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Chapter Thirty

Author: Dvyn rite
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-05 22:31:08

Fractured Shields

Stefan's POV~

The theft of Gideon’s USB drive, our evidence of Galden’s patent theft and crime, had blown a hole through our plan, leaving us hanging out there on a line. My office had become a graveyard of broken monitors. Anger raged through me but Valenticia's silent panic forced me to break out. I led her to a seat, my hand resting on her shoulder, an unspoken promise to save Clara amidst the madness.

Her fear shattered something in me. The engagement announcement had been intended to be a strategy— a fortress for Clawford and New Dream against Galden’s charge. But her courage, her defiance in the face of Natasha’s video threat, turned it into something greater. I saw her, holding Gideon’s bloody USB, her scream when he dropped. She wasn’t a piece to be moved around... she was a partner, and I certainly wouldn’t have Galen take her or take Clara.

Memories clutched at me — my mother’s face, white and blank, her death when I was twelve that had taught me, that love
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