MasukDearest Reader, Kindly leave a comment and a review forthis book. I need all the motivation I can get. Kisses from June
Victor's POVThe call came at four in the afternoon, and for the first time in weeks, I felt something other than the slow, grinding emptiness that had consumed me since Iris disappeared.Hyde's name flashed on my screen, and I answered before the first ring finished, my voice rough from disuse. "Tell me you have something.""I have her." He was not a man who wasted words, but I heard the satisfaction buried beneath his usual flat tone. "I wanted to be certain before I contacted you. My men spotted her at a private hospital two towns over. She was with her mother. They arrived before dawn and left within the hour."The photograph of Iris on my desk blurred in front of my eyes, and I realized my hands were shaking. "Where is she staying?""Her parents' house. They have security posted around the perimeter, but it's nothing sophisticated. Local hires. Ex-cops and private security types who are used to babysitting wealthy families, not dealing with a professional extraction. The cameras
Iris's POVI had been cooped inside for so long that I was starting to forget what the outside world looked like.My mother had dismissed the housekeeper and the gardener and every other domestic worker the moment Marcus dropped me off, replacing them with a rotating schedule of doctors who made house calls and nurses who checked my blood pressure in the living room. No one came in without her approval. No one left without her inspection.The paranoia was exhausting, but I understood it. Adrian Cross had found me once by watching my movements and learning my routines. Victor had found me by planting a mole in his own organization who reported my every move. If they could track me through the staff at a luxury estate, they could certainly track me through a housekeeper who gossiped with her friends about the pregnant daughter hiding in the upstairs bedroom.But a house call could only do so much. The doctor who came to see me was kind and
Marcus's POVI sat in the dark of my office long after my father hung up, staring at the phone in my hand like it had just grown teeth and tried to bite me. The call had lasted less than ten minutes, and in that time my father had offered me everything I had been working to steal from him. His shares, his company and his entire empire, handed over on a silver platter with only one condition: I had to divorce Iris and let him have her.The irony was so thick I could have choked on it.I had spent weeks sabotaging him from the inside. I had planted false leads and leaked merger details to competitors and convinced the board that I was the steady hand the company needed while my father chased his obsession. I had been methodical and patient and completely ruthless, and now my father was offering me the prize before I could finish stealing it. All I had to do was sign a piece of paper agreeing to something that had already happened.Iris and I were already divorced. She had signed the pap
Victor's POVThe whiskey bottle was half empty, and I couldn't remember pouring a single glass.I sat in the dark of my study with the city lights glittering through the window and my phone clutched in my hand like a lifeline. Hyde had called twice in the past hour with nothing to report. Cross had stopped answering my messages altogether, which meant he was either closing in on something or he had finally realized our alliance was worth less than the breath it took to maintain it.None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was Iris, and I had been without her for weeks now with no end in sight.I had spent my entire adult life getting exactly what I wanted. Women, business deals, rival companies I wanted to crush beneath my heel. All of it had come to me with minimal effort because I understood something most men didn't: people were predictable. They responded to the right stimuli in the right circumstances, and if you knew how to press their buttons, you could make them do al
Iris's POVMy childhood bedroom had not changed in the years since I left it, and that was the cruelest part of coming home. The same pale blue walls and the same shelf of old books and the same stuffed bear my father had won for me at a carnival when I was seven. It was a room preserved in amber, a shrine to the girl I used to be, and I didn't belong in it anymore. I hadn't belonged in it for a long time.My mother had put fresh sheets on the bed and a vase of peonies on the nightstand. She had folded my old quilt at the foot of the mattress and opened the curtains to let in the morning sun, as if cheerful lighting could somehow mask the fact that her daughter had returned home pregnant with a baby whose father could be either her husband or her father-in-law. The peonies were a nice touch. I didn't deserve them.I sat on the edge of the bed with my hand pressed against my stomach, a gesture that had become as natural as breathing. The nausea ha
Marcus's POVThe board meeting had been scheduled for weeks, but my father had forgotten about it entirely. He had forgotten about a lot of things lately. The search for Iris had hollowed him out from the inside, leaving behind a shell of the man who had once commanded every room he entered. He spent his days pacing by the window with his phone pressed to his ear, and he spent his nights staring at photographs of a woman who had never truly belonged to him.When his assistant reminded him about the meeting, he waved her off without looking up from his phone. "Tell Marcus to handle it. He's been taking care of everything else. He can take care of this too."I had been counting on exactly that response.The boardroom was already full when I arrived. Twelve directors seated around the long mahogany table, their expressions ranging from curiosity to barely concealed skepticism. They had been expecting Victor Hale, the titan of industry who h
Iris’s POV His fingers tightened around my throat. “I know.” The words came out low, steady, and far too calm for the way his hands were pressing into my skin. I clawed at his wrists, my nails digging in, my body twisting beneath him as I tried to pull free. “I know what you’ve been doing.” My
Iris's POVIt's finally the dreaded Friday. I was standing in front of my closet, staring at the armor I'd carefully selected: high-necked black blouse, long sleeves, trousers that buttoned at the waist instead of anything that flowed or teased, when my phone buzzed on the dresser.A text from Marc
Iris’s POV The café on Fourth was the kind of place that made you want to be a better person. Exposed brick walls, hanging ferns, mismatched vintage chairs that somehow looked intentional rather than chaotic. The smell of fresh bread and lavender drifted through the air, and every table had a tiny
Iris's POVI wrote.The words came faster than they had in weeks, pouring out of me like water through a broken dam. My fingers flew across the keyboard, barely keeping pace with the scenes unfolding behind my eyes. A new hero emerged from the haze, darker than Daniel, sharper around the edges. He







