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Chapter 9
publish date:
2026-08-06 02:42:11Reid's POV
The elevator doors hadn't fully opened before I forced my way through. "Cam!" Heads turned across the lobby. None of them were Cam. The security guard shot to his feet. "Sir?" "The man who just came through here." I pointed toward the entrance. "Where did he go?" He frowned, thinking. "Dark jacket?" "Yes." "He ran outside." "Damn it." I shoved through the revolving doors as tires screeched somewhere outside. Cam's sedan shot out of the parking lot, weaving between two cars before merging into traffic. "Cam!" He didn't even glance in the mirror. I sprinted to my car, threw myself behind the wheel, and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The engine roared as I blasted through one intersection, then another. At the next light, I spotted his taillights several cars ahead. "Don't do this," I muttered. Cam swerved across three lanes without signaling. A truck leaned on its horn. A silver sedan jerked onto the shoulder to avoid him. "What the hell are you doing?" I stayed on him, close enough not to lose him but far enough to avoid making his reckless driving even worse. My phone connected to the car's speakers. Daniels. I answered without taking my eyes off the road. "What?" "You found him?" "I'm behind him now." "Reid, listen carefully." "I am listening." "No." His voice was strained. "You're not." I frowned. "I just checked the metadata from the backup files." My stomach tightened. "And?" "They weren't copied today." The words barely registered. "What are you talking about?" "They were accessed forty-eight hours ago." Silence settled over the car. "That's impossible." "I thought so too." Ahead, Cam suddenly veered onto the highway exit. I followed without hesitation. Daniels continued, "Someone already knew those files existed." If he was right, then whoever wanted those files hadn't started hunting today. They'd been ahead of us the entire time. A black SUV slipped into the gap between Cam's car and mine. I frowned. It hadn't been there a second ago. I changed lanes. So did the SUV. I accelerated. It matched my speed. "Daniels..." "What?" "I think we're being followed." Before he could answer, the SUV surged forward. Its front bumper slammed into the rear of Cam's sedan. "Cam!" His car lurched sideways. The tires screamed against the asphalt as the sedan fishtailed once... Twice... Then it spun out of control. It smashed through the guardrail. For one horrifying heartbeat, the car vanished over the edge. My foot slammed on the brake. Rubber screamed against the asphalt as my car skidded onto the shoulder. I shoved the door open before the engine had even died. "Call 911!" I yelled at the drivers beginning to pull over. No one moved. "For God's sake, call!" I vaulted the guardrail. Loose gravel shifted beneath my feet, sending me sliding down the steep embankment. Branches tore at my jacket as rocks rolled under my boots. Then I saw it. Cam's sedan had slammed nose-first into a cluster of trees. Steam hissed from the crumpled hood. One shattered headlight flickered weakly before fading into darkness. "Cam!" I stumbled the last few yards, my pulse pounding in my ears. The windshield was cracked through in every direction. The driver's airbag hung limp... Stained with blood. Too much blood. "Cam! Answer me!" Nothing. I grabbed the driver's door and pulled. It refused to budge. "Come on..." Planting one foot against the frame, I heaved with everything I had. Metal shrieked. The door finally gave way. I froze. The driver's seat was empty. "What...?" My eyes dropped to the seatbelt. It hadn't snapped. It had been sliced clean through. Cut. This wasn't just a car accident. I scanned the wreckage. Blood streaked the steering wheel. More soaked the driver's seat. But there was no body. No drag marks. Only a trail of crushed weeds disappearing into the woods. Someone had left here. And not long ago. A ringtone shattered the silence. I spun around. The sound came from beneath the passenger seat. I reached inside and pulled out Cam's phone. Its screen was cracked, but it was still glowing. Unknown Number. A message appeared. DON'T FOLLOW HIM. My pulse quickened. Another message flashed across the screen. HE WAS NEVER YOUR TARGET. A branch snapped behind me. I turned sharply. "Who's there?" Only the wind answered, rustling the trees. Then, another snap. Closer. I slipped the phone into my pocket and backed away from the wreck. "Show yourself!" Silence. A figure emerged from behind a massive oak. Black clothes. Black baseball cap. His face was hidden beneath the brim. Only the handgun aimed squarely at my chest was unmistakable. "So..." he said, his voice calm. "You're Reid Calloway." Every instinct screamed at me to move. I threw myself sideways. A gunshot exploded through the trees. But it hadn't come from the man in front of me. His eyes widened. Blood burst across his shoulder. He cried out, stumbling backward as his handgun spun from his grasp and disappeared into the undergrowth. Another shot echoed through the forest. The man collapsed to one knee. I looked up instinctively. At the top of the embankment stood a lone silhouette, rifle still raised. Too far away to make out a face. Too still to recognize. For one suspended heartbeat... We stared at each other. Then the stranger lowered the weapon... Turned... And vanished into the forest. Behind me, the wounded gunman let out a weak laugh. "You're..." he rasped, blood staining his lips, "...already too late." Before I could grab him, his eyes rolled back. The distant roar of approaching engines shattered the silence. Black SUVs raced toward the crash site.
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My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 131
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My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 130
Chapter 130Reid's POVAudrey had written four words on my mother's notepad, and I was going to follow them if it killed me.Say nothing true.She stood at the sink with her forehead against the glass. I crossed the kitchen without a sound and looked over her shoulder.A green light in the carriage house window. It blinked once, in time with the one on the table.I didn't ask what she saw. I took the pen out of her hand and wrote under her line.Carriage house. Who has the key?Behind us, my father hadn't moved. He sat like a man waiting for a verdict. I held the pad up where only he could see it, and his eyes went to the window, and something in his face gave way."Sterling," my mother said, loud and even. "Do you want tea?"It was the steadiest lie I had ever heard. I could have kissed her."Nobody moves until Daniels gets here," I said to the room, to the clock, to whoever was listening. "We sit. We wait.""Sensible," the box said, pleased.My father reached into his pocket and set
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 129
Chapter 129Audrey's POVI knew that laugh.My body knew it before I did. My stomach dropped the way it had at my own wedding, in a ballroom full of candlelight, when a man at the service door laughed once during my father's toast and I turned and found nobody there.Same laugh. Soft. Pleased. In no hurry at all.Reid's hand found my back. I didn't look at him. I was watching my father, who had pressed both palms flat against the table as if the wood might tilt."Sterling," Elena said. She was still holding the dish towel like a rope. "Who is it?"I had seen Sterling Calloway face boardrooms and lawyers and, once, a hurricane. I had never seen him look like this. He looked like a man hearing a door open in a house he had sold years ago."Walter Brandt," he said.Nobody spoke."The caretaker. He had keys to everything. The gym, the boiler room, the main switch." He swallowed. "He caught me at the gym door at half past one and told me the party was over. Told me there was nobody inside.
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 128
Reid's POVI had spent six years building a speech for this man.I rehearsed it in boardrooms, in the car, in the shower. Every version began with Thane Whitlock sitting exactly where he was sitting now, unable to look at me. None of them had a green light in it, or my mother beside Sterling holding a dish towel like a rope."Go on, Thane," the voice said again from behind the clock. Soft, patient, wearing Thane's own warmth. "Tell them why."Thane flinched. It was small, but I saw it travel through his whole body, and I understood something I hadn't wanted to. Hearing his own voice come out of that box was the cruelest thing the man had done all night. He knew exactly where to press."That isn't me," Thane said.Nobody answered."It has my voice. It doesn't have me." He spoke toward the clock but looked at Sterling. "I'm not telling this to you, whoever you are. I'm telling it to him."The light stayed green and steady."Good," Audrey whispered beside me. I hadn't noticed her move so
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 127
Audrey's POVReid opened the envelope standing at the kitchen counter, with his back to the room.I watched his shoulders. He was a man who spent every day deciding what his face would do, and he had trained that discipline into his whole body. His shoulders gave him away, as they always did. They dropped half an inch and stayed there."What is it?" Elena said.He didn't answer. He turned and laid it on the table, face up, between the untouched cups.A photograph. Glossy, a little grainy, the kind of print made from a small sensor in poor light. It showed this kitchen from above and slightly behind. It showed the table. Thane sat with his hands flat on the wood and his head half turned. Sterling had his chin on his chest. Elena's hand lay over his, and her face was turned away.I was in the corner of the frame, a pale shape on the left with my eyes on my father.A line of white digits ran along the bottom edge. 05:38."That's when Sterling told us about the grass," I said."Yes," Reid
My Husband Married Me For Revenge Chapter 126
Reid's POVI was in the hall before the third ring ended.I don't remember deciding to move. Behind me a chair scraped, and Audrey said my name, and my father said something I didn't catch. I kept walking. The study door stood open, and the black phone sat on the desk with its cord on the carpet, dead as a stone.It rang a fourth time.It wasn't the phone. The sound came from behind the bookcase, small and tinny, a ring trying very hard to be the one I'd grown up with. My father had owned that telephone since before I could read. I used to lie on this floor and listen to it ring.I knelt and looked.The black box was still taped to the junction, but a red light the size of a pinhead had come on in its corner. A speaker grille no bigger than a thumbnail was ringing at me."It's not connected to anything," Sterling said from the doorway. He had followed me, and Audrey was behind him with her hand on his arm. "Reid. It's a recording.""I know.""Then don't touch it."I didn't touch the b
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