Share

Chapter 50

Author: Kosi Antonia
last update publish date: 2026-06-25 22:55:39

NIKOLAI pov

My father had been calling the dinner "informal" since he arranged it three days ago, which meant nothing about it was going to be informal.

The Morozov definition of informal was: fewer than eight guests, no name cards, and the good china instead of the better china. It still involved a three-course meal, a seating arrangement that was not accidental, and my father at the head of the table in a suit jacket, so I had dressed accordingly and arrived on time, which was itself an act o
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Lovely Little Liar    Chapter 50

    NIKOLAI povMy father had been calling the dinner "informal" since he arranged it three days ago, which meant nothing about it was going to be informal.The Morozov definition of informal was: fewer than eight guests, no name cards, and the good china instead of the better china. It still involved a three-course meal, a seating arrangement that was not accidental, and my father at the head of the table in a suit jacket, so I had dressed accordingly and arrived on time, which was itself an act of good faith I hoped he noticed.Arande was in Milan, allegedly. I had not asked for confirmation.My father was in good spirits when I arrived, which immediately made me suspicious. He was never in good spirits at the start of an evening. His good spirits were reserved for the moments when something had already gone the way he wanted, and the evening was a formality he was performing on top of a result he was already satisfied with.I sat down and poured water and waited for the other shoe.It

  • Lovely Little Liar    chapter 49

    NIKOLAI POV I had made a decision somewhere between leaving her room last night and waking up this morning.If Arianna refused to give me the truth, I was going to build a situation that forced it out.She had been lying about her death for five years. She had constructed a reason and a story and had stuck to it across weeks of pressure, and I respected the discipline of that even as it made me want to break something. But every structure had a load-bearing wall, and I had been pressing on them one by one long enough to know which one it was.Noah.The boy was the wall. Everything else she had deflected, absorbed, given me partial truths and calibrated lies on — everything except the things that came close to him. The moment the conversation touched Noah, her tells multiplied. Her voice changed. Her body moved differently.She had faked her death to protect something. And whatever that something was, it lived in that child.So I was going to stop pressing on the wall directly and sta

  • Lovely Little Liar    Chapter 48

    ARIANNA POV I heard him before I saw him.The key in the lock, the door, the sound of his footsteps, I had memorised them without meaning to. I was sitting on the edge of the bed when he came in, and I schooled my face into something that looked like it had been there a while.He stood in the doorway for a second and looked at me."Pack your things," he said.I looked up at him. "Now?""Now. We're going to the cabin tonight."I had been expecting this. He had told me it was coming and I had been dreading it in a low, background way ever since, the loss of the city, of proximity, of any hope that Liam might still find me through whatever thin signal I was leaving in this building. A cabin meant nothing. A cabin meant Nikolai and four walls and no trace."Okay," I said.He paused. I saw the pause register on him, the slight adjustment of someone who had walked in expecting a different response and was recalibrating."No argument?""Would it change anything?" I questioned."No.""Then n

  • Lovely Little Liar    Chapter 47

    NIKOLAI Pov I got to the bar early, not because I was eager, but because I wanted to be seated when he walked in. I wanted to watch him enter the room, clock me, and cross the distance to where I was — so that by the time he sat down, the dynamic was already established. The Montgomery was quiet at this hour. Dark wood, low light, this was exactly the kind of bar that didn't play music loud enough to interrupt a conversation. I had chosen it for exactly that reason. I ordered a drink and waited. The door opened at seven past seven. Rafael Moreno walked in and I watched him from across the room. He looked good. He was tall, had dark features, a sharp jaw, and walked with ease like he belonged in a room. There was something familiar in his architecture that I didn't want to examine too closely. He scanned the room. When he found me, he smiled. He crossed the bar with his hands in his pockets and his posture easy and unhurried and I sat there and watched him come and told myself,

  • Lovely Little Liar    chapter 46

    ARIANNA POV I couldn't move.It's been five years since I had stood in front of this man and five years since I had made myself believe he was gone from my life as completely as I was gone from his. I had faked my death and in doing so had also buried him, buried the version of my life that included him, that needed him, that had called his name in the dark when things got hard and known he would pick up.He stood in Mrs. Kate's doorway and looked at me and I looked at him and neither of us moved for a long moment.He had changed. He looked like a man who had been sorry for a very long time.He walked toward me slowly. He didn't run to me the way part of me had spent years imagining this would go. He just walked, steady and certain, and stopped in front of me.And I hugged him.The anger was there, I felt it sitting in my chest. The anger of three years watched from a distance, of all those nights I had believed I was completely alone, now it just went. I don't know where it went. I

  • Lovely Little Liar    chapter 45

    ARIANNA POV "Arianna."Mrs. Kate stood in the doorway with one hand pressed to her chest, her eyes moving over me and then down to Noah and then back up."I'm fine," I said before she could ask. "I don't have time to explain. I need your phone."She stepped back and let us in without a word.The apartment was exactly as I had left it — the same small lamp, the same smell of tea and something faintly floral. Noah's head was still on my shoulder, heavy and warm. He had been silent the whole taxi ride, which was so unlike him that it had scared me more than his crying would have.I set him down on the couch and he sat there looking around with the wide, processing expression of a child catching up to events."Stay right here," I told him. "Don't move."He nodded.Mrs. Kate handed me her phone. I took it and dialled my father's number from memory — the same number I had been calling since I was a teenager, the number I had memorised. My thumb stopped.I looked at the screen, and the numb

  • Lovely Little Liar    This fucking dinner!

    NIKOLAI PovThe car was already waiting at the curb. I got in without breaking stride, pulled the door shut, and sat back. The leather was cold. The city outside the tinted windows moved past in streaks of light and noise."Anything?" I said.Drev's eyes found me in the rearview mirror. He had been

  • Lovely Little Liar    Can't escape me, Little mouse

    ARIANNA Pov:You shouldn't have tried to run.The words sat in my ear the whole way to the car. I got in and Niko shut the door close with a thud.What else was I going to do? Stand in the middle of the departure hall and make a scene with my four-year-old son standing right there, watching my face

  • Lovely Little Liar    Find me Arianna!!

    NIKOLAI Pov:I told myself I wasn't sure.That was the word I kept using in my head as I stood at the window after the call ended, like I was a reasonable man giving a complicated situation the benefit of the doubt.But that was a lie, and I had always been very bad at lying to myself.The laugh sh

  • Lovely Little Liar    Chapter 5

    My brain short-circuited.The questions came at me fast, one after the other, and I stood there processing each one like a person trying to walk through thick fog. How old are they? Don't tell me you have a boyfriend.Nikolai's eyes hadn't moved from my face. They never did when he was thinking. He

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status