LOGINHannah’s POVEverything around me blurred into noise and chaos.The fairy lights that had looked so beautiful minutes earlier now swayed wildly above our heads, trembling as if even they were afraid. Guests lay flat on the grass, some crying, some whispering prayers, others too stunned to make a sound. My family was huddled together in the middle of the lawn, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.Uncle Chen stood in front of us like a demon pulled straight out of my nightmares.His face was flushed, veins standing out on his neck, eyes burning with something that went far beyond anger. It was obsession. Hunger. The desperate need to cling to power no matter the cost.Maria stood beside him, her smile gone, her lips curled into something cruel and sharp. The waiter’s uniform she wore looked like a mockery of the innocence she had once pretended to have.“You see this?” Uncle Chen said, waving the gun lazily in the air, his voice echoing through the stunned silence. “This is what happens whe
Hannah’s POVThe morning of the party arrived with a strange mix of excitement and nerves bubbling in my stomach.I stood in front of the mirror longer than usual, smoothing down my dress, staring at my reflection as if I were looking at a stranger. Six months ago, I had nothing but pain and anger in my eyes. Now there was something new. Strength. Quiet confidence.From my bedroom window, I could already see the compound coming alive. Strings of lights were being hung across the lawn like glowing veins, white and gold ribbons fluttering in the soft morning breeze. The decorators Dad had hired were putting finishing touches to the set up for the party.The house smelled of polish and flowers. Mom had insisted on fresh lilies in every corner. The scent filled the halls, light and clean, a sharp contrast to the stale air of grief we had lived in for months.Downstairs, Bryce was pacing the living room.“Why are there so many chairs?” he asked Micheal. “Is the entire city coming?”Micheal
Hannah’s POVWalking back into our mansion felt like stepping into a memory they had once buried for my family.The gates slid open slowly, the iron bars groaning as if they too were waking from a long sleep. The driveway curved exactly the way I remembered, the stones still the same pale shade, the trimmed hedges still standing in disciplined lines. Yet everything felt different. The house hadn’t changed, but we had.Six months earlier, this place had been ripped from us. Now we were returning not as a family defined by wealth, but as a family remade by loss.Dad stepped out of the car first. He didn’t rush. He just stood there for a moment, breathing in the air like a man who had been underwater too long.“This house,” he murmured, more to himself than to anyone, “used to feel like a prison to me. Now it feels like home.”Mom slipped her arm into his. “Because we know what it feels like to have nothing now.”I watched Bryce and Micheal run ahead of us, racing toward the front door l
Hannah’s POVBy the time I finally sat in the quiet of my office one morning and looked at the mountain of folders stacked neatly on my desk, I knew we were ready.For weeks, I had planned the case for court with Adam's lawyer, Mr Peterson who would be representing us. Uncle Chen thought he was in control. But now, with most of the shareholders firmly standing behind me and enough evidence gathered from the flash drive, the bugged laptop, and the investigations Adam’s team had helped run, the feeling in my chest wasn’t fear anymore.It was certainty.I picked up my phone and called our lawyer.“Mr. Peterson,” I said, my voice steady, not even a tremor betraying the storm inside me. “Let's do this.”There was a pause on the other end, then a calm breath. “Alright, Hannah. Let’s take Chen to court.”**The courthouse loomed like a monument to judgment—gray stone walls, tall columns, and doors that looked like they had swallowed both the innocent and the guilty for decades. But I didn’
Hannah’s POV:Two days after the night I nearly lost my life under Uncle Chen’s study table, I found myself in the most unlikely place for a breakthrough—my father’s small garden behind Adam’s house.The sun was gentle that afternoon, not too hot, not too cold. The smell of wet soil still hung in the air from the watering Dad had just finished doing. He knelt by the small patch of earth Adam had given him, carefully nudging the soil around a line of seedlings as if they were fragile children.I watched him from the patio chair, my heart strangely full. This garden had become his refuge, his therapy, his silent apology to himself for the years he had buried his dreams beneath board meetings and balance sheets.“You see this one?” he said, pointing to a tiny green sprout barely poking through the earth. “This is basil. It looks insignificant now, but if you treat it right, it grows strong.”I smiled. “Just like us.”He chuckled softly, then wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “You
Hannah’s POV:If someone had told me when this nightmare started that the hardest part of my battle to reclaim my family’s company would be sneaking into Uncle Chen’s house dressed as a maid, I would have laughed—maybe even waved them off—but definitely not believed it. And yet, here I was, crouching in the dim light under a heavy mahogany table, heart pounding like a drum, praying that the floor wouldn’t betray me.The whole thing began with Mr. August.The hardest shareholder to win over.Chen’s grip on him wasn’t just financial or legal, it was personal, deeply personal. He had a video, damning, humiliating of Mr. August cheating on his wife. Something no one in his circle knew about, and certainly not something he wanted the world to see. Chen was using it like a guillotine hanging over his head.I sat with Adam and Josh in Josh’s living room, our usual war room, the weight of this problem pressing down on us.“How do you get someone to stand up to a blackmailer when they’re scare







