MasukElliot’s POVI did not call Tessa Sterling because I liked her. I called her because she was another naive woman with an obsession, and obsessed women were easy to manipulate.Her obsession was Julian. The mask. The car. The mysterious woman who had beaten her and disappeared. Tessa had spent months walking into rooms and asking the wrong people the right questions. Gail Windsor had already confessed to being the driver, but I was going to make Tessa doubt that confession without giving her another name. A woman desperate for answers would keep coming back to me. If I gave her the name now, she would no longer need me.She met me in a hotel suite. I had booked under a company she would not be able to trace before morning. She wore a red dress and had a recorder hidden in her bag. She thought she was the one doing the hunting.“Mr. Vesper,” Tessa said. “You said you had something on Catwoman.”“I said I had something the city does not,” I corrected her. “Sit.”She sat down. I deliberat
Katia’s POVI waited until Aiden was asleep and Clara had finally stayed in her crib for more than ten minutes. Julian was in our bedroom, his cuffs loose and his jacket hanging over the chair. I walked in and shut the door behind me.“Babe,” I said, “call me paranoid, but I think my sister is fucking her father-in-law.”Julian burst out laughing, clearly amused by what I had just said.“Well,” he said, “I thought we were not going to talk about what happened at the dinner. But yes, she is. And I think it has been going on for some time now. I am surprised they are not even trying to hide it anymore.”I hit his arm. “You idiot,” I snapped. “You have known this whole time and never told me? So much for being a good husband.”“I am an excellent husband,” Julian argued. “I also do not bring your sister-in-law's sex life into our bed unless you ask.”“Well, I am asking now. Tell me everything from the beginning.”He sat on the edge of the mattress. “I started suspecting something was off
Martha’s POVI set the table for six because David said family meant family. Katia and Julian. Delia and Noah. And Elliot, because Noah would not walk in without his father, and David would not leave a man sitting in the car.I used the good plates. I told myself it was manners, but it was also a way to keep my hands busy. Delia had sounded bright on the phone when she said they were coming. But sounding bright was not the same as being fine. I had raised her. I knew the difference.Katia arrived first. She did not kiss me. She never did.“Martha,” she greeted me.“Katia,” I replied.That was our entire greeting. Julian gave me a single nod. He did not waste words in my house. David came out of the study, and Katia’s face immediately changed. She let him take her hand. She called him Dad. She asked about his knee before she asked about the house. He smiled at her the way he only smiled for her, and I felt that old pinch of jealousy. I had kept Delia close, but David had always kept a
Delia’s POVI told Noah I had errands. He kissed my cheek and went back to his laptop, completely oblivious, buried in his work, entirely trusting of the woman who shared his name but not his soul. I drove to my father-in-law’s house with my hands tight on the wheel and my cunt already wet, the mere thought of what awaited me inside those walls sending electric shivers straight down between my thighs. Noah was my husband on paper, a safety net, a comfortable illusion of domesticity, but Elliot was the fire that consumed me, the raw, unapologetic addiction that pulsed through my veins.He opened the door before I could even finish knocking, like he had been standing right behind it waiting for the precise second of my arrival. His gaze was dark, intense, and predatory.“Again,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly command that scraped against my nerve endings.“Again,” I breathed, the word a confession and a plea.He pulled me inside by the lapel of my jacket and shut the door with a sha
Katia’s POVThe car turned into the estate, and Aiden was already waiting for us on the steps.He did not even wait for the car door to fully open. He ran toward us. Julian got out first and caught him, and for a second, my son disappeared into his father’s coat. Then Aiden twisted free and came straight for me.“You were gone too long,” Aiden complained, his face pressed against my dress.“Four days,” I reminded him.“That is long,” Aiden insisted.“It is. I missed you,” I told him.He let me hold him for a moment, then pulled back and studied my face as though he needed to make sure I was still the same mother who had left four days ago. “Clara cried,” he told me. “A lot. Aunt Gail said her arms died.”“Her arms did not die,” I said.“She said they did,” Aiden argued.Julian took our bags while Grandma Celeste stood in the doorway with Clara on her hip. The moment the baby saw me, she made a sound that was somewhere between a cry and a laugh. I hurried up the steps, and Grandma put
Gail’s POVThe estate was quieter without Julian and Katia, but it was far from empty. Grandma Celeste had taken over the kitchen the way she took over everything else—completely and without asking anyone’s permission. Aiden had appointed himself Clara’s official supervisor, which mostly meant following her around the house with his dinosaur book tucked under one arm and narrating every single thing she did.“She blinked,” he announced from the doorway of the nursery. “Did you see that? She blinked at me.”“Babies blink, sweetheart,” Celeste replied without looking up from the stove. “It is one of their favorite things to do.”“But she blinked at me specifically,” Aiden insisted.“She is four months old. She blinks at everything.”“Not at everything,” he argued. “At me.”I leaned against the doorframe and watched him. He was six now and tall for his age, with Julian’s serious eyes and Katia’s stubborn chin. He had been carrying that dinosaur book everywhere since the wedding, and he h
~Katia~I woke up to the sour taste of bile creeping up my throat, and my legs threw me out of bed before my brain could even catch up. The morning light seared into my eyes like punishment, and I stumbled across the cold floor, my feet slapping against the wood, straight into the bathroom. My knee
~Katia~"Do you know how hard I've been holding myself?" I didn't answer because all I wanted was to get laid. I could still feel the ache between my legs. He carried my bridal style and led me to his hotel room. "Now, I can fuck you however I want because you are now my wife, princess." The room
KatiaI woke up to the sound of people singing badly.“Happy birthday to you...” I blinked hard against the sunlight filtering through the curtains, my brain slow to reboot. The voices were getting louder, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming. A really weird, off-key dream.“Happy birthday, d
~Katia~Vegas heat hit me like a wave the second I stepped off the private jet. The runway shimmered under the late afternoon sun, and I squinted past my sunglasses, already half-listening to the ping of updates on my encrypted racing burner phone. Six hours before the race, and my heart was alread







