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CHAPTER 77: THE PHONE CALL
publish date:
2026-06-20 08:58:54
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Apex of Love CHAPTER 82: THE EXPOSÉ THREAT
The text from the private investigator comes into Julian's phone.We're still in the hidden library, the Rilke book discarded on the armchair, my engagement barely an hour old. Julian hasn't moved. He's planted at the window, his spine to me, the phone strangled in his grip."She's engaged to a DeVries," he says. "My sister is going to marry the grandson of the man who slaughtered our mother.""We don't know what she knows. She might know nothing at all.""She doesn't know she's adopted. She doesn't know Elena was her mother. She doesn't know I exist." He wheels around, his eyes scorching. "The DeVries family raised her. They've been molding her for thirty-seven years, force-feeding her lies, converting her into one of them.""Then we tell the truth.""And blow-up her entire existence? She's preparing to marry into a family she believes is hers. She has a life, Lena. A future. If I unload the truth on her, I strip all of that away.""You hand her something else. The truth about who s
Apex of Love CHAPTER 83: THE INTERVIEW REQUEST
Maya Chen selects the Belle Isle Conservatory for our meeting.The glass dome arches against the gray January sky, tropical plants pressing their green palms against the frost-glazed windows. Inside, the air hangs thick and wet, heavy with the smell of damp earth and orchids. The koi pond ripples with orange fish, their fins trailing like silk through the dark water. Every Detroiter knows this place, this pocket of jungle designed by Albert Kahn, steam fogging the glass while the Detroit River freezes solid a hundred yards away.Maya occupies a bench near the water, a tablet balanced on her knee, her dark hair yanked back in a tight knot."You're early," I say, settling onto the bench beside her."You're late. By three minutes." She doesn't lift her eyes from the tablet. "I've been excavating the DeVries family for two days. What I've uncovered makes Julian's file look like a parking ticket.""How deep does it go?""The DeVries family didn't just slaughter Elena. They've been hiding c
Apex of Love CHAPTER 81: THE NEW NORMAL
The fire station on Michigan Avenue squats silent under the January moon.We reach it before the DeVries family does. Marcus locks down the perimeter. Gabriel huddles in the car, his face drained, his hands shuddering. Julian guides me through the fractured doors, past the brass pole gleaming in the dark, into the back room where a loose brick waits behind decades of dust and decay.The lockbox is small and black and rusted at the hinges. Julian drops to his knees before it, the brass key crushed in his fist. His hands quiver as he works the key into the lock."Whatever occupies this box," he says, "whatever my mother abandoned, I need you to know that locating you was the finest event of my existence. No letter, no secret, no truth can alter that.""Crack it open."He rotates the key. The lock surrenders. The lid groans upward.Inside, a photograph. A young woman with dark hair and January gray eyes, gripping a baby. Not Julian. A girl. Older. Perhaps eighteen months. On the back, in
Apex of Love CHAPTER 80: THE FIRST DATE (REDUX)
The diner on Fort Street yawns nearly empty when I shove through the door.Julian already occupies the corner booth, his spine to the wall. He has been wearing a dark sweater since this morning, his coat slung over the seat beside him. Two mugs of coffee steam on the formica table. A single slice of cherry pie rests untouched between them."You're early," I say, sliding into the booth across from him."You're late.""I'm precisely on schedule. You're the one who materialized twenty minutes before necessary."His mouth jerks. He almost smile. "I wanted to claim the booth.""The booth never fills. This diner is always empty.""Tonight it might have been different."I coil my fingers around the warm mug. "You're nervous.""I'm not nervous.""You've organized the sugar packets into a flawless grid."He glares at the sugar caddy, then back at me. "That's fundamental tidiness.""That's nerves." I stretch across the table and seize his hand. "Speak to me."He glares at our tangled fingers. T
Apex of Love CHAPTER 79: THE TERMS
We abandon Gabriel on the station steps and drive straight to the diner on Fort Street.Julian doesn't speak the entire ride. The locket rests in his palm, the silver warming against his skin, his mother's letter folded beneath it. I don't ask. I understand what's coming. The negotiation. The conversation we've been circling for weeks.The diner is nearly empty. Betty sloshes coffee into our mugs without asking and retreats to the counter. Julian slides into the cracked vinyl booth across from me, the identical booth where he confessed he didn't know how to care. The identical booth where I sobbed and he ordered pie he never touched."You want to discuss what Gabriel revealed," I say."I want to discuss us." He places the locket on the formica table between us. "I've burned my whole existence constructing walls. You demolished them. I've burned my whole existence fleeing from my history. You helped me stare it down. But there's still a lockbox entombed in that fire station, and I have
Apex of Love CHAPTER 78: THE NEGOTIATION
The hours between dawn and noon refuse to move.Julian showers and dresses without a word, pulling on a dark sweater and jeans. No armor today. No billionaire's uniform. He's meeting his uncle, and he wants to arrive as a man, not a monument. I watch from the bed, still wrapped in his robe, the photograph of Elena DeVries glowing on the nightstand."You don't need the suit," I say. "But a coat might help. It's January."His mouth jerks. The almost-smile. "I'll grab a coat.""Good. You're worthless to me frozen."He crosses to the bed and drops beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight. "What do I articulate to him? What do you say to a man who gripped your mother's hand while she bled out?""You say thank you. You say you're sorry he's been hauling this alone. You say you're braced to absorb whatever he has to deliver.""And if I'm not ready ?""You've been ready since you were twelve years old, barefoot in the snow. You just didn't know it."He fastens his eyes on me. They're
Apex of Love CHAPTER 13: THE STITCH IN THE SIDE
The fencing salle occupies the third floor of a building in Midtown that used to be a furniture factory, then a Cadillac stamping plant. The floors are scarred wood with old oil stains darkening the grain. The walls are exposed brick. The windows are tall and arched, and the November light falls th
Apex of Love CHAPTER 10: THE FRACTURE IN THE ICE
The bed is empty when I wake.Not the usual empty. Not cold sheets and a dented pillow and the silence that means he left hours ago. His side is rumpled but cold. The bathroom light is off. The closet door is open, and his suitcase still sits on the stand where Marcus placed it this morning. He did
Apex of Love CHAPTER 9: THE TASTE OF SALT ON A YACHT DECK
A few days later, I discovered another side to Julian Croft. It was both unexpected and intriguing. This time the setting was at sea. The Mediterranean is not blue. That's the first lie. It's green where the shore shelves and gray out in the deep and silver only when the sun hits it at noon. Right
Apex of Love CHAPTER 8: THE ECHO IN THE MARBLE BATH
I wake to cold sheets and the kind of quiet that means I'm alone.The space beside me holds the shape of a body that isn't there. I flatten my palm against the mattress anyway, searching for leftover warmth, and find nothing but expensive cotton and the shallow dent of my own weight. He left hours
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