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Fifty two

Author: Ranya Vale
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-07-25 00:00:00

I woke to the soft weight of Julian’s hand draped loosely over my waist. The room was still dim, with only the early morning light sneaking in through the linen curtains, but I didn’t move. My breath stayed even, quiet, as I let myself feel the hush that existed between us before the world stirred. His palm was warm. Familiar. Grounding in a way I hadn’t known I would ever come to need.

We hadn’t spoken about it the first night I stayed. There had been no discussion. No drawn lines. No defined shift. Only the gravity of the day that had come before, the unraveling that happened quietly once the door had shut behind us. And since then, it had become natural. Undramatic. He never crossed into my space unless I invited him. He never assumed. But I had stopped pulling away.

There was a peace to the mornings that didn’t exist anywhere else. No calls. No urgent alerts from Claudia. No half-breathed panic from Simone. Just the warmth of a body I trusted beside me, and the
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  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty five

    The morning after the leaks settled into silence. Not the kind that feels peaceful, but the kind that stretches across a room when there is too much left unspoken. Julian woke before I did, quietly sliding out of bed with a softness that made me pretend I was still asleep. I heard him pad across the floor, the subtle rustle of fabric as he dressed, the click of the door as he stepped out into the kitchen. For a long time, I stayed there, curled beneath the sheets that still held the warmth of his body, staring at the ceiling like it might offer me a reason for why everything still felt so exposed.The messages from the whistleblower had stopped after our conversation. No new threats, no new tips, just that one strange act of conscience that tipped the scale. It should have made me feel more secure, but instead it unsettled me. Betrayal without resolution clings to the skin like smoke. I could feel it in every breath.There was no time to linger. Today was the soft launch. Not the gran

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty four

    The email came at 9:14 in the morning. I had barely touched the tea Elise had left by my office window when I saw it appear, plain and unassuming, tucked between routine shipping updates and boutique appointment requests. The subject line was spare, impersonal. “Concerning a breach of trust.” I almost ignored it.But something in the phrasing made me pause. Not urgent, not dramatic, not embellished. Just quiet certainty.I opened it.There was no greeting. No name. Only a few lines, typed plainly.Someone on Alessia’s board has been forwarding sensitive documents to third-party stakeholders to undercut your expansion model. They’ve done this twice in the last three months. I can prove it. I am not your enemy.I stared at the screen, my pulse beginning to rise, not in panic but with the calm, sharpened heat of calculation. A name followed at the bottom, a junior partner I remembered vaguely from old boardroom minutes. Not one of Alessia’s inner circle, but someone close enough to have

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty three

    I did not sleep much that night.Even with Julian beside me, even with the quiet weight of his hand draped loosely over my hip, the stillness of the room felt too fragile to trust. My body stayed curled against him, but my mind paced. I watched the dark ceiling fade into gray, and the gray give way to that faint blue light that only ever shows up just before morning.He shifted once, half-awake, murmuring something I could not make out. I didn’t respond, but my hand found his. I held it for a while, pressing my thumb softly to his knuckles, grounding myself in that simple contact. He settled back into sleep almost immediately. I envied him for it.By the time the city began to hum beneath our windows, I was already up, already moving. I showered quietly, tying my hair back with the thin silk ribbon I kept in the top drawer. My hands shook when I reached for my earrings, not out of fear, but something else. Something like resolve. My body knew what today wo

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty two

    I woke to the soft weight of Julian’s hand draped loosely over my waist. The room was still dim, with only the early morning light sneaking in through the linen curtains, but I didn’t move. My breath stayed even, quiet, as I let myself feel the hush that existed between us before the world stirred. His palm was warm. Familiar. Grounding in a way I hadn’t known I would ever come to need.We hadn’t spoken about it the first night I stayed. There had been no discussion. No drawn lines. No defined shift. Only the gravity of the day that had come before, the unraveling that happened quietly once the door had shut behind us. And since then, it had become natural. Undramatic. He never crossed into my space unless I invited him. He never assumed. But I had stopped pulling away.There was a peace to the mornings that didn’t exist anywhere else. No calls. No urgent alerts from Claudia. No half-breathed panic from Simone. Just the warmth of a body I trusted beside me, and the

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty one

    By the time the sunlight had fully reached the floors of the boutique, I could feel the pressure of the day beginning to settle against my chest like a weight I had already agreed to carry. Not because I wanted to, but because it was mine. It belonged to me in a way that was no longer avoidable.The article had shifted something. Not just outside, not just in the public conversation, but inside us. Inside me. It was no longer about silence or waiting or reacting. There was a current now, moving under our feet, and I knew that if I didn’t walk forward with it, it would drag me instead.Julian had gone back to his office just after we returned from the courtyard. He hadn’t said much beyond that quiet promise. The kind that does not beg for answers. The kind that leaves room for breath.Simone was still scanning the online threads, her fingers flying across the keyboard with sharp precision. Claudia was on the phone in the backroom, voice low and clipped, spe

  • He Chose my Cousin, so I Chose Revenge    Fifty

    I did not sleep the night after the interview. Sleep felt like a thing that belonged to other people, to lives less entangled. I stayed dressed, lying flat on top of my sheets, staring at the ceiling while the shadows in my room stretched and shifted. It felt as if the dark itself was listening, like the silence had grown into something sentient, waiting for me to move or speak or give it permission to release me.My phone started vibrating sometime around four. Mentions. Notifications. An alert from Lena that had been tagged “not urgent,” which told me it absolutely was. I sat up slowly and opened it, heart already bracing. The article had been published. Mode Verité did not use loud fonts or exclamation points. Their headline whispered with precision.Integrity Is Not a Campaign: Inside the Quiet Revolution at Cross Atelier.I read it once through with stillness in my body and a heart that beat faster with every paragraph. Then I read it again, slower. A

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