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Cleaning house

Author: Leelee
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-14 06:46:15

Damian’s POV

It was nearly midnight, but my office looked like midday.

The desk lamp’s golden light spilled over piles of files and my open laptop, while the rest of the house lay in heavy, silent darkness. The air was still, thick with the faint smell of paper and printer ink. My eyes felt raw, like sand had been ground into them, but I didn’t stop. Stopping meant thinking about what would happen if I failed.

The foundation’s books sprawled before me in a chaos only I could navigate — digital ledgers flashing cold numbers on the screen, printed bank statements stacked in uneven piles, and handwritten notes I’d scrawled in the margins when something didn’t sit right.

On the surface, it was clean. Respectable. The kind of numbers that would make any audit nod with approval.

But numbers lie. People make them lie. And I’d been in this game too long to trust the surface.

I traced my finger along a neat column of donations. Fifty thousand dollars from a “community outreach initiative” in D
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  • A Love Forged In Ruins    The call that changed everything

    Layla's POV It took me nearly fifteen minutes to work up the courage to press the call button. I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over Michelle Thomas’ name, a sense of dread coiling in my stomach. Every instinct told me not to do this—not yet—but curiosity and the need for answers clawed louder.Finally, I took a deep breath and pressed the green button. The line rang once, twice, and then…“Hello?”Her voice. Calm. Cool. Unreadable. The kind of voice that could hide a hundred secrets behind a single word.“Hi… Ms. Thomas?” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “This is Layla Blackwood. I… I wanted to talk. About something important. I was wondering if we could meet?”There was a pause. Long enough to make my heartbeat pound in my ears. I could almost imagine her assessing me, weighing the risk of agreeing.“Where and when?” she finally asked. Her tone didn’t betray emotion, but it was deliberate, almost cold.I suggested a neutral place—a quiet café tucked off the main road, f

  • A Love Forged In Ruins    The reveal

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  • A Love Forged In Ruins    The first meeting

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  • A Love Forged In Ruins    Trouble in the neighborhood

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  • A Love Forged In Ruins    No such thing as safe

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  • A Love Forged In Ruins    The sweep

    Third person's POV The night was thick with rain, the kind that blurred streetlights into smeared halos and turned the pavement into black glass.From his vantage point on the hill, Damian could see Vincent’s mansion like a lonely fortress against the storm. The tall iron gates stood shut, the guards posted under the awning with their rifles slung carelessly over their shoulders, oblivious to what was coming.His earpiece crackled.“Unit One, in position,” came the voice of Agent Cole.“Unit Two, in position,” another voice confirmed.Damian’s fingers tightened around the binoculars. “Copy,” he said, keeping his voice calm, measured. “Hold until I give the word.”He was not officially here. No badge, no uniform, no acknowledgment in the reports. He was a ghost, feeding law enforcement real-time information from the shadows. The folder he’d delivered earlier had sparked this operation, but this—this—was the part he lived for.Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the entire compound

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