LOGINIRIS’S POV"Take off the dress, Iris."The words were soft, but they carried more weight than the mountain pressing down on us. Darius stood in the center of the nursery, his gaze dark and heavy. He wasn't looking at the security cameras or the legal documents on the glowing laptop. He was looking at me. The air in the room had changed. The fear of the countdown and the threat to Miller were still there, but they had been pushed into the background by a sudden, sharp heat that made the silk of my dress feel like a layer of sandpaper against my skin."Darius, we have fifty minutes," I whispered, my heart thudding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "The feed, the money, the merger. we have to find a way to stop it.""We can't stop it from the keyboard," he said, stepping closer. He moved with a slow, predatory intent that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Ivy wants to see us break. She wants to see us crawl. She is watching that screen right now, waiting for us to panic or plead. She
DARIUS’S POV"Wake up, Darius"The voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep, frozen well. I opened my eyes, and the world tilted. My head throbbed with a rhythmic, pulsing heat that made every blink feel like a needle prick. The last thing I remembered was the blinding white flash in the snow and the sound of Iris screaming my name. Now, the cold mountain air had been replaced by the smell of old paper, floor wax, and expensive cigar smoke.I tried to move my hands, but they were bound tightly behind my back with heavy zip ties. I was sitting in a high-backed wooden chair in a room that looked like a library from a century ago. Walls of dark leather books stretched up into the shadows, and a green shaded lamp sat on a desk in front of me.Across from me, sitting in the shadows, was Ethan.He wasn't wearing the heavy coat anymore. He was in a simple black sweater, looking calm and composed. He held a glass of amber liquid in one hand and a fountain pen in the other.
IRIS’S POV"Is that him?"My voice was a whisper, lost in the roar of the wind as the helicopter hovered near a jagged peak in the Swiss Alps. Below us, a stone house clung to the side of the mountain like a stubborn bird. It was a place of gray rock and dark wood, surrounded by a sea of white snow. This was the home of Geller, the man who knew the secrets of the paintings. But as I looked through the binoculars, I didn't see an old man.I saw a figure standing suspiciously on the wide stone porch. He was wearing a heavy black coat that fluttered in the wind. He wasn't moving. He was just standing there, looking up at us as if he had been waiting for our arrival since the sun came down. Even from this height, the posture was familiar. It was the way he tilted his head, the way he kept his hands shoved deep into his pockets."That’s not Geller," Darius said. He was leaning over my shoulder, his face pale but his eyes burning with a sharp, dangerous light. He had his own pair of glasses
DARIUS’S POV"You look like you just crawled out of a grave, and frankly, the grave would have been cleaner."Miller was standing by the open bay of the transport helicopter, his face a mask of worry that he was trying to hide behind his usual sarcasm. He looked at my shoulder, then at the blood on my face, and finally at Iris. She was still in that ruined silk robe, her hair a mess of tangles, but she was holding her head high. She looked like a queen who had just survived an assassination attempt, which wasn't far from the truth. The tropical sun was starting to peek over the horizon, turning the ocean into a sheet of hammered gold, but the heat felt cold against my skin."The grave was occupied," I said, my voice cracking as I climbed into the cabin. I slumped onto the bench, my body finally screaming in protest now that the adrenaline was fading. Every muscle felt like it had been stretched over a rack. "Did you get the money moved?""Every cent," Miller said, sliding the heavy do
IrisI stood there in the center of the server room for what felt like an hour, though I knew it had only been seconds, my chest heaving up and down while I tried to remember how to breathe. The rush of energy that had kept me moving was fading away now, leaving my hands shaking so violently that I had to shove them deep into the pockets of my robe just to keep them still. I looked down at the silver bracelets lying on the floor, the metal dulled by the red light, and I felt a sudden, deep disgust for the fact that I had actually enjoyed the feeling of the hit."Iris," a voice called out, pulling me back to the reality of the room.I turned toward Darius, who was still sitting on the floor with his back against the cooling racks. He was looking at me with an expression that I couldn't quite name, and it wasn't just a look of gratitude for saving his life. It was a profound and unsettling realization that seemed to have settled over him. He saw the fire in me now, the part of my soul t
The words felt like shards of broken glass caught in my throat, scratching against my skin as I tried to force them out into the cold, dead air. I stood at the threshold of the server room, my fingers trembling as I watched the heavy steel door swing slowly on its hinges with a low, metallic groan that seemed to echo forever. The air down here was frigid, chilled to the bone by massive cooling units to protect the rows of tall black towers that housed every single dark secret the Wolfe family had ever kept, but the scent in the room wasn't just the smell of cold machinery anymore. It was the sharp, unmistakable tang of ozone from the electronics mixed with the hot, thick smell of fresh blood, and it made my stomach turn in a way I couldn't control. My hand was squeezed so tight around the silver bracelets I had snatched from the table upstairs that the metal was biting into my palm, and even though they were light, the heavy sensor blocks on the ends gave them a weight that made me fe
CHAPTER 137DARIUS’S POVThe transport was a vintage, overhauled Land Rover that smelled like wet dogs and failed corporate dreams. Silas sat in the front, his posture so stiff he looked like he’d been taxidermied in his Sunday best. I was shoved into the back with Ethan—who was currently vibrating
IRIS’S POVThe electronic wail from the foyer hit my skull like a drill. I hurried to pull my gown back up. The silk caught on the rough edge of the desk. My fingers felt clumsy. My heart pounded hard and heavy in my chest now that the silver safety net was gone.Darius was already moving. He no lo
DARIUS’S POVThe silence in the Calder library felt rough. Now that the silver hum was gone from my blood, the house seemed more like a tomb than a safe place. I stood by the broken display case. My knuckles were raw. My head throbbed with a dull human ache that did not heal fast anymore.Iris stoo
IRIS’S POVThe screams started high and sharp, then turned into ragged snarls.The security guard on the intercom had barely finished his sentence about the perimeter breach before Darius was gone. He didn’t run; he simply moved, his speed tearing the air out of the office.I stood there, file still







