LOGINVivian stood in front of the vanity table, slowly removing her diamond earrings. I sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing my wrinkled shirt, feeling like a defendant waiting for a judge’s verdict.
“Dewangga,” Vivian’s voice was calm, yet that calmness was far more frightening than anger. “How long do you think we can keep living like this?” I stared at the tips of my shoes, not daring to lift my face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vivian.” “Stop making a fool of me!” Vivian turned quickly, her breathing beginning to grow uneven. “I know Davian went into your room last night. I know what happened on the third floor. And I know… I know you never truly look at me when we’re together in this bed.” Every word that left Vivian’s mouth felt like a slap across my face. I wanted to deny it, but my tongue felt numb. The truth was too enormous to hide anymore. Vivian stepped closer and sat on the chair in front of me. She reached for my hand—a gentle touch that only made me feel even more guilty. “I love you, Dewangga. When I accepted you as my husband, I imagined a future where we would build a happy family together. But now, I feel like I’m sharing a house with two strangers who are destroying each other.” “Vivian, I’m sorry…” I whispered hoarsely. “I only have one piece of advice for you, Dewangga,” Vivian looked straight into my eyes, her gaze glistening with tears. “Davian doesn’t love you. He only loves power. He’s using you to satisfy his ego, to prove that he can take anything that belongs to me. If you keep playing his game, you’re not only destroying my marriage—you’re destroying yourself. He will throw you away once you’re no longer useful to him.” I fell silent. Vivian’s words made sense, but the image of Davian—the way he touched me, the way he recognized the darkness inside me—still haunted every nerve in my body. I felt like an addict being told the poison was killing him, yet my hand still reached out to find it. “Leave this madness, Dewangga,” Vivian continued, her voice now pleading. “Let’s start again. We can leave this house, far away from Davian. We can fix everything before Papa finds out and it’s too late.” For a moment, I saw a way out. A small light at the end of a dark corridor. I looked at Vivian and saw the pure sincerity in her eyes. But just as I was about to nod, a soft knock came from the connecting balcony door. The door opened slightly. Davian stood there, leaning against the doorframe in an elegant black shirt, an unlit cigarette tucked between his fingers. He looked at both of us with a thin, deadly smirk. “A very touching moment,” Davian said coldly. “But unfortunately, Vivian, your husband has already gone too far into my world for you to pull him back.” Vivian stood up, positioning herself protectively in front of me. “Get out of here, Davian! This is my room and my husband!” Davian laughed, the sound scraping like metal. He stepped inside without the slightest trace of guilt. “Your room? In this house, nothing truly belongs to you if I want it. Including Dewangga.” Davian looked at me, his eyes locking onto mine, reminding me of every forbidden moment we had shared. “Dewangga,” he said slowly, “tell your wife. Do you really want to leave? Are you truly capable of living in the ‘boring happiness’ she offers… when you know that only I can make you feel alive?” I was trapped between two poles. Vivian offered safety and dignity, while Davian offered a thrilling destruction. Under Davian’s gaze, my heart betrayed me once again. I remembered what it felt like to belong to him—what it felt like to drop every mask beneath his touch. “Dewangga, don’t listen to him!” Vivian shook my shoulder. But I could only lower my head. Guilt and desire battled inside my chest until it became hard to breathe. I knew Vivian was right, but I also knew my soul had already been scarred by Davian. Davian stepped closer, ignoring Vivian who trembled with anger. He leaned down and whispered something only I could hear. “The choice is yours, Dewangga,” he murmured. “To be a slave to false morality… or to be a king in hell with me.”Vivian demanded a manuscript. The mysterious enemy demanded a key. And Dewangga? He wanted only one thing—to hear Sarah’s breathing again with his own ears, not through a horrifying digital distortion.So he began to write. But not the narrative of Surya Group’s rise that Vivian demanded. He wrote a plan. Every word he etched onto the page was a code—a carefully constructed storyline designed to trap both sides fighting over him.In an old warehouse on the outskirts of North Jakarta, the cold air from the harbor seeped through cracks in the concrete. Sarah sat bound, her head hanging as she struggled to stay conscious. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dewangga’s face beneath the mountain rain. She remembered his confession about the fire in Puncak—the burden he had carried alone for years.“He’s not coming,” a deep voice emerged from the darkness in front of her.The mysterious man stepped into the light. No longer hidden behind shadows or screens, he revealed himself—a middle-
The helicopter tore through the storm with a deafening roar, yet inside the cabin, the atmosphere was as cold as a grave. Dewangga sat with his hands bound, his head hanging weakly from the blow he had taken, dried blood lining his temple. Across from him, Vivian sat calmly, drying her hair with a small towel as if she had just returned from a slightly chaotic party—not from a scene of fire and murder.Dewangga stared out the small window. Below, the blaze on the hill where their cabin once stood was slowly shrinking, swallowed by the darkness of the forest and the relentless rain. His heart felt hollow. Davian was gone in that explosion—a brutal sacrifice he had never asked for. And Sarah—he could only hope she had reached the darkness of the northern cliff before Vivian’s hunters found her.“You look so grief-stricken, my dear,” Vivian’s voice cut through the hum of the rotors. She leaned forward, her cold fingers lifting Dewangga’s chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. “When you shou
“You’ve always had a flair for drama when choosing meeting places, Dewangga,” Vivian’s voice flowed softly, almost drowned by the roar of the storm. “A banyan tree, a raging downpour, and secrets from the past. You truly are a writer to your very core.”“Let them go, Vivian,” Dewangga hissed. His voice was low, trembling with restrained fury. “You want me. Take me. But let them leave.”Vivian let out a soft laugh, a sound like a blade brushing against silk. “You still don’t understand, do you? This isn’t about negotiation. It’s about ownership. Davian is a failure that needs to be erased, and that doctor… she’s an unnecessary distraction.”Meanwhile, at the surrounded cabin, Davian peered through the crack of a broken window. Vivian’s tactical vehicles had cut their lights, but the presence of hired killers hung in the air like electricity. He turned to Sarah, who was packing an emergency medical bag with trembling hands.“Sarah, listen to me,” Davian said suddenly, his voice unnatura
Davian stood at the doorway, his shadow stretching long beneath the dimming glow of the oil lamp. In his hand, he held an old pistol—one of the few relics he had salvaged from the ruins of their past.“Are you sure about this?” Davian’s voice was hoarse, his scarred eyes locking onto Dewangga with a rare intensity. “Meeting a ‘ghost’ under that banyan tree could be a trap far deadlier than Vivian.”“Vivian wants to own me, Davian. She wants me back in her golden cage,” Dewangga replied as he buttoned his jacket. “But whoever sent that letter… he knew who I was before I became a Surya. I need to know why.”“If you don’t come back in two hours, I’ll take Sarah down through the northern path. I won’t let all of us die here because of your curiosity.”Dewangga gave a short nod. He stepped outside, into a fog so thick he could barely see the tips of his own shoes. His path led him toward the dispensary. He had to say goodbye to Sarah, even if he knew words would never be enough.Inside the
That night, the fog did not only blanket the mountain peak—it seemed to seep into the very pores of Dewangga’s skin. Inside the cabin, the atmosphere felt like a war bunker. Davian paced back and forth with an impatient limp, his wooden cane striking the floor in a relentless tap… tap… tap that echoed deafeningly through the silence of the night.Dewangga sat at his wooden desk, staring at the golden pen now gleaming under the dim light of an oil lamp. It felt foreign, like an artifact from a cursed life he had long buried. The scent of jasmine from the box still lingered, filling the room and choking what little oxygen remained.“He won’t wait until morning, Dewangga,” Davian growled, stopping before the tightly shut window. “Vivian isn’t the type to give her prey time to pack. She’s down there, at the foot of the mountain, laughing while counting down the seconds to our destruction.”Dewangga said nothing. He opened his laptop with mechanical precision. The blank white screen stared
The mountain air that morning felt unusually heavy, as if the mist itself refused to part for the sun. Dewangga walked toward the village school with an uneasy mind. Each step felt burdened, shadowed by his brief encounter with the man dressed as a hiker the previous afternoon. He hadn’t told Davian the full details of his suspicion—he knew his brother would only escalate things with reckless plans.Inside the bamboo structure that served as a classroom, the chatter of children softened as Dewangga entered. Bimo, the most enthusiastic of them all, was already seated in the front row with a clean slate in hand.“Today, we’ll learn about description,” Dewangga said, forcing a smile. “Not just about what you see, but what you feel when you see it.”He began writing on the board, but his focus kept drifting toward the window. He watched every movement outside—the swaying leaves, birds in flight, even the footsteps of passing villagers. He felt like prey, aware of a predator lurking just b







