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Chapter 34: The Crack in the Armor

Author: Eleanor Vance
last update publish date: 2026-04-01 20:08:47
A rough gasp tore from my throat as I jolted awake in the middle of the night. Sweat covered my skin and made the sheets stick to my body.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would break through my ribs.

The nightmare still clung to me, thick and heavy. Dark images kept flashing behind my eyes. Empty rooms that stretched forever. My hands that could not feel anything no matter how hard I tried.

Reaching for Nadia and finding only cold air where her warm body should be. Watching her wa
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  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 223: The Gray Deepens

    I notice it first thing in the morning.Dominic is still asleep and the light is coming through the east-facing window and I'm watching him and I see that his hair is completely silver now. Not touched with silver. Not streaked with gray. Completely, entirely silver. There's not a dark hair left on his head.And his face.The lines have deepened over the years. The lines around his eyes are pronounced now. The lines around his mouth tell the story of thirty years of expressions. The lines on his forehead show the years of thinking and working and existing.He's aging.We're both aging.And I realize something that I haven't fully realized before. I realize that we're not going to be young forever. I realize that the time we have left is finite. I realize that getting old is something that's actually happening instead of something theoretical that happens to other people.Dominic wakes up and he catches me watching him."What are you thinking?" he asks, like he always does when he wake

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 222: Dominic's Letter to His Father, Revisited

    The call comes on a Thursday morning.Dominic is in his study working on something when the call comes through. I hear him answer. I hear his voice change. I hear him say quietly: "I understand. Thank you for letting me know."When he comes downstairs, I know something has shifted."My father died," he says simply. "A heart attack. Three days ago."I set down what I'm doing and I pull him into a hug.But I'm waiting for the emotion. I'm waiting for the grief or the shock or something significant to happen. But Dominic just stands there in my arms feeling quiet. Feeling still. Feeling something that I can't quite name."How are you feeling?" I ask gently."I don't know," he says. "I thought I would feel something more significant. But I just feel... relieved."We sit on the couch and we don't say anything for a long time."Do you want to talk about it?" I ask eventually."I don't think I'm sad," Dominic says. "I think I'm relieved. I think I'm relieved that the relationship is finally

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 221: The Foundation's Expansion Plan

    The board meeting takes place on a Tuesday afternoon.We're gathered around the table discussing the foundation's growth over the past three decades. We're discussing the impact we've had. We're discussing what comes next. And the consensus is clear. We need to expand.But not in the way we've expanded before.This expansion is different. This expansion is about reaching people who have the least access to resources. This expansion is about opening a location in a rural area where survivors are isolated and where mental health services are sparse."Where should we focus?" one board member asks.I've been thinking about this for months. I've been looking at data about where survivors have the least access to services. I've been understanding where the need is greatest."Appalachia," I say. "We should open a location in rural Kentucky. The statistics show that survivors in that region have almost no access to trauma-informed care. The isolation is extreme. The resources are minimal."Th

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 220: Alexander's Patient Becomes Therapist

    Alexander calls on a Thursday evening.His voice is different. It's excited and emotional. It's the voice of someone who's witnessed something profound happening in their practice."Something incredible just happened," he tells me."What?" I ask."Claire came to her final session today," he says. "My first patient. The woman who came to me eight years ago broken and convinced that her survival was all she had."He pauses."She's healed," he continues. "I mean, the healing is ongoing the way healing always is. But she's reached the point where she doesn't need clinical support anymore. She's reached the point where she's capable of building a life without my help.""That's beautiful," I tell him."It is," he says. "And then she told me something that broke me open."I wait for him to continue."She told me that she's going back to school," Alexander says. "She's going to become a therapist. She's going to specialize in trauma recovery and work with survivors. She's going to do what I'm

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 219: Sophie's Wedding

    The wedding is small and beautiful and real.Sophie has chosen a garden venue. There are flowers but not excessive flowers. There are simple white chairs. There's the specific intimacy of a ceremony that reflects who the bride actually is instead of what a wedding is supposed to look like.I arrive early because Lisette asked me to help with final preparations.She's nervous in a way that I haven't seen her nervous in years. She's holding her daughter's hand and she's crying because her baby is getting married."She's terrified," Lisette tells me."That's good," I tell her. "That means she understands what she's choosing."Sophie appears in a simple white dress. She's calm and direct and she looks exactly like her mother. She looks like someone who's made a decision and who's committed to seeing it through."How are you feeling?" I ask her."Terrified," she admits. "But also certain. I know this is right. I know that James is the person I want to spend my life choosing.""Then you're

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 218: The Retirement Timeline

    We sit at the kitchen table on a Saturday morning with calendars and notebooks spread out in front of us.This is the conversation we've been having theoretically for years. But today we're making it concrete. Today we're setting a date. Today we're understanding that retirement isn't some distant abstract concept. Retirement is going to happen. And we need to plan for it."Two years," Dominic says. He's looking at the calendar. "If we retire in two years, I'll be sixty-four and you'll be sixty-two.""That feels right," I tell him."Does it?" Dominic asks. "Are you ready to step back?"I think about the question.I think about the foundation and the work I do there. I think about the books I've written and might still write. I think about the specific responsibility of running an organization that helps thousands of people."I'm ready," I tell him. "Not immediately. But in two years. In two years I'll be ready to hand off the daily leadership to someone else."Dominic writes the date

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 110: Not Yet. But Soon.

    **Nadia**Isabella discovered her feet in March.This was apparently a developmental milestone, which I knew because I had downloaded three separate apps in the first week home from the hospital and had been informed by all of them at various intervals that my daughter was either exactly on track o

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 94: Only You

    **Nadia**The hotel room had been his choice and my approval.That was how we did things now and I had not once taken it for granted, the asking, the waiting, the genuine adjustment when I said not that one, the other one. The room was high up with the ocean visible from the bed and a balcony we wo

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 93: I Walked Myself

    **Nadia**I walked myself down the aisle.That had been the decision I was most certain about and the one that had required the least conversation. My father had offered. Gently, carefully, with the particular awareness of a man who understood he had no standing to push and was offering anyway beca

  • MARRIED TO THE DEVIL BILLIONAIRE FOR REVENGE   Chapter 90: Just A Tuesday

    **Nadia**It was a Tuesday.That was the first thing I noticed. Not a significant Tuesday. Not an anniversary or a birthday or any of the dates that had accumulated meaning over the course of the last year. Just a regular Tuesday morning with the particular quality of regular Tuesday mornings, coff

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