LOGINCHAPTER 27 the gym is gone Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind
Damon’s POVI stepped slightly aside, away from the prying curiosity in my mother’s eyes and the suffocating tension that clung to the hospital walls like dust. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the scent of antiseptic sharp in the air, the weight of fear heavier than any crown.I lifted the phone to my ear.“Father.”His response was brisk, clipped, already strained by the unravelling chaos of a kingdom at breaking point.“Damon, where are you? You need to get back to the palace immediately. We’re preparing a press release. The people are panicking. The riots are escalating ”I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling through the tightness in my chest. Of course. One crisis was never enough. Eldenwald had a talent for bleeding in every direction at once.I paced a few slow steps down the hall. “Is the food reserve being released? What am I supposed to tell them if there’s nothing tangible to offer?”“Not yet,” he answered, irritation hardening into frustration. “I’m still assembling a
Damon’s POVThe doctor’s footsteps echoed down the corridor long before he reached us slow, steady, unforgiving. In the suffocating quiet of the hospital wing, each soft tap against the polished floor struck my nerves like a hammer. Nothing in this place moved quickly except fear, and fear had already wrapped itself around all of us like a noose.When the doctor finally appeared, his shoulders were squared with practised calm. But there was a heaviness behind his eyes that made my stomach clench. He bowed lightly.“Your Highness. Your Majesty.”My mother straightened instantly, slipping into her queenly posture as naturally as breathing. Regal. Composed. Unreadable. I could barely manage a nod. My spine felt rigid, my lungs tight — as if one wrong inhale would shatter the fragile thing holding me together.“How is he?” I asked, though the words scraped out of me like broken glass. “My son.”The doctor didn’t answer immediately. He clasped the clipboard to his chest, fingers tightenin
Damon’s POV“So tell me,” I continued, stepping closer close enough that the harsh fluorescent lights carved brutal honesty across both our faces “since when did spending time with a son become an obligation, Mum?”Her lips parted, ready to defend herself, ready to twist the entire situation into something convenient and clean.I didn’t give her the room. Not anymore.“You created this mess,” I said quietly.Too quietly. The kind of quiet that shook even me.“And I will stick to the terms we agreed on. Once the children are healthy, Rachel returns to Erinville. Permanently. My life is already in ruins from every way I let you meddle.”Rachel’s crying intensified at those words, her sobs ricocheting through the sterile hospital corridor like shards of broken glass, slicing through the tension, the guilt, the accumulated regret hanging thick in the air.But as her face crumpled and her shoulders shook, something terrifying dawned on me.I felt nothing.Or not nothing. Something closer
Ch 66: Stop Right ThereANA.“What do you mean?” I crawled backwards, making a visible distance from him. “I’m not going anywhere, I need to go back to Saint Petersburg. My flight is already booked, so tell your so-called boss I have no fucking time.”Saying that, I got up from the floor and started to walk out when suddenly Alex grabbed my right wrist and dragged me inside. Tossing me on the floor, he casually shrugged off his shoulders and scratched his head with the tip of the gun.“I think you are misinterpreting my words, Miss Ana.”“What do you mean?” I knitted my eyebrows in seriousness, but I was tipsy and barely holding myself together. “Alex, you better take care of the mess you created,” I said, pointing at the dead bodies of John and his bodyguards.To which Alex laughed. Taking steps towards me, he kicked the bodies out of his way.“That’s not the problem here, but if you refuse to go with me then it could become a problem…”“I will call the cops and say you were the one
CHAPTER 23Liana’s POVThe first thing I noticed was the cold.Not the room — the sheets. His side of them. I pressed my palm flat against the space beside me before I fully opened my eyes, the way you reach for something in the dark without thinking.Cold. Completely.I opened my eyes.Empty.I lay there for a moment looking at the ceiling. Listening. The house had a particular quality of silence at this hour — thick and undisturbed. No movement. No water running. No footsteps.I sat up.The note was on the pillow. Small. Folded once. My name on the outside in his handwriting — neat, controlled, exactly like him.I picked it up with the easy hands of someone who wasn’t worried yet. Maybe he had an early call. Maybe something with Alex. Maybe—Liana —Something came up. I had to leave.Take care of yourself.— MI read it once.Then I set it on the nightstand and got up to shower.Something came up. That was fine. Things came up. He was a busy man — calls, business, the investigation,







