Chapter: Chapter 158Eve's POVMarguerite Chen stands in my hallway like a ghost that refuses to stay buried, her silver hair dripping rainwater onto the floor and her coat soaked through from the storm outside. She looks like she walked here through the wind and the rain, which she probably did, because Marguerite Chen does not do anything by halves. Not even showing up uninvited to the safe house of the woman she helped terrorize."You have got to be kidding me."The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and I do not even try to reel them back in. I am tired and scared and holding two crying babies, and the last person I want to see right now is the woman who helped Croft build the network that has been trying to kill my family."Eve." Priya's voice is careful, measured, the voice she uses when she is trying to keep me from doing something I might regret. "She says she has information.""I am sure she does. She has had information for months. Years. She had information when she was sitting in my
Last Updated: 2026-09-19
Chapter: Chapter 157Eve's POVSebastian's cry cuts through the house like a siren.I lift him from the bassinet, his tiny body rigid with distress, and press him against my shoulder. He screams into my neck, his fists beating against my collarbone. Across the room, Theodore watches from his bouncy seat with wide, worried eyes. He stopped eating two hours ago. His bottle sits on the counter, curdled and forgotten."Shh," I whisper, pacing the length of the small living room. "Shh, baby, I have got you."He does not stop. He never stops anymore.The walls press in. The windows are covered with heavy blankets, blocking out the gray winter light, and the single lamp in the corner casts shadows that shift and dance with every step I take. I have not left this house in eleven days. I have not breathed fresh air or seen the sky or spoken to another human being besides Devin and Priya.Devin.He is in the kitchen, his back to me, phone pressed to his ear. His voice is low and urgent, the same tone he has used fo
Last Updated: 2026-09-19
Chapter: Chapter 156Devin's POVThe explosion tore through the building like a living thing.I heard it before I felt it, a deep and terrible roar that shook the ground beneath my feet and rattled the windows in their frames. Then the shockwave hit, throwing me against the wall of the van with a force that knocked the breath from my lungs. For a moment, there was nothing but noise and chaos and the smell of smoke and burning debris.Then silence.I pulled myself upright and stared through the windshield at the building where Solomon's team had entered less than ten minutes ago. The top three floors were engulfed in flames, orange and yellow tongues licking at the dark sky. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer with every passing second."No." The word came out as a whisper. Then louder. "No. No. No."I was out of the van before I knew what I was doing, running toward the burning building. Henderson caught me before I made it ten feet, his arms wrapping around my chest and holding me back."You ca
Last Updated: 2026-09-16
Chapter: Chapter 155Devin's POVThe black car stayed in the rearview mirror for three miles before it finally turned off the highway.I did not relax until it disappeared from sight. Even then, my hands stayed tight on the steering wheel and my eyes kept flicking to the mirrors, watching for any sign that we were being followed. The road ahead wound through the mountains, the trees thick and dark on either side. Eve sat in the back seat with the boys, her voice low and soothing as she fed Theodore a bottle."Whoever was in that car, they did not follow us," she said, reading my mind as she always did."For now. But they know we are on the move. They will try to find us again.""Then we make sure they cannot. We disappear. Completely."The old man's cabin was even more remote than I had expected. It sat at the end of a long dirt road, surrounded by dense forest and a frozen pond that gleamed in the winter sunlight. There was no electricity and no running water, just a wood stove and a hand pump and a stac
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
Chapter: Chapter 154Eve's POVThe drive back to the brownstone was silent and tense.Devin sat beside me in the back seat, his bandaged arms resting carefully at his sides. The doctors had released him that morning with strict instructions to rest and avoid any strenuous activity for at least two weeks. He had nodded along and then immediately started making phone calls the moment we left the hospital. I did not have the energy to argue with him.David's death had shaken us all. The poison had been fast-acting and untraceable, delivered by someone who had access to the hospital and knew exactly when and where to strike. Solomon's people had swept the building, but the killer was already gone. The only clue was a small vial found in a supply closet, empty except for a trace of the same compound that had killed David."The network is inside the hospital," Solomon had said, his face grim. "They are inside the company. They are everywhere. We cannot trust anyone."I thought about those words as the city slid
Last Updated: 2026-09-11
Chapter: Chapter 153Eve's POVThe call came at two in the morning.I was awake, sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery with Theodore in my arms and Sebastian asleep in his crib. The cabin was quiet, the only sound the soft creak of the old timbers settling in the cold. My phone buzzed on the side table, and the name on the screen made my heart stop.Solomon.I answered on the first ring. "Tell me he is alive.""He is alive. But there was an explosion. Devin was caught in the blast. He is being airlifted to a hospital in the city as we speak."The words hit me like a physical blow. I felt the world tilt, and I clutched Theodore tighter, as if holding him could anchor me to something solid. "How bad?""Burns on his back and arms. A concussion. Possible internal bleeding. The doctors are still assessing the damage. But he is conscious and talking, which is a good sign.""Who did this? Was it Alexei?"There was a long pause. "Alexei is dead. He triggered the explosion with himself inside the blast radiu
Last Updated: 2026-09-10
Chapter: Chapter 198Eve’s POVThe coffee shop was crowded for a Tuesday morning, filled with the low hum of conversation and the occasional hiss of the espresso machine. I had claimed a small table by the window and was nursing a latte that had gone cold twenty minutes ago, my laptop open in front of me and my fingers hovering over the keyboard.I had been writing for three hours straight. The words were pouring out of me in a way they hadn't since before the accident, and I was afraid to stop, afraid that if I paused for even a moment the spell would break and I would be left staring at a blank screen again.The book was taking shape. It wasn't the kind of story I used to write, the steamy romances with forbidden love and impossible choices. This was something different. Something quieter and more honest. A woman rebuilding her life from the ashes, finding strength she didn't know she had, learning to trust herself again.It was fiction. But it wasn't.My phone buzzed with a text from Maya. "How's the w
Last Updated: 2026-09-18
Chapter: Chapter 197Iris's POV Six months had passed since the day I walked into the mall as Elena Hart and walked out as Iris Hale. The transition hadn't been easy. There were days when I felt like I was living in two worlds at once, one foot in the present and the other stuck in a past I couldn't access. But slowly, piece by piece, I was finding my footing. The women who had once been my closest friends were becoming my closest friends again, even if I didn't remember the history that had made us that way. They told me stories about college and weddings and late nights that I couldn't recall, and I listened and laughed and tried to stitch together a life from the fragments they offered. Maya, in particular, had refused to let me retreat into the safety of my apartment. She showed up at least once a week with coffee and gossip and a determination to make me remember. She told me about our friendship, about the years we had spent growing up together, about the secrets we had shared and the dreams we
Last Updated: 2026-09-16
Chapter: Chapter 196Iris's POV The encounter with Victor stayed with me longer than it should have. I couldn't stop thinking about the way he looked at me, the way his hand felt when he shook mine, the strange sense of familiarity that had washed over me when our eyes met. Something about him felt important, like a missing piece of a puzzle I didn't know I was trying to solve. I pushed the thought aside and focused on the weekend ahead. Marcus was picking up the twins on Saturday to introduce them to Rachel, and I needed to prepare them for what that meant. They had been excited when I told them, chattering about what they would wear and what they would say, but I could see the nervousness underneath their excitement. They wanted to make a good impression on the woman who might become part of their lives. Saturday morning passed in a blur of breakfast and baths and last-minute wardrobe changes. Ava had decided that she needed to wear her favorite dress, the one with the tiny flowers that made her
Last Updated: 2026-09-14
Chapter: Chapter 195Iris's POVI was reviewing a financial report on my laptop, and watching over the twins occupied with a puzzle at the kitchen table when my phone rang.Marcus's name flashed on my screen, and I answered on the second ring, keeping my voice professional."Marcus. Is everything alright?""Everything's fine." He paused, and I heard him exhale slowly. "I wanted to ask you something about the kids."I closed my laptop and leaned back in my chair. "What about them?""I want them to meet Rachel. My fiancée." Another pause. "But I wanted to ask your permission first. I know this is complicated, and I don't want to overstep."The words landed somewhere in my chest, heavy and uncomfortable. Rachel, the woman I had met briefly, the one who had looked at me with such careful politeness. She was going to be part of my children's lives. She was going to sit at the same table with them and laugh at their jokes and become someone they knew."I appreciate you asking," I said, keeping my voice steady.
Last Updated: 2026-09-12
Chapter: Chapter 194Victor's POVThe moment Marcus walked out of the visiting room, I knew I was done pretending.Six years I had spent in this place, medicated and monitored and treated like a man who had lost his mind. And maybe I had lost it. Maybe the obsession had broken something inside me that could never be repaired. But hearing that Iris was alive, that she had been alive this whole time, that she had given birth to my grandchildren and was living just a few hours away, it woke something in me that I had thought was dead.Hope.I stood up from the table and walked back to my room with steady legs and a steady heart. The guard didn't stop me because they never did anymore. I had been compliant for so long that they had stopped paying attention to me. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall while my mind raced through possibilities I hadn't allowed myself to consider in years.Iris was alive. She didn't remember me or the life we had shared or the love we had made or the child she had b
Last Updated: 2026-09-11
Chapter: Chapter 193Marcus's POVRachel's apartment was on the third floor of a quiet building on the east side of the city. I had been there once before, back when we first started dating and she was still living alone. She had made me dinner and we had stayed up talking until three in the morning, and I had driven home with the feeling that something good was happening in my life. Something I didn't deserve.I parked on the street and sat there for a long moment with my hands on the wheel. I had spent the past few hours in a psychiatric hospital listening to my father confess to things I could barely process. The pheremones. The manipulation. The decades of lies. And underneath all of it, the truth about Adrian Cross and the war he had been waging against our family for years.But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was the woman waiting for me upstairs, the woman I had pushed to the edge of her patience with my hesitations and my unresolved feelings. I had let her walk out of my apartment w
Last Updated: 2026-09-10
LOGIN
