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78. The Meeting

ผู้เขียน: Nelly Rae
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2026-01-29 00:23:24

The place Lydia chose was deliberate.

A private gallery tucked behind a restored heritage building—glass walls, minimal staff, security discreet enough to pass as curation. Art on the walls that spoke of money without shouting it. Control without spectacle.

I arrived at eleven fifty-eight.

Not early. Not late.

Alone, exactly as requested.

The guard at the entrance scanned my name once, nodded, and stepped aside. No questions. No escort. That alone told me how much preparation had gone into this
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  • Married To Him By Midnight    91. When Power Watches

    The file didn’t open all at once.It unfolded.Layer by layer. Date stamps stretching backward years longer than I’d expected. Threads branching into subthreads. Names half-redacted, then not redacted at all. Decisions justified in private that had been denied in public. Strategies written with chilling clarity—who would absorb blame, who would be protected, who would be erased quietly.Adrian leaned in, silent.Neither of us spoke for several minutes.Because this wasn’t chaos.It was architecture.Julian hadn’t sent a bomb.He’d sent a blueprint.“This isn’t a dump,” Adrian finally said. “It’s curated.”“Yes,” I replied. “And that makes it more dangerous.”At the center of it all was a ledger—informal but meticulous—tracking favors, pressure points, reputational trades. A map of influence that didn’t care about ideology, only outcomes.And then I saw it.My name.Not often. Not incriminatingly.But intentionally.Placed in proximity. Used as justification. Referenced as leverage in

  • Married To Him By Midnight    90. Silence Strikes Back

    Power didn’t collapse loudly.It withdrew.That was the first thing I noticed the morning after the standoff—how quiet everything became. No calls. No sudden leaks. No strategic outrage dressed as concern. The city moved as usual, but underneath it ran a current of held breath.They were waiting.And waiting, I’d learned, was never passive.Adrian noticed it too. “This kind of quiet,” he said, staring at his untouched coffee, “isn’t relief. It’s recalibration.”“I know,” I replied. “They’re deciding how much damage they’re willing to take to remind people who they are.”The headlines were careful now. Speculative. Noncommittal. Analysts spoke in hypotheticals instead of certainties. Names weren’t being said—but shadows were clearly shaped like them.Julian hadn’t vanished.He’d stepped sideways.Lydia hadn’t reached out.Which meant she was moving pieces I couldn’t yet see.I didn’t trust either silence.—By afternoon, the first pressure point appeared.Not public.Personal.A call f

  • Married To Him By Midnight    89. Night Power Blink

    The message didn’t say where.It didn’t need to.By the time darkness settled over the city, every instinct I had was already pointed in the same direction—toward the places where decisions were made after hours, where transparency thinned and influence stopped pretending to be polite.“This isn’t coincidence,” Adrian said as he adjusted his jacket. “Someone wants control of the setting.”“They already lost control of me,” I replied, slipping my phone into my bag. “This is about damage containment.”We didn’t discuss whether I’d go.That question had passed days ago.—The building was unmarked. No signage. Just a quiet, guarded entrance tucked between glass towers that reflected nothing of what happened inside them.The elevator ride was silent.At the top floor, the doors opened into a room designed to feel temporary—movable walls, modular furniture, no personality. The kind of place where conversations were meant to leave no residue.Julian stood near the windows.Lydia sat at the

  • Married To Him By Midnight    88. Unmovable

    The meeting request sat unanswered for three hours.That alone told me everything.People who held power were used to immediate access. Delays unsettled them. Silence irritated them. Being ignored—truly ignored—felt like erosion.I let it work.By the time I finally replied, my hands were steady.Name the place. Public.Adrian glanced up from across the room when he heard the notification ping. “You’re setting terms.”“I always was,” I said. “They just didn’t notice.”—The café Julian chose was neutral in the way expensive places always were—glass walls, muted colors, discreet security pretending not to exist. Power loved neutrality because it hid intention.Julian arrived first.That, too, was intentional.When I walked in, he stood. Polite. Controlled. The kind of courtesy that tried to rewrite history as civility.“Elara,” he said warmly, as if we were old allies reunited by circumstance rather than opponents circling a fault line.I didn’t return the smile.“You wanted to talk,”

  • Married To Him By Midnight    87. When silence stop working

    The city woke like it always did—oblivious, relentless, loud in its insistence that life went on whether you were ready or not.I wasn’t.I sat at the edge of the bed long after the alarm had gone off, my phone face down on the nightstand like a loaded weapon. Overnight, my declaration had done exactly what I’d intended.It had disturbed the water.Notifications stacked up in quiet, aggressive rows. Mentions. Think pieces. Invitations that weren’t invitations at all. Requests framed as opportunities. Warnings framed as concern.I hadn’t opened any of them yet.Adrian moved through the apartment with controlled efficiency, already dressed, already in motion. He hadn’t tried to stop me from publishing the statement. That alone told me how serious this had become.When he finally spoke, his voice was calm—but tight.“It’s working,” he said.I didn’t look up. “Define working.”“You’ve forced a reaction,” he replied. “Julian cancelled two meetings this morning. Lydia’s camp is scrambling.

  • Married To Him By Midnight    86. Stay

    The narrative hardened overnight.It wasn’t loud. It didn’t scream scandal. It settled—into commentary, into opinion pieces, into conversations that pretended to be objective while sharpening their knives beneath the table.By morning, I was no longer a name people questioned.I was a position.Adrian watched the feeds in silence, jaw set, eyes cold. His phone buzzed constantly—some calls he answered, others he ignored with surgical precision.“They’re consolidating,” he said. “This isn’t chaos anymore. It’s alignment.”“With Julian at the center,” I said.“Yes.”“And Lydia?”“She lit the match,” he replied. “Julian’s controlling the burn.”I wrapped my arms around myself, not for warmth, but containment. I could feel it—the way the world was rearranging around a version of me I hadn’t consented to.“You can still step away,” Adrian said quietly.I looked at him. “And become proof that pressure works?”“No,” he said. “Become proof that survival matters.”“That’s not survival,” I repli

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