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Chapter 38: Lines That Can’t Be Undrawn
Last Updated:
2025-04-13 12:36:56
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Owned by Billionaire Chapter 39 – Blood and Broken Promises
The warehouse stood at the city's edge like a sore—weathered, quiet, dark. Elena stepped inside, the soles of her shoes ringing off the floor. Her breathing was labored, as if the air around her mourned what was to come.She saw him before he saw her.Dante Romano.Her brother.He sat at an iron table, spine straight, dark hair longer than she could ever recall. A man hardened by years and by rage. But those eyes—her mother's eyes—remained the same."Dante," she whispered.His head lifted slowly. They didn't move for a moment.Then he stood."Elena," he said, and her name on his lips hit her like a blow. "You're alive."She hadn't expected the feeling that welled up in her chest. She hadn't expected her knees to buckle at the sound of his voice, the way her heart keened like it had been waiting for this moment.She wanted to walk to him. But she didn't.Not after everything."You made me believe you were dead," he said. "You didn't search for me."She took a step forward, wincing away
Last Updated : 2025-04-13Owned by Billionaire Chapter 40 – The Silence Between Us
The tempest raging outside had not dissipated. Neither had the one within her. Elena sat on the bed in her hotel room, fists balled, dripping wet from the rain. Her hair was stuck to her face. Her clothes dampened her cold skin. But all that was nothing in comparison to the pressure building in her chest. Killian's silence. His confession. She had pleaded with him to say no. Prayed it was a mistake. But his eyes told the truth—tormented, dark, full of guilt. He had signed. He had been a partner, if unwitting, to the ruination of her family. Her stomach clenched. There was a time she would have bring down empires for him. Now she couldn't even look at her face in the mirror. A knock on the door had her jumping. Rose up slowly, legs still shaking from it all. Looked through the peephole, and her breath froze. Killian. She did not want to see him. She wanted to scream, to cry, to smash something. But still, she opened the door. He was standing there—wet like her, dark suit
Last Updated : 2025-04-14Owned by Billionaire Chapter 41: The Fire Beneath the Ice
Elena standing alone in front of the huge marble bathtub, her hands sinking and emerging from the boiling water as silence wrapped itself around her like a shawl. The lamps were dimmed, their golden light shining upon her bare body, but even the warmth of the room was not enough to thaw the ice that was spreading inside her. No matter how many times she'd shut her eyes, she'd always be looking at Killian's face—that confused look when she had accused him of lying.She had pushed him again. Rode him too hard, maybe. But wasn't that what she had started?Her heart no longer listened to her plans.Her door groaned wider. She did not need to turn and recognized it would be him. That receding in the air. That bulk that proceeded him into any room. He was not even going to try to talk then—all he did was simply stand there and stare at her."quiet," she said to him, finally turning over her shoulder. "aren't going to threaten tonight. lock the other door behind you?Killian moved nearer to
Last Updated : 2025-04-15Owned by Billionaire Chapter 42 – The Price of Possession
The room was painfully quiet except for the distant hum of the city just beyond the towering glass windows. Elena stood with her back against the cold glass, breathing shallowly. Her pulse roaring in her ears. Killian's voice echoed, low and commanding:“You’re mine. There’s no walking away from me.”She didn’t move. Not because she was frozen in fear—but because something far more dangerous wrapped itself around her heart: confusion. Longing. A dark tether of obsession that she couldn’t seem to cut, no matter how hard she tried.“I’m not a possession,” Elena whispered. “You don’t own me.”Killian moved closer, black eyes smoldering into hers. "No, I don't own you," he said, moving another step. "But I'm the only one who gets to see all of you. Even the parts you try to hide.".She gritted her jaw and swallowed hard, trying to edge away, but he was quicker—one arm pinched between glass on either side of her head, holding her in place. He filled the space so intimately. Too close. Too
Last Updated : 2025-04-15Owned by Billionaire Chapter 43: Behind the Mask, the Man
The room washeat stiflingly quiet, the only noise the measured tick of the old clock that sat atop the wall. Elena faced Killian in his opulent study over his penthouse, her ribcage pounding beneath breasts as she held the USB drive Dante'd given her a couple of hours previously.She had watched the recording twice. And both times, the pain within it increased."You deceived me," Elena whispered, the voice firm and trembling.Killian leaned against the back of his chair, the face emotionless. A pool of warm gold from the desk lamp splashed across the jagged peak of his jawline and chilling eyes. "I never deceived," he informed her, immovable as granite. "I kept things hidden. There is a difference."Elena clapped her fists to her hips, her face flushing. "You knew Victor was collaborating with Sophia all along. And you never told me.""I had to." He stood, his voice rising to hers. "If I'd spoken up, everything would have been altered. You would have gone straight to him. You would ha
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Owned by Billionaire Chapter 44 – The Devil's Soft Side
Outside Graves Enterprises, evening air was heavy and low. Ink-black sky and blinking city lights burning far away, unaware of their storms in the streets, sightless to their chaos. Elena sat stiff in the back seat of Killian's black sports car, stiffened knuckles where she had been gripping. She could feel the tension undercurrent thrumming in the air between them, killing silence more deadly than any fight they had ever experienced.Killian sat beside her, his own face an unreadable mask of composure, but his tapping fingers on his leg in staccato—a telling indication of the hurricane seething beneath his smoothed facade. The executive who had overawed a room full of senior managers mere seconds before through icy mastery now looked as volatile as a volcano on the point of eruption."Are you going to say something?" Elena had finally spoken, her voice softer than she meant, but firm enough to shatter the silence.He didn't look at her. "Why did you lie to me?"His voice wasn't cruel
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Owned by Billionaire Chapter 45 – Masks and Motives
The silence between Killian and Elena was strangling. Thick. Thicker. It was not the kind that longed to be shattered—it was the kind that shrieked at everything that had not been said.Elena was curled all the way along Killian's penthouse chaise, knees tucked up to her chest, eyes distant in the distance as she gazed out floor-to-ceiling windows into twinkling city lights. The city outside was alive—horns, wailing sirens some distance off—but within the apartment, tension hung like a mist with words unspoken and crumbling deceptions.She still could sense the shape of his lips on hers from the past. Still sense tension that had simmered between them like gasoline with a spark-plug. All that was in the past, and all she had remaining was only facts that did not allow for romance.Killian moved behind her, ice and glass clinking against each other in his bourbon as he moved with calculated movement, step controlled, presence hypnotic without words."Tell me something," Elena finally w
Last Updated : 2025-04-18Owned by Billionaire Chapter 46: A Taste of War
The moment the second Elena entered Graves Enterprises, she felt the air change. Whispering ceased. Glaring persisted. Every single employee in the lobby glared at her as if they already knew whatever had transpired behind those penthouse doors last night. The knowledge set a burst of color racing up her neck, otherwise, she was chilled and composed.Killian had called her so many things. Emotionally. Physically. Professionally. And now—everyone could tell.She moved through the building as if it were hers. But the truth was, ownership came at a cost. And last night, she'd paid in a manner she never meant to—losing part of her heart that she'd promised to keep closed off.“Ms. Black,” James, Killian’s assistant, greeted her with an awkward smile. “Mr. Graves has a meeting scheduled in ten minutes. He asked if you’d attend.”"Did he?" Elena raised an eyebrow, taking the tablet from him. "Is Sophia Monroe invited?"James hesitated. "Yes… among others."Of course. Sophia. The woman who s
Last Updated : 2025-04-21
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Owned by Billionaire Chapter 58 – The Art of Ruin
Elena hadn't meant to pass into Killian's private sanctum, but the golden radiance that curled about the threshold and the disturbing stillness beyond the doorway drew her in irresistibly, a moth to a flame. She'd told herself she was just keeping up with him—that she was ahead. But when the creaking, protesting door slid open, something quite different was waiting for her.Stacks of paper, yellowed news clippings, photographs… pinned neatly to a pinboard against one wall. And in the center, her last name: is Romano—red, capital letters.Her breathing froze. Her heart thudded.This was not her seduction anymore. This was an obsession.Her palm rested upon a photograph wedged between the front. It was of her father, years ago, at a fund-raising dinner. Below that one, barely discernible, was another—Elena herself as a child, innocent, smiling up at her mother.She hadn't seen these photographs in years."Where are you in here?"His words cut into the stillness like a knife.Elena spun,
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 57 – A Fracture in the Dark
The penthouse was too quiet.Elena took her position in the darkness of the living room, her breathing controlled, her hands still trembling with the fight at Graves Enterprises. The tension lingered with her, weighted with the recollection of Killian's stern gaze and the ring to his voice when he told her to get out.She had struggled to come back to him, broken her own heart to do so close to the truth—and now it was all falling apart all over again. The man she once assumed ruined her now worked as her protector. And just when she started to assume he could rescue her too. he pushed her away more brutally than ever before.Her phone rang, but she couldn't force herself to look at it. Nathan or Rachel, most likely. Most likely questions, pressure, and further reminders the game she was playing was getting way, way out of her control.The door behind her burst open, and for a moment her heart refused the truth and wished it could be him.It wasn't."Raven," Rachel's voice was soft bu
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 56 – A Taste of Her Own Power
Elena stood in front of Killian's mirror wall inside his gym, her face broken by beams of light passing through windows that reached from floor to ceiling. Her heart thumped in her ears—not from the light morning practice she'd attempted, but from the tension that had never ceased since the battle with Killian last night.He had not gone back to bed.Not that she would have forced him to. Their argument had disturbed something in her—a reality she did not wish to acknowledge but could no longer avoid. Her desire to control, her inability to be helpless, had always been entwined around him. And now, as she was getting close to the unspoken reality of what happened six years ago, that fear was becoming something else—telepathy.She tied her hair back into a loose ponytail and grabbed the towel from the bench, wiping her face. The door creaked open behind her."You should learn to lock doors, Raven." Killian’s voice was deep, rough with sleep… and something else. Anger? Frustration?She
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 55 – A Storm of Secrets
The storm raging outside was mirrored in the turmoil within Elena. Lightning rent the skies asunder and rain pounded against the high windows of the penthouse apartment. She stood still in the middle of his bed-chamber, her arms crossed over her chest as if attempting to preserve whole the fragments of shattered pieces of her will.Killian hunched over the room, his jaw set, his face stern. They stood in suspense between them as foul and heavy as a miasmic fog neither wished to shatter."I want the truth," Elena breathed, her voice little more than the patter of the rain. "No more lies, no more half-truths."He took one step forward. Then another, each deliberate. "I didn't mean to lie to you. But protecting you was about protecting you from things. From you too." Her gaze jerked to his. "Protect me? You brought me into your realm, remained blind, and used me as chattel. You don't get to spin it around on my head and deem it protection."His eyes blazed with anger and outrage. "You l
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 54: The Calm After the Storm
The sun was rising when Elena finally emerged from the compound gates at last.Squelching boots on gravel, morning dew hanging to the earth like a wet memory. The compound behind her, prison-like all those years, now in quiet pieces behind her. The demons that had haunted her all these years were concealed in dust and blood within.Freedom tasted bitter as it shouldn't have.It wasn't a triumph. It wasn't a shriek. It was locked away. Under control. As if her soul remained behind her body.Killian walked with her, his face granite, his stride off-kilter from combat. He'd said little since the air had purified. So had she. There were too many negative feelings vying for pole position in her heart, and none of them yet did.Ronan is a step, or two, ahead of the rescue team, sterilizing it. Shredded shirt, blood following along his temple, but his calm professionalism still very much present.They'd made it. Victor dead. His kingdom was destroyed. The dangers that had loomed so toweringl
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 53: The Final Stand
Victor's voice hung in the air, words bitter and poisonous to every one of them. His tone that Elena remembered, was cold and deliberate, a tracker who enjoyed the hunt over the kill.Elena wrapped her hand further around the gun, metal pressing against the flesh of her palm. Killian came up before her, covering, something so automatic she did not even realize that she was doing it."You've played," Killian growled, his words low and menacing. "Tonight, that's it."Victor scoffed again, low-grade. "You're going to try to stop me now? All this?"His eyes flicked over to Elena, his lip curving more sadistic with each second. "And you too, little bird. Thought you flew free of me, didn't you?"Elena's blood turned icy at what he'd just said, but she was not going to back down. She allowed the crawling fear at the edge of her head, but she jammed it in. She was no longer little Elena anymore. She was a person to be feared now. She'd weathered it. And she'd weather this as well."You no lo
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 52: The Edge of Betrayal
Air filled the air, as though it weighed itself down on her chest, and with each breath she took, it was that little bit harder to suck in. She sat behind the big table in the war room, map laid out before her there, eyes scanning the few markers and pins on it marking Victor's known territories. Her hand rested on the paper, the weight of the moment holding it back.Killian was at the far end of the table, his focus unwavering. His jaw was clenched, hands resting on the table in front of him as he went over the strategy again. Ronan was pacing, the tension palpable in every step he took.“We don’t have much time,” Ronan muttered, stopping by the map. “Victor’s moving. It’s like he knows we’re coming.”"He knows," Elena said, her voice frosty. "He's always three steps in front of us. But that's going to stop." Killian glanced at her, his black eyes frosty. "You're right. We need to take him hard and fast before he can regroup himself yet again. When we step inside, there's no turning
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 51: Before the Storm
The evening had turned into one of strained silence, the kind that clung to the bony and rested heavily on the breast, all pulled tight. The rain had stopped hours earlier, but its bitter odor mixed with the damp coolness of the air, providing no comfort. It was just the empty buzz of the city and the quiet soft hush of wind that broke the stillness as Elena sat at the side of the bed, looking hard into the phone screen in her hand.She'd replayed it the hundredth time that evening. No messages. No news. Just a pain in waiting. In knowing something bad was going to occur, but not when and how it was going to occur.Killian's jacket, which had warmed his body, kept her shoulders covered. It was filled with his scent. Leather. Rain. A flicker of smoke with so much worse. She breathed in deeply, attempting to purify herself amid the pending madness. She did not know if she was doing it to calm her nerves, or perhaps the strange comfort of clinging to him as she could then — by smell, a f
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 50: Broken Promises, Burning Hearts
The door snapped shut behind Killian, trapping them inside the tiny apartment, in a storm that wasn't about rain anymore.Elena stood her back to him, her arms wrapped around herself. She could feel the rain off his uniform, the cadence of his pulse-pounding too hard in the charged space between them.Neither of them uttered a word.Neither of them had any idea how.And then, almost like the punctuation on an exhalation, Killian spoke a word. His voice was low, worn to the edge of unrecognizability. "I shouldn't be here."Elena didn't turn. "Then why are you?"A harsh, anguished silence hung between them."Because even when I know that I should let you go. I can't."Her nails dug deep into her arms. She hated how badly she wanted to believe him. How badly she still wanted him, no matter what."You're wet," she said coldly, finally turning to confront him.Killian stood there, dripping on the floor, smiling like a man who'd already lost everything. His hair was plastered to his forehea
