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CHAPTER 84: LOYALTY

ผู้เขียน: Lizzy Fash
last update วันที่เผยแพร่: 2026-07-15 21:55:42

CIARA

The mirror in the executive washroom did not lie, but it was easily managed.

I picked up a discarded hairpin from the marble counter and used it to secure a stray lock of dark hair back into the severe, flawless twist at the base of my skull. With a damp paper towel, I wiped the small smear of crimson from my lower lip—a minor physical abrasion, nothing more. My breathing had already returned to its baseline of sixty beats per minute. The adrenaline spike from the previous ten minutes had
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  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 95: QUIETING LOUD VOICES

    CIARAThe weight of the cabin had become entirely suffocating, a thick layer of static electricity that settled right beneath my skin. Everyone else was locked in their own worlds now—Carlista was finally quiet, buried under a mountain of snacks and looking out the window; Mary was back to her muted, frantic texting with her dictator husband; and Louis looked like he was trying to solve the global economy through sheer willpower alone.But Mathew? Mathew was sitting right next to me, and he was completely somewhere else.His shoulder against mine felt tense, as rigid as granite. I could hear the shallow, rhythmic hitch of his breathing over the low, constant drone of the private jet’s engines. Fifteen years of a ghost suddenly taking shape on a grainy security feed in Venice. I knew exactly what that kind of shock did to a person—it paralyzed you while making your heart beat so fast you felt like you were sprinting into a brick wall.I looked down at our joined hands. My fingers were

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 94: ITALY

    MATHEW The private jet was already in the air when I realized I wasn't going to be getting any sleep, not with Louis sitting across from me looking like he was hiding state secrets and definitely not with Ciara reviewing six different files simultaneously.Then definitely not with the possibility that my dead brother might actually be alive.The cabin lights were dim.The soft sound of the engines filled the silence.For the first hour nobody spoke.Then Carlista ruined it."So."I closed my eyes."No."She grinned."We're all thinking it.""No.""What if he's crazy rich now?"Louis choked on his coffee.Mary nearly dropped her tablet.Ciara pinched the bridge of her nose.I stared at Carlista."That's your first question?""It's an important question.""No it isn't.""It absolutely is.""Carlista.""What?""My brother, your brother has supposedly risen from the dead.""Exactly.""That's not normal.""Neither is our family Mathew, let's be real."Across from us, Mary was reviewing fl

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 93: LIVING GHOST

    MATHEWBy the time the Rover rolled through the estate gates, Ciara had already rebuilt every wall I'd spent the drive tearing down.It was honestly impressive.Five minutes ago she'd been sprawled across the backseat looking completely undone.Now?Her glasses were back in place.Her coat was buttoned.Her expression could freeze lava.The woman was terrifying.Luke pulled the vehicle to a smooth stop in front of the main entrance.Before I could even open my door, Ciara was already gathering her tablet."We're late.""We're three minutes early.""That is late."I stared at her.She stared back.“Can you be a bit relaxed Ciara?""Uhm..no."I laughed despite myself.The front doors opened.Apparently everyone in this house operated on military-grade timing.Mary stood waiting at the top of the stairs.Carlista stood beside her.Holding a bottle of champagne.Why? Nobody could say. Possibly not even Carlista."Welcome home!" she announced.Mary frowned."Why do you have champagne?""Ce

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 92: JUST A TRANSACTION

    CIARA“See you soon Calista.” I hung up the call with her for the third time I'm less than thirty minutes and exhaled.Beside me, Mathew was a physical mass of radiating heat, his breathing heavy enough to fog the lower corner of the bulletproof glass. The realistic logic of my afternoon—the Baltic compliance files, the Harvour non-disclosure settlement, the damage control—was perfectly calculated. Yet, my own pulse, which I had maintained at a steady sixty-four beats per minute in front of James’s mistress, was beginning to deviate."The files will be ready," I stated, not looking at him as I unbuttoned the top two fasteners of my wool coat. The heat in the vehicle was set to an optimal twenty-one degrees, but my skin felt uncharacteristically warm. "We have twenty-two minutes before we get home, Mathew. You need to chill, there's a meeting waiting for us at home.""I need to chill?"His voice was a gravelly, dangerous sound from the dark corner of the leather bench. Before I could

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 91: I ACT NEXT TIME

    MATHEW“Bro this has been the best news I've heard all day. Hopefully this would get her to cancel her arrangement with his "Miss Ciara left the restaurant without a reaction a while back," Luke’s voice came through, flat and dry. "She’s on her way home.""I’ve had the path secure for twenty minutes," I growled back, straightening my spine. My shoulders ached from the tension, the iron-hard muscles across my back locked up like old cables.Then she appeared.Ciara stepped out from under the green awning of the restaurant, her wool coat swinging in a perfect, measured cadence around her shins. She didn't look left. She didn't look right. She held a black umbrella at an exact ninety-degree angle, her dark eyes fixed on the rear door of the rover as if she were walking down a secure administrative corridor instead of a public sidewalk in the middle of a downpour.I fell into step behind her the second her heels hit the wet pavement, my large frame instinctively positioning itself betwee

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 90: PREGNANCY THREAT

    CIARA The reservation at Scott’s was under my secondary corporate alias, a standard operational countermeasure to prevent the financial press from tracking my lunch hours. The corner booth offered a ninety-two percent visual block of the main dining room, shielded by a column of dark wood and a heavy floral arrangement. I was precisely twelve minutes into my smoked salmon course when I felt an unknown presence. The woman did not have an administrative appointment, nor did she possess the social credentials required to bypass the front maître d'. Yet, she had managed to leverage a sheer, volatile momentum to force her way past the seating barrier. She was young—approximately twenty-four, according to my instant demographic assessment—with bleached-blonde hair that lacked the precision styling of the Mayfair elite, and an expensive leather trench coat that she wore like a shield. She stopped exactly two feet from my table, her chest heaving in short, unmanaged intervals. She sla

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 6: THE FIGHT

    MATHEW I stood in the centre of the ring, my knuckles wrapped in tape, looking at the guy opposite me. Tony. The same guy who had been buying drinks for Ciara at the university bar for months. The same guy who looked at her with those smarmy, possessive eyes and the same idiot who came with her to

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 5: THREAT

    CIARAMaggie's eyes narrowed as she took in our dishevelled state-mud-caked shoes, rain-soaked clothes, and the undeniable scent of sex clinging to us like a second skin. I instinctively stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest as if that could hide the evidence of our encounter."Well, isn't t

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 4: ARGUMENT

    CIARAMaggie's eyes narrowed as she took in our dishevelled state-mud-caked shoes, rain-soaked clothes, and the undeniable scent of sex clinging to us like a second skin. I instinctively stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest as if that could hide the evidence of our encounter."Well, isn't t

  • OWNED IN THE DARK   CHAPTER 3: FORBIDDEN FRUIT

    I began pacing around. "Go check out Ciara's movement, and if she's recently made new friends. "Damn .. I need to fix this fast." What did you find?""She's just recently started seeing Tony. She's not made new friends, and she just got out of the hospital."I still go very still at the word hosp

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