登入The door clicked shut behind Lydia, leaving Ava alone in the living room. She expected the house to feel quiet, but it felt heavy and cold. She waited for Noah to come back, but the house remained silent. Driven by a nervous feeling in her gut, Ava walked toward the hallway. She knew the house well enough by now to know where the private rooms were. She followed the sound of voices until she reached the door of a small sitting room. The door was cracked open. She didn't mean to listen, but she couldn't make herself walk away. "You’ve become careless," Lydia’s voice drifted through the gap. It was calm and sharp, like a knife. Noah’s voice answered. It was a version of him Ava had never heard. It wasn't the voice he used with her. It was flat, tired, and dangerous. "I’m not careless, Mother. I’m just finished." "Finished with what? Your duty? Your legacy?" "Finished with being managed," Noah snapped. She heard the sound of a glass hitting a table. "I am tired of having ever
The room went completely silent. Noah stood a few steps back, his body stiff, his eyes locked on his mother. He looked like a man waiting for a fight, his jaw tight as he braced for the next move. Lydia stood perfectly still, her sharp eyes staring right at Ava. She had just said, “You’re the girl my son has been willing to risk everything for,” like she was reading a final judgment. Ava felt the weight of that stare. Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking, but she refused to look away. "I didn’t ask him to," she said firmly. For a second, the cold look on Lydia’s face changed. It wasn’t that she liked Ava, but she looked surprised. She had expected Ava to act scared, or to try to defend her love for Noah. She hadn’t expected the truth. "That is interesting," Lydia said, her voice smooth and dangerous. She started to walk in a slow circle around Ava, her heels clicking softly on the floor. "How long have you known him?" "A few months," Ava said. Lydia kept asking
The morning Lydia was due to arrive, the atmosphere inside the estate shifted completely. It wasn't just the extra security guards standing at every door with their grim, focused expressions; it was the way the house itself felt—tight, quiet, and clinical. Ava stood in the doorway of the study, watching Noah. He was usually a man who radiated calm, even when he was dangerous. But today, he was different. He was pacing back and forth across the hardwood floor. He wasn't checking his gun, and he wasn't looking at the maps or the reports about the man who was hunting them. Instead, he was obsessively adjusting the books on his shelf, moving them by millimeters to make sure they were perfectly aligned. He was checking the lighting, straightening the cushions, and looking at the room with a nervous, frantic energy. "She doesn't care if the books are straight," Ava said quietly, her voice echoing in the large room. Noah stopped pacing. He looked at her, and for just a second, the mask he
The morning light felt too bright, cutting across the kitchen counter in sharp lines. Ava sat at the table with a cold cup of coffee, staring at the photo she’d found in the library. She hadn't slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the two men in the picture—young, reckless, and smiling like they had the whole world in their hands. Noah was already gone. He hadn't woken her, but the house felt busy. She could hear the distant voices of his security team and the steady hum of people moving around the estate. For the first time, this place didn't feel like a safe home; it felt like a cage. She pulled out her phone. The screen was full of messages she had been ignoring for days. Most were from Tessa. Where are you? Ava, answer me. The salon is a mess. Are you okay? Across the city, the salon was quiet. It felt wrong without Ava. Tessa stood at the front desk, looking at the empty chair where Ava usually worked. She was worried, and honestly, she was getting angry. People d
The heavy door clicked shut, leaving them in a deep, heavy silence. The guard was gone, but his words we have a leak stayed in the air. Ava didn’t look at the files or the maps anymore. Her mind was stuck on what Noah had said. I watched them put him in the ground ten years ago. I was the one who pulled the trigger. She looked at Noah. He was standing by the window, his shoulders tight. She realized then that she didn't really know him. She knew his touch, but she didn't know the man who had killed someone when he was just a kid. "How old were you?" she asked. Her voice was steady, even though her hands were shaking. Noah turned around, looking surprised. "What?" "When it happened," she said. "When you pulled the trigger." Noah walked to his desk and sat down. He looked tired—like a man who had been carrying a heavy weight for a long, long time. "Twenty-two," he said quietly. "I was twenty-two." He didn't tell her everything, but he told her enough. He talked about a lif
Ava stared at the photograph, her fingers trembling until the edges of the paper crinkled. The face in the picture was clear, high-contrast, and hauntingly real, but it was the look on Noah’s face that truly broke her. He didn't look like a man who had finally tracked down a stalker. He looked like a man who had just seen a ghost walk out of his own grave. "Who is he?" Ava whispered. The silence in the office was suffocating, thick with the scent of old paper and the sharp, metallic tang of the storm brewing outside. Noah didn’t answer immediately. He was staring at the man in the photo, his jaw locked tight. His hand—usually steady enough to command a room or pull a trigger—was gripping the edge of his massive desk so hard his knuckles had turned white. "He should be dead," Noah finally said, his voice a flat, dead scrape of sound. "I watched them put him in the ground ten years ago. I was the one who pulled the trigger." Ava felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her dizzy.
The morning at the salon felt like forced normalcy. Ava was busy with a client, the low hum of the dryer giving her some comfort. But everything shifted when the front door opened just after noon. Julian walked in again. Tessa didn't even try to be nice. She stood behind the reception desk with
The morning sun felt too bright, cutting through the haze of a night spent staring at the ceiling. Ava walked into the salon, her steps heavy, her shoulders carrying the weight of the previous evening’s kitchen-table confession. She felt like she was walking through a dream, the image of her mother
The city glittered beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, but Julian paid it little attention. His focus remained on the file spread across the desk. Three days of digging had produced nothing useful. No hidden accounts. No suspicious transactions. No wealthy benefactor quietly funding Ava Hayes’s bu
Noah sat at his desk. The office was dead quiet, but his mind was racing. His phone buzzed. He picked it up. A message from his head of security. Security: Someone has been asking questions about the shop on Fifth. Noah’s eyes narrowed. Noah: What kind of questions? A reply came almos







