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Chapter 44 – The Devil's Soft Side
Last Updated:
2025-04-18 20:43:36
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Owned 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 : 2025-04-21Owned by Billionaire Chapter 47: Echoes of the Past
Elena's white-knuckled grip on the doorknob, her eyes fixed on Victor DeLuca—the man everyone thought was dead all these years.His smile never wavered. Crooked. Cold. Chilling."You were to be dead," she said with a gasp and stepped back, the pounding of her heart thudding in her chest like a war drum.Victor exploded into unbidden. "You should know better than anyone—ghosts don't die."Elena slammed the door on his back, rage shaking in her voice. "What do you want?"He looked around his penthouse, whistling low. "Impressive. Graves certainly spoils his favorite pets well. Nice.""Answer the question."Victor finally looked at her, eyes flashing with something unreadable. "I'm here to bring the truth. The truth about your family. About Killian. About all of this."Her blood chilled."I watched them kill," she provoked. "I don't want a fairy tale from the murderer."Victor's expression turned cold. "You think that I murdered them? That is what you have always thought?"She stood with
Last Updated : 2025-04-22Owned by Billionaire Chapter 48: Shattered Vows and Shaking Ground
The penthouse was filled with air—almost tangible with the weight of a thousand unreleased thoughts. Elena sat curled up on the couch, knees drawn up to her chest, staring into the fire raging in the center of the flames. The warmth did not touch her, though. Not when her entire world was falling apart around her all over again.Killian's feet were a few away, fists full in the back pockets of his jeans, jaw set to a hard line. He gave her everything. Everything. All. Of. The. Rest. In the interest of simplicity, he gave nothing but lumps of questions more than he ever gave."You knew… you knew Victor was alive," she said to him, voice frayed and exhausted by deceit. "And you made me think otherwise."He edged forward. "I never gave you any reason to believe otherwise. You didn't ask me. And I didn't tell you because I didn't know whether it was real or not. Not in the past few years, at least."Her eyes flashed with anger. "You lied to me. Like always. You play games, Killian. You ke
Last Updated : 2025-04-23Owned by Billionaire Chapter 49: A Heart Torn Between Two Shadows
The club's thudding beat receded into the distance as a muffled thrum as Elena stood frozen, caught in Killian's paralyzing glare. His chest rose and fell as he battled to fight his way through the crowd that lay between them. Her legs, treacherous and shaking, refused to move.She still felt Victor's toxic whisper in her ear, still felt the ring of his laughter as he melted into darkness.And here now was Killian before her—seething at her like she'd pulled out his heart."Elena," he growled, catching up with her, his hold on her arm a little too hard. His touch, so heavenly and possessive, was like a vice then."Let me go," she snarled low, shoving him away.His eyes darkened. "What the hell are you doing here? With him?"Strangers looked around them. Elena didn't care. Let them stare. Let them see the girl so stupid as to believe she could be between two monsters.She squared her shoulders. "I had no idea he was here. I didn't do it on purpose."Killian's face hardened, fists clenc
Last Updated : 2025-04-26Owned 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
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Owned 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
Last Updated : 2025-04-27Owned 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
Last Updated : 2025-04-28
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Owned by Billionaire Chapter 60 – Tangled in Truth
Elena gazed at the pictures on her phone, shaking her hand in frustration as she scrolled through them one by one. Each picture an open wound afresh—Killian and her father together at that charity event so many years ago, a second one where Killian would show up at the Romano compound days before the attack which had altered everything. And the final picture. Her brother Dante is very much alive. With Victor DeLuca.It didn't add up. Any of it.The penthouse air felt thick, thick upon her chest like a weight she couldn't put down. She paced the living room, Killian's words ringing in her ears from that evening: "You don't know everything, Elena." No. She hadn't. And yet now, slowly, she was discovering.And the truth cut through like a knife cutting through well-made resolve.A door slammed behind her. She turned, already tense. Killian came in, his black top unbuttoned at the collar, showing the soft welts on his collarbone from the last battle. His dark eyes absorbed the charged atm
Owned by Billionaire Chapter 59: Tangled in Fire
The hurricane outside mirrored the storm that had tempested Elena's heart. Rain lashed against Killian's penthouse windows, and she didn't notice it. Her back bowed into chilled marble, spine held captive by Killian's, his breathing a soft trickle down her temple."Say it again," he threatened, his warning flavored with danger.Elena's throat constricted as she swallowed hard, dry throat and, pounding heart as she said, "I don't belong to you."His mouth curled into a black smile. "You can fool yourself, Elena. But your body never forgets."He scooted forward and pecked at the curve of her neck, his warmth on the beat of her pulse. She should push him away. Should scream and tell him that he didn't have any right—but her hands remained where they were on the material of his suit jacket, her knees shaking, folding up under his touch."You hate me," Killian growled, pulling his head up far enough to lock gazes. "But you want me to. That's what frightens you."She spat at him, rage mixin
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
