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Chapter 26: The Question

last update Veröffentlichungsdatum: 16.06.2026 06:56:06

"Where are we going?" Aria asked.

Damien's hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles bone-white beneath the early morning light. The car sped down a narrow two-lane road, headlights cutting through mist that rose from the ditches like ghosts. "Somewhere Victor doesn't know. Another safe house. Different city entirely."

"How many of those do you have?"

"Enough." He glanced at the rearview mirror. Empty asphalt stretched behind them, no headlights, no shadows. "My father built them for paranoia.
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  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 30: The Threat

    "Marcus sent another message," Aria said.Damien glanced at her phone from the driver's seat. The screen glowed in the dim light of the car. "What does it say?""He found the property records. The cabin where Victor kept my mother." She read aloud: "Old Harrington estate. East of the city. Abandoned for years. But there's a problem.""There always is.""Victor knows we're coming. He's set up cameras. Motion sensors. He wants to watch us walk into his trap." Aria's voice came out flat, tired. "He's been playing this game for too long. I'm tired of losing."Damien pulled onto the shoulder. Killed the engine. The silence that followed felt heavier than the words they had exchanged. "Then we don't walk in. We will find another way."Aria stared at the phone screen. Marcus had attached a photograph – the cabin, weathered and grey, surrounded by bare trees. A figure stood in the window. Too distant to identify. But something about the posture felt familiar."Is that her?" she asked."I don'

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 29: The Boardroom

    "Tell me she's not working with him," Aria said.Damien stared at the photo on her phone. Elena smiled beside Victor at a candlelit dinner, both holding wine glasses, both looking relaxed. The image seemed intimate, comfortable, like old friends catching up over a meal. "I can't tell you that. I don't know the truth any more than you do.""You can't confirm it either.""No." He handed the phone back, his fingers brushing hers. "But the woman in that photograph doesn't look like a prisoner. She looks like a guest. Someone who chose to be there."Aria's stomach turned. The eggs she had eaten for breakfast threatened to come back up. "My mother wouldn't betray me. She wouldn't sit at a table with the man who kept her hidden for five years.""Your mother signed a contract selling your future before you could walk. She attended a Harrington gala years before you were born. She disappeared without telling anyone why or where she was going." Damien's voice stayed gentle, but the words cut de

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    "We need to go public," Damien said.Aria stared at him across the motel room. Dawn light crept through the curtains, painting everything grey and tired. "You want to hold a press conference?""Victor already controls the narrative. Every headline is his version of the truth." Damien stood by the window, hands in his pockets, shoulders squared. "I need to tell my side before he buries us completely.""And what is your side?""The truth." He turned to face her. "My father was a criminal. I spent ten years cleaning up his mess. I failed in some ways. I succeeded in others. But I never stopped trying."Aria rose from the bed. Crossed the room to stand beside him. "They'll tear you apart.""Probably." His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "But you'll be standing beside me. That makes it bearable."The press conference was scheduled for noon.Damien made calls from the motel bathroom while Aria sat on the bed, scrolling through news feeds. The stock had dropped forty p

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    "The headline just dropped," Aria said.She held her phone toward Damien, screen glowing in the dim light of the car. The words blazed across the news feed: "Blackwood Enterprises Linked to Decades of Corporate Crimes."Damien's expression remained unchanged. His hands stayed steady on the wheel. "How bad?""Bad. They named your father. Listed victims. Mentioned the unsolved deaths." She scrolled further. "Victor gave them everything. The files. The timeline. The bodies."He said nothing for several miles. The highway stretched ahead, empty and grey beneath a cloud-heavy sky.Then his mask cracked. Just once. A muscle flickered beneath his eye. He gripped the wheel harder, his knuckles bone-white against the leather."Stock will crash by noon," he finally said. His voice came out flat, but Aria heard something beneath it. Fatigue. Grief. "The board will call an emergency meeting. Victor will offer to buy shares at a discount."Aria turned away from the screen. "You sound calm.""I've

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 26: The Question

    "Where are we going?" Aria asked.Damien's hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles bone-white beneath the early morning light. The car sped down a narrow two-lane road, headlights cutting through mist that rose from the ditches like ghosts. "Somewhere Victor doesn't know. Another safe house. Different city entirely.""How many of those do you have?""Enough." He glanced at the rearview mirror. Empty asphalt stretched behind them, no headlights, no shadows. "My father built them for paranoia. I inherited them for survival."Aria looked out the window. Trees blurred past – pines, oaks, maples she could not name, their branches heavy with dew. Then Damien's phone buzzed against the console. He glanced at the screen, and his expression hardened."Victor knows Marcus escaped," he said quietly. "Message to my old number. 'You can't hide what belongs to me.'""He's angry.""Good. Angry people make mistakes. And Victor has been careful for too long."---"Damien.""Yes.""Why didn't you ev

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 25: The Silence

    "Say something," Aria whispered.Damien sat beside her on the narrow bed of the safe house. The room held no decorations, just white walls and a single window facing dark woods. His hand rested on hers, fingers tangled together, neither moving."I don't know what to say." His voice came out rough, scraped raw from hours of silence. "You almost died twice. And I keep finding new wounds I didn't know existed beneath the old ones."She leaned her head against his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt smelled like coffee and highway dust, with a faint trace of the cologne he wore during board meetings. "I need to tell you something. About the memory. About what Victor said on those stairs."Damien went still. His breathing stopped for a heartbeat, chest frozen mid-rise. "Tell me."---Aria closed her eyes.The safe house felt too quiet after the chaos of the past days. No traffic outside. No footsteps in the hallway. Just the soft hum of an old refrigerator somewhere down the hall, cycling on

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 24: The Hand That Pushed

    "We should keep driving," Aria said.Damien glanced at her. "Where?""Away from here. North. Anywhere." She watched the farmhouse shrink in the side mirror. That open basement door grew smaller, then vanished behind a bend in the road. "Victor knows we found this place. He'll move her again before

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 23: The Argument

    "Stop the car," Aria said.Damien braked hard. Gravel sprayed beneath the tires. "What's wrong?""Pull over. Now." Her voice came out tight, breathless. The fields outside looked unfamiliar, but something in her chest recognized the curve of the road, the line of trees ahead. "I've been here before

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    "We lost the signal," Damien said.Aria stared at the phone screen. The red dot had stopped moving ten minutes ago, frozen somewhere on a dark highway north of the city. The highway stretched empty beneath a moonless sky."Dead zone or dead end?" she asked."The battery died. Or Victor found the tr

  • My One-Night Mistake Is My Billionaire Boss   Chapter 21: The Oak Tree

    "Push harder," Aria said.Damien drove his shovel into the soft earth. The blade sank past the twisted roots. "Something is down here. Metal."They had been digging for twenty minutes. Sweat soaked through Aria's shirt. Her palms blistered beneath the wooden handle. The hole grew wider, deeper, dar

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