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CHAPTER 18

Penulis: wandering jedi
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2025-11-30 14:46:47

Three weeks had passed since August Devereaux was finally discharged from Helena’s island and returned to the city. His recovery had captured the attention of the world, the media hounding him relentlessly for answers about who had saved him.

True to his word, August had kept Althea’s identity a secret. “Dr. Miracle Hands saved me, and I’m eternally grateful,” he said to one reporter. “That’s all I have to say.”

Althea, sitting in the lounge of the island clinic, turned away from the television
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    Blackstone had finally quieted for the night despite the war already beginning.There are guards moving through the halls, distant radios crackling softly somewhere beyond the lower corridors, tactical operators rotating shifts near the perimeter.But compared to the chaos of the last few days, tonight felt almost still.Dominic couldn’t sleep again with too many things occupying his mind.The Axis Gate.Luca.The convergence points.Nicholas.Althea.And strangely, his mother.The meeting at the monastery had unsettled him in ways he still hadn’t fully processed. For the first time in his life, he had seen Seraphina not merely as his mother. But as a woman who once had another future.Another life.Another love.Dominic moved quietly through the lower halls before eventually stepping outside toward the gardens.Cold evening air brushed against his skin immediately.The moonlight washed over the estate grounds softly, silver light touching the stone pathways and dark roses lining the

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 237

    Matteo remained seated long after Aurelio left, the silence inside his room settled thickly around him once more with only the faint sound of the old clock ticking by the fireplace interrupting the atmosphere.Outside, the Valtieri estate still moved like a living machine preparing for war.But Matteo barely noticed it anymore as his attention remained fixed on the file in front of him.Dominic Valtieri.The folder looked deceptively ordinary.Black leather with minimal marking and no official seal.Yet inside the file rested years of observation on his nephew’s behavioral analysis, movement predictions and psychological breakdowns.Not because Matteo feared Dominic. But because Matteo studied people the same way others studied battlefields.Dominic had always fascinated him ever since he was a child.Slowly, Matteo opened the folder again.The first page contained a photograph taken years ago.Dominic younger, perhaps around twenty-one.Standing beside his grandfather, Riccardo durin

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 236

    Matteo remained alone inside his private study long after the hall downstairs emptied.The estate had quieted somewhat, but Matteo knew that it’s not the entirety of it.War never truly slept anymore as footsteps could still be heard occasionally through corridors. The guards rotated positions outside and communications within the old walls of the Valtieri estate remained active.But inside Matteo’s room, silence ruled completely.He stood near the large window overlooking the dark gardens below, one hand resting lightly against a crystal glass untouched beside him.His reflection stared back from the glass.He looked calm, collected and most of all, invisible.Exactly how he preferred it.The files spread across his desk remained open behind him.Not original Axis Gate documents.Not engineering plans.Because Matteo had not created the Gate.The Axis Gate existed long before any of them.Older than governments.Older than the wars that merely repurposed it.Centuries-old tunnels and

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 235

    The drive back to the Valtieri estate was silent.The city lights blurred beyond the tinted windows while Aurelio sat across from his father inside the armored vehicle, one hand lazily spinning a knife between his fingers.Watching.Thinking.Luca remained quiet beside the window for most of the ride, his expression unreadable beneath the passing shadows.But Aurelio knew him well enough to recognize the shift.Dominic had unsettled him, not through emotions but strategically.And that alone made the night dangerous.“He touched a nerve.” Aurelio commented, finally breaking the silence.Luca didn’t look at him.“No.”“He absolutely did, dad.” He pointed out.Luca’s eyes remained fixed outside. “Dominic finally stopped reacting like a wounded child.” He answered solemnly. “And started thinking.”That made Aurelio still slightly because in Luca’s world, thinking mattered more than violence always. The vehicle finally turned through the gates of the old Valtieri estate shortly before two

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 234

    Blackstone became restless the moment they returned from the monastery.The house is alive in a way war a headquarters becoming alive before something terrible. Men moved constantly through the halls. Maps changed every hour and communication lines remained open through the night.Helena’s tactical operators coordinated quietly with Blackstone’s old guards while Sebastian and Vincent reorganized transport routes around the estate.At the center of everything, the Axis Gate remained spread across the war room table like a living wound.Dominic stood over it long after everyone else dispersed.He stood in silence, thinking deeply.Althea watched him from the doorway for several moments before entering quietly.“You’re staring at it like it insulted your bloodline.”Dominic didn’t look up.“It probably did.” He scoffed dryly.That almost made her smile as she moved beside him slowly, eyes tracing the convergence lines again.Every route now felt more dangerous after understanding what th

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 233

    Dominic found them by accident or maybe not entirely by accident.After the meeting ended and the others slowly dispersed into smaller discussions around the monastery, he noticed his mother disappear quietly through one of the side corridors.And without fully understanding why, he followed.Althea remained at the table, assuring Dominic that she’ll be fine as her eyes still stayed on the maps that the generals had shown them.The old monastery remained hushed around him, stone walls carrying faint echoes of distant voices and footsteps.Then finally, he saw them.Seraphina stood near the far end of one of the open archways overlooking the mountains.Esteban Reyes stood across from her.They’re not close enough to touch.Not distant enough to feel like strangers.Dominic understood suddenly and exactly what unfinished things looked like.For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The wind moved softly through the corridor, lifting strands of Seraphina’s dark hair while Reyes simply lo

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 47

    The report reached Dominic before dawn.Enzo didn’t waste words.“They’ve moving, Dom.”Dominic was already standing by the window of the temporary safehouse that he recently purchased as a precaution from one of his personal contacts, the city still bruised with night. “How many?”“Enough to make

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 46

    Dominic learned about Isabelle’s visit to Althea with her fiancé even before the clinic doors had fully closed its operation.The information reached him the way everything did now, filtered, precise, stripped of sentiment.Enzo didn’t ease into it.“

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 45

    The operation took six hours.They started early in the morning.Althea stood beneath the surgical lights without shifting her weight, not letting the tremor of fatigue reach her hands. Time folded inward inside the operating room that is reduced to the rhythm of her breathing, the

  • His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride   CHAPTER 44

    Dominic did not wait for permission.He got out of his car and stormed towards the mansion, his striders angry and with purpose the following day. The staff barely had time to greet him or sent a notice towards the elders inside the chamber. Enzo and two of his men followed closely.

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