?" Daveson stared at Leonard like he'd lost his mind."Pay Morrison," Leonard repeated. "But not with money."They stood in the hallway, Morrison's thirty-minute deadline ticking away like a bomb. Through the drawing room door, Leonard could hear his mother making phone calls, probably arranging her "solution" to the Morrison problem."Explain," Daveson said."Morrison wants money because he thinks the information is valuable," Leonard said rapidly. "But what if we make it worthless? What if we give him something he wants more?""Like what?""A job," Leonard said. "A very lucrative, very quiet job that pays better than any blackmail scheme. Morrison's a mercenary. He doesn't care about us personally. He cares about profit. So we offer him more profit as our ally than he'd get as our enemy."Daveson shook his head. "You want to hire the man who's blackmailing us?""I want to neutralize him," Leonard corrected. "Victoria's family has security contracts all over the w
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 65: The BlackmailingHe left without another word, the door closing with an expensive click behind him.The three of them sat in silence, staring at the business card Morrison had left behind."We can't pay him," Daveson said finally. "Even if we do, there's no guarantee he won't just make copies and sell them anyway. Blackmailers always come back.""Agreed," Lissa said. "Which means we need to find another solution."Leonard looked at his mother warily. "What kind of solution?""The kind that ensures Mr. Morrison never sells that information to anyone." Lissa pulled out her phone. "I have contacts who specialize in making problems disappear.""You're talking about…" Leonard stopped, not quite able to say it."I'm talking about protecting my family," Lissa said coldly. "Morrison has made himself a threat. I'm eliminating that threat.""By having him killed?" Daveson's voice was incredulous. "You're talking about murder like it's a business decision.""Everything is a business decision," Lissa said. "And M
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 64: The Price of SilenceInside the drawing room, Leonard felt like he couldn't breathe.Morrison sat across from him, that damned folder on the table between them, containing God knew what evidence of their relationship. Of the pregnancy. Of everything they'd been desperately trying to hide."You're making a mistake," Lissa said to Morrison, her voice deadly calm. "I hired you. You work for me. This information belongs to me.""I gathered it while working for you," Morrison corrected. "But ownership is debatable. And frankly, Mrs. Heyden, I've received offers that make your original payment look like pocket change.""From who?" Leonard demanded."That's confidential," Morrison said. "Client privilege. But I can tell you they're very interested in the medical aspect of the situation. Apparently unprecedented medical phenomena are worth quite a lot to certain research institutions."Daveson's hand moved unconsciously to his stomach. Leonard saw it, saw Morrison notice it, saw his mother's eyes track the gestur
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-03-22
His hidden heir
It started with the most annoying encounter at the mall.
One glance at him, she wished she never crossed paths with him again, He wished so too.
Not until fate brought them back again. At her father's party. Something about her pulled him slowly and deeply without warning. He tried to shrug it off but he couldn't.
Then one night, Alex had too many drinks and Alice is to meet her friend at the hotel when she walked into the room where he is...and they crossed a line they aren't meant to.
During the act, he made it clear: He never wanted kids.
She nodded, not until her test results came back positive.
Years later, their paths cross again. He sees a little boy with his hair type....and he demands to know who he is. But the man beside her, Chris Wales, holds secrets darker than anyone suspected. Secrets that tie him to her blood in the most twisted way.
Can a child mend what fate once broke?
Or will secrets tear them apart once more?
Or will secrets, lies, and a mother’s manipulations tear them apart once more?
อ่าน
Chapter: Chapter 45Margaret didn’t come at night. Margaret came at 7:03 a.m., when the sky was gray and honest and most people were still pretending the day hadn’t started. She didn’t knock. The locks turned with a key Alicia didn’t know she still had. Alicia was in the kitchen. Alex was by the front door, already awake, already waiting. He’d slept in shifts, gun legally registered and locked in a safe, but within reach. Neither of them had discussed it. They hadn’t needed to. Margaret stepped inside wearing cream silk and pearls, like she was late for a charity board. Her eyes swept the apartment—Alex by the door, Alicia by the counter, no Aiden—and landed on the flash drive still sitting on the dining table from two nights ago. “Darling,” she said to Alicia. “You look tired.” “You need to leave,” Alex said. No heat. Just a fact. Margaret smiled at him. “I own half of this building, Mr. George. Through three different LLCs. I don’t leave places I own.” “You don’t own her,” Alex replie
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 44Margaret Dickson didn’t raise her voice when she was angry. She raised her standards. By 8 a.m. Monday, three things happened. First, Alicia’s studio landlord hand-delivered a notice. _Lease under review due to “zoning compliance audit.” Vacate in 30 days if violations are found. There were no violations. There never were. Second, Aiden’s pediatrician called. We're so sorry, Ms. Dickson, but we’re over capacity and have to refer you to another provider. Effective immediately. They’d been his doctor since birth. Third, Ms. Hendricks from CPS requested a second home visit. Just procedural. Given recent media attention and new information received._ New information. Alicia read the email three times, then set her phone face-down and went to throw up. Alex found her on the bathroom floor twenty minutes later. “Tell me,” he said. No preamble. She told him. He didn’t curse. Didn’t punch a wall. He just went very, very still. The way he used to look before he destroyed
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 43The invitation wasn’t accepted. It was acknowledged. Chris replied at 2:17 a.m. _Your place. Cute. Bringing the bodyguard. I’ll bring an appetite..Alicia read it once. Deleted it. Then deleted it from her trash. Alex didn’t sleep after that. He sat at her kitchen table with his laptop open, legal docs on one screen, security camera feeds on the other. By 6 a.m. he had three former Marines rotating outside her building and a restraining order draft that would never hold against Chris but looked good in court. “You need to rest,” Alicia said, setting coffee beside him. “So do you,” he countered, not looking up. “I’m not the one about to walk into a boardroom that wants his head.” Alex finally met her eyes. “Let them want it. I’m not giving it to them.” Keith had texted him four times. He hadn’t opened any of them. The fifth text came at 7:31 a.m. Board votes at 10. They’re pushing for temporary removal as CEO. Citing ‘erratic personal conduct affecting company stabili
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 42The home visit was scheduled for Thursday. Two days away. Alicia wrote it on her calendar in black ink, underlined it twice, then stared at it until the letters blurred. Forty-eight hours to prove she was a fit mother to the child she’d raised alone for four years. Forty-eight hours to sanitize a life that had never been dirty to begin with.Alex found her scrubbing the baseboards at 11 p.m. “Alicia.”“I know.” She didn’t look up. “It’s late.”“It’s already clean.”“It can be cleaner.” He crouched beside her, took the rag from her hand. Her fingers were red, raw. She didn’t fight him. “They want to see normal,” he said quietly. “Not perfect. You don’t have to bleed for them.”She let out a breath that sounded too much like a sob and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. Just for a second. Then she pulled back. “Aiden can’t see me like this,” she whispered. “He won’t.”But he did. The next morning, Aiden stood in the kitchen doorway watching Alicia repack his backpack for the
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-04-19
Chapter: Chapter 41Alex slept on Alicia’s couch that night.Not because anything dramatic happened.Not because either of them said it out loud.It just felt wrong for him to leave.He lay there staring at the ceiling long after the apartment had gone quiet, listening to the refrigerator hum, the distant siren somewhere downtown, the soft rhythm of a city that didn’t care who was falling apart inside it.Alicia hadn’t cried.That worried him more than if she had.She’d moved through the apartment slowly, methodically—locking doors, checking windows, smoothing Aiden’s hair as he slept. Like if she kept her hands busy, her thoughts wouldn’t catch up.Alex wanted to say something useful.He didn’t.He watched instead. Memorized the way she pressed her lips together when she was thinking too hard. The way her shoulders stayed tense even when she sat down.At some point, she paused in the doorway between the hallway and the living room.“Are you still awake?” she asked quietly.“Yeah.”She nodded. “Good.”T
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-03-22
Chapter: Chapter 40The pressure didn’t arrive all at once.It came in pieces.Alex noticed it first in the way doors stopped opening easily.A meeting with the energy board was “rescheduled indefinitely.” A funding partner asked for additional compliance reviews that hadn’t been necessary before. An old ally suddenly wanted everything in writing.Keith didn’t say anything.That worried him more than if she had.By noon, his legal team was in his office, faces tight.“This isn’t random,” one of them said. “Someone’s pushing quietly.”“Who?” Alex asked.They exchanged a look.“Hard to say. But whoever it is has leverage. And patience.”Alex already knew the answer.Alicia felt it differently.More personally.She was leaving Aiden’s school when a woman she didn’t recognize approached her.“Well,” the woman said lightly, adjusting her sunglasses. “You must be Alicia.”Alicia stopped. “Do I know you?”“No,” the woman replied. “But I know your mother.”Something inside Alicia went cold.“She wanted me to pas
ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-03-22
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