LOGINChapter 289Elowen"You're lying," I whispered, the words scraping against my raw throat. I pressed myself flat against the thin, unyielding mattress of the cot, my hands clamping over my stomach in a desperate shield. "You're insane. James Ashton is the one Anna ran from. He's the one who...""James is a mindless brute who lacks an ounce of subtlety," Christopher Harding interrupted. He didn't yell. His voice retained a smooth, cultured cadence, making the venom dripping from his words ten times worse. "He was loud, reckless, and entirely predictable. And that made it easy to keep the attention off me.""No," I breathed, shaking my head as tears of pure horror finally spilled over my eyelashes. "No, I don't believe you. You're just trying to mess with my head."Harding sighed, a soft sound as he slid his hand into the interior pocket of his tailored wool coat. "I knew you would be stubborn. You have your mother’s defiance, Elowen, but you have my intellect. Deep down, you already
Chapter 288MatteoBut she just stared at us, her expression entirely pale. "What if the person that took her is her biological father, and he used supernatural powers to hide her?" She asked but before we could answer she raised her hands again."If that's true, then that means Elowen might not be fully human either?" The question hung heavily in the air, suffocatingly loud. Before Kian or I could answer, again, Caroline's eyes suddenly darted to the side. She froze, turning her head slowly to look at the man sitting right next to her.Damien hadn't said a single word through any of this. He was just holding her hand, his head bowed, his face full of a profound, agonizing sadness.Caroline felt the sudden shift in the air. She looked at him, her brow furrowing in sudden, terrifying confusion. "Damien?" He didn't look at her at first."Damien, look at me," she whispered, her voice trembling violently as she tugged on his hand. "Are you... You're... you're human right?... You don't..
Chapter 287MatteoI leaned back against the window frame, my arms crossed tightly over my chest as Kian paved the way for the truth. The air in my office felt thick, almost unbreathable. Every single person in this room was wound up, waiting for the inevitable snap.Caroline sat stiffly in the chair, her hand gripped tightly in Damien’s. She didn't blink. She didn't look away from Kian. She just gave a firm, desperate nod. "I promise. I’ll behave. Just tell me."Kian took a step forward, his shadow falling across the desk. "We aren't ordinary humans, Caroline."Caroline’s eyes opened wide, her breath hitching slightly in her throat as she looked from Kian, to me, and then to Alessandro leaning against the doorframe. "Do you mean... you have supernatural powers?" Kian and I slowly nodded."Are you like... witches? Or vampires?" she asked, her voice cracking under the weight of the question. But before either of us could form an answer, she frantically waved her hands in the air, shak
Chapter 286KianSeven hours.Seven hours, forty-two minutes, and eleven seconds. It has been the most agonizing, soul-shredding stretch of time in my entire life. Every single tick of the clock feels like a jagged blade dragging slowly across my chest. I am suffocating in a world that suddenly has no air, because the woman who gives me breath is gone.I close my eyes, but I can't escape it. My mind relentlessly loops back to the exact moment our world fractured.Matteo and I had been separated from her for only a few minutes. I was speaking with the prosecution team, but my true focus was anchored entirely to Elowen. To the steady, beautiful thrum of her heartbeat that usually echoes in the quiet spaces of my mind.Then, it happened.The rhythm shattered. Her heart didn't just speed up; it spiked into a frantic, terrifying, erratic pace. It was a rapid, desperate hammering that practically screamed danger. Matteo who was on a call and just entering the room felt it too. Our eyes
Chapter 285Elowen A sharp, deafening crack exploded through the enclosed bay. Anna screamed, falling heavily to the floor as blood instantly began to bloom through the fabric of her trousers, just above the knee."Ah, God!" she shrieked, clutching her lap, her body curling into a ball of agony.The man instantly pulled me backward, his arm locking tightly around my neck, shoving the hot barrel of the gun directly against my temple. My hands instinctively flew to my stomach, protecting my child."Stand back!" the man yelled, his voice cracking with hysteria. "Tell your men to back the fuck off, or the next one goes right into the old woman's head! Back up!"In the chaos, the positioning had shifted. I was standing in a strange, agonizing pocket of space. The kidnapper had backed up against the open rear door of the SUV, but his grip on me had slipped slightly as he tried to keep his eyes on the sea of weapons pointed at him. I was essentially floating between the line of security a
Chapter 284ElowenThe relief in the courtroom was a living thing, thick and suffocatingly sweet. For thirty-five years, these men had hidden behind their wealth, their pristine suits, and the suffocating silence they had bought with hush money. But Kian had dismantled them. Piece by piece, entry by entry, he had forced their own arrogance to convict them.As the judge announced a brief recess before the defense began its final arguments, the heavy tension that had anchored my shoulders for months finally snapped.Matteo helped me guide my heavy, pregnant body out of the row, his hand steady against the small of my back. Caroline was right beside us, her face flushed with a mixture of tears and triumph."We need to get you off your feet," he murmured, his eyes scanning my pale face with that familiar, protective intensity. "You've been sitting in that rigid chair for three hours."Before we could cross the threshold of the courtroom doors into the buzzing corridor, his phone vibrate
Chapter 76ElowenI stood in front of my mirror for a long moment, studying the woman staring back at me with calculating eyes that would have frightened me a week ago.But I wasn't that woman anymore.That woman had cried herself to sleep and begged for scraps of affection and believed she deserve
Chapter 84Elowen "I didn't want to assume anything even though we've been... you know."The consideration in that gesture made my chest tight because Adrian never would have thought about whether I wanted my own space, would have just assumed he had rights to me regardless of the circumstances."
Chapter 83Elowen"I've spent a lot of time in Italy," Kian said with a shrug. "For work initially but then I just kept coming back because I love it here, the history and the culture and the way people approach life differently than they do back home.""You could have been a tour guide," I said wi
Chapter 79Kian But when had I ever kept promises to myself where she was concerned?When had I ever been able to resist her when she was this close and looking at me like that?Elowen was like a drug I couldn't quit, an addiction I'd tried to break a dozen times without success.And here I was ag







