LOGINSusan's POV
I read the article three times before the shock finally turned into something sharper.
Armando Ivas has secretly fathered two children with his new wife. An anonymous source close to the household. My hands were shaking by the third read. Not from fear, but from fury.
Someone had moved without me. Someone had let this truth reach the public before I even had the chance to use it myself.
I called Ar
Zahara's POV"Records archive is closed to non staff after hours," the guard said. His voice carrying a careful, measured calm that did not match the deliberate way he continued walking toward me, not stopping the way ordinary security usually did once they identified themselves."I have clearance," I said. Keeping my own voice steady…professional, the exact tone I had used a hundred times before with hospital security who questioned my presence in restricted areas."I'm Dr. Smith, consulting physician. I am retrieving files for a patient review.""At this hour?""Emergencies do not keep business hours," I said, holding his gaze evenly, refusing to let the unease building in my chest reach my expression.He studied me for a long moment. Close enough now that I could read the name on his badge, Colton. And something in the particular stillness of his posture, the way his eyes moved briefly toward the bag at my side rather than my face. Confirmed the instinct already tightening every mu
Zahara's POVI read Priscilla's message myself, forwarded quietly to my own phone by the assistant Armando had asked to keep me updated, and I felt something settle in my chest that had nothing to do with fear.Routine storage limits. A purge scheduled within forty eight hours. Fiona's earliest toxicology files, the ones that first proved months of deliberate poisoning…sitting in a box somewhere in a basement archive, about to be destroyed by a policy someone had almost certainly engineered on purpose.I did not tell Armando what I intended to do about it.I sat with that decision for a long moment. Turning it over honestly rather than simply acting on instinct.Five years ago, I would have told myself the secrecy was purely protective, that I was sparing him a danger he did not need to carry. But that was not the whole truth tonight, and I made myself admit it plainly…alone, in the quiet of my own room.Some part of this was mine. Not shared. Not managed jointly. Mine to walk into an
Armando's POVI did not tell Marcus everything I actually knew. I had learned, over the past several weeks, that revealing suspicion too early only taught the person suspected exactly how to hide more carefully.What I told him in that meeting was only enough to make him uneasy, not enough to make him panic.I called Griggs the moment Marcus left my office."I want a full report on his movements starting immediately," I said. "Everywhere he goes for the next forty eight hours. If he tries to leave the country, I want to know before he reaches the airport, not after.""Understood, Mr. Ivas."I spent the rest of the day preparing quietly, gathering everything Okoro and Priscilla had already uncovered into a single, organized file, along with the incorporation documents, Fiona's photographs, and the notebook Thomas had finally handed over weeks earlier.I wanted every piece assembled properly before I moved against Marcus formally. Understanding that a board this size did not remove a de
Marcus Kane's POVI spent the following three days drafting the motion with a precision I had rarely applied to anything else in my career. Every clause chosen carefully, every argument constructed to withstand the kind of scrutiny I already knew Armando's legal team would eventually throw against it.The core argument was simple enough on its surface. Section fourteen of the marriage contract explicitly stated that any child born during the marriage, without written consent from both parties predating conception. Held no legal claim to any asset or inheritance belonging to either party. Cherry and Edward had been born five years before the marriage even existed, which meant, in the strictest possible reading, the clause did not technically apply to them at all.I had anticipated this weakness from the beginning, which was precisely why I had spent an additional two days constructing a secondary argument built on considerably shakier ground.One that stretched the definition of the ma
Desmond Voss's POVMarcus arrived precisely on time, though I noted the faint unsteadiness in his hands as he took the seat across from my desk. The particular tremor of a man who understood exactly how close he had come to disappearing entirely over the past two days."You kept me waiting," I said simply."I needed to be certain I was not followed, Mr. Voss." He straightened slightly, composing himself with visible effort."Armando has private security watching my movements now. I had to take considerably more care than usual.""I am aware of your difficulties." I studied him for a long moment, weighing exactly how much use remained in a man whose usefulness had grown considerably more complicated in recent days."Susan came to see me yesterday evening. She mentioned a meeting with you I was not informed about beforehand."Something flickered across his face…careful and controlled. Though not quite fast enough to hide entirely. "I did not think it significant enough to report separat
Zahara's POVWe did not talk about Marcus that evening. We did not talk about Voss, or Okoro's growing case file, or any of the danger that had followed us through, nearly every week since our wedding.For one evening, Armando and I agreed quietly and without much discussion, to simply be a family instead.We ate dinner together in the small dining room instead of the formal one. Cherry and Edward seated between us, both of them chattering happily about a game they had invented that afternoon involving the garden hedges and an imaginary dragon only Edward claimed to have actually seen."It had big wings," Edward said seriously, gesturing wide with both arms. "And it breathed fire, but only a little bit, because it was still a baby dragon.""Baby dragons cannot breathe fire yet," Cherry said, unimpressed. "Everyone knows that.""This one could," Edward said firmly. And Armando laughed, a full, easy sound I had not heard from him in longer than I could remember. The sound settling somet







