MasukShare
Chapter 59: The Final Choice
Terakhir Diperbarui:
2025-08-03 18:51:25
Bab terbaru
Against all odds Chapter 85: New Game, New Rules
Luca’s POVThey think they’ve buried me.They think the money was my leash, that the ashes of my life would keep me quiet. They think the shame will keep me small, that the ruin will make me crawl.They don’t know me.I’ve been sitting in the dark for too long, letting grief and fury ferment until it turned into something sharper and more lethal. Pain isn’t my prison anymore. It’s my weapon. And I’m going to wield it with precision.The first step is information.Money can buy a lot of things.. which includes silence, loyalty, access and I still have enough of it to open the kind of doors most people don’t even know exist. I call in an old debt, a man who owes me more than his life. He doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t flinch when I tell him I want every ugly detail on Elliott’s father. I don’t need proof of the man’s corruption; I just need a map of where the skeletons are buried.People like him think they’re untouchable because they’ve bought and destroyed anyone who’s tried. But they
Against all odds Chapter 84: Ashes and Ruins
Luca's povThe smell hits me first—char and smoke that’s long since faded, but still clings to the air like a ghost refusing to leave. I stand in the middle of what used to be my world. The beams are blackened, walls collapsed inward like broken ribs, the floors littered with glass and splintered wood. My studio… the one place where I had built something real, something that was mine… is nothing more than a pile of ashes and twisted metal. I close my eyes for a second, forcing myself to breathe, but it feels like inhaling grief. Every brushstroke, every late night, every plan for the future—burned away, gone without a trace. I tell myself it’s just a building. Just wood and paint and bricks. But I know better. This is my life they destroyed.I walk through what’s left, the crunch of debris under my boots the only sound. My office is barely recognizable. The desk is gone, the shelves melted into shapeless lumps. The sketches I’d tacked on the walls, the ones I refused to digitize becau
Against all odds Chapter 83: A Hollow Wedding
Cecilia’s POVThe cathedral was awash in golden light, sunlight pouring through stained glass and scattering like jewels across the marble floor. My gown trailed behind me like a river of silk, heavy with the weight of perfection. Every curl in my hair had been pinned precisely, every pearl on my veil placed with care. I knew I looked like a bride out of a fairytale.. beautiful, glowing, the very picture of victory. And yet, when my eyes found Elliott standing at the altar, waiting for me, the win felt… hollow. His suit was sharp, his posture rigid, but his eyes, those eyes I once thought could burn for me.. were dull, distant. He was here, yes, but not with me.My father’s arm was steady as he led me forward, my heels clicking softly on the polished floor. Cameras flashed from the side aisles, capturing every perfect angle of this moment. I smiled for them. I smiled for the world. This was my day. My triumph. And still, as I drew closer, I saw the truth etched in the curve of Ell
Against all odds Chapter 82: Shattered Illusions
Elliott's pov I didn’t believe it at first. I couldn’t. The words felt like poison sliding into my ear, something so absurd it almost made me laugh before the pain set in. “He’s been released,” my father said, leaning back in his chair with that smug tilt to his lips, as though he was telling me about some inconsequential stock acquisition. I stared at him, my mind stumbling over itself. “What?” The word barely made it past my lips. He didn’t repeat himself. He just let the silence settle, heavy and suffocating, until I felt it pressing on my ribs. “Luca Romano walked out of prison this morning,” he finally clarified, his voice like ice cracking. My heart thudded hard against my chest, confusion spiraling into disbelief. Released? How? Why?When he told me the charges had been dropped, my first instinct wasn’t joy or relief—it was suspicion. I knew my father well enough to know nothing happened in this world without a price. “And you’re telling me this because…?” My voice was flat, b
Against all odds Chapter 81: Released but Not Free
Luca’s POVThe air outside the prison gates didn’t smell like freedom. It smelled like rain on cold concrete, like exhaust fumes from a passing bus, like something sour and stale that had been sitting in the back of my throat for months. I thought the first breath as a free man would feel like drowning in sunlight, but instead, it just felt… empty. Like I’d been spat out into a world that had already moved on without me. No one was waiting. No warm face, no arms to fall into. Just the sound of my own shoes scraping the pavement and the weight of a plastic bag holding the only things I had left—clothes that didn’t fit, shoes with a split sole, and a photograph I couldn’t bring myself to throw away.I didn’t even know why I was out. The lawyer who barely returned my calls never mentioned a break in the case. There was no dramatic courtroom reversal, no new evidence clearing my name. One morning, the guard just came to my cell with a paper in hand and told me to pack. That was it. Freedo
Against all odds Chapter 80: The War Begins
Luca’s POVI watched him walk away, his silhouette swallowed by the golden glow of the chandeliers behind him. Even now, he moves like a man who carries the world’s weight and still refuses to kneel. I hate that I know every twitch of his jaw, every breath he holds when he's hurting. I hate even more that part of me wanted to chase him. To grab his wrist and ask if he ever really loved me. But I don’t. I stay rooted, the ice in my veins too thick now to thaw.My chest burns. Not the kind of fire that fuels love, but the kind that scorches what’s left of it. Elliott Wilde still does this to me—still makes my pulse quicken and my ribs tighten like a vise. But the ache, the longing, it’s buried now. Six feet under. That part of me is dead, and he was the one who killed it.He let me rot in a cell.That truth is the first nail in the coffin. He didn’t call. Didn’t come. Didn’t ask. Just disappeared. While I sat in that freezing cage, stripped of everything—my work, my name, my dignity—he
Anda juga akan menyukai
