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CHAPTER 12

Author: Zeenoh
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-14 11:21:12

I was still sore from yesterday’s training when Evelyn’s assistant knocked on my door at 7:15 a.m. sharp.

“You’re expected at brunch,” she said. “Be dressed and in the driveway in fifteen minutes.”

“Brunch with who?” I asked, but she was already gone.

I got dressed anyway.

“Oh geez,” I muttered to myself at 7:40 when I opened the back door of a black SUV and found Lynette already sitting there. She was wearing a crisp white blazer and matching heels that probably cost more than my first year of rent back home. She didn’t look at me, didn’t speak, just scrolled on her phone like she was born ignoring people.

Good. I was prepared to mindlessly scroll through my phone, when I heard her annoying voice.

She glanced at me once. “Please try not to embarass me today.”

Charming.

We pulled up to a café that was some exclusive garden-style place tucked into a side street in the city. It was definitely the kind of place with a waitlist three months long and a $40 fruit plate.

Lynette led me to a
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  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 21

    “I can give you information,” Mason replied steadily. “My family trusts me. I can tell you everything that goes down in the parties and what the charities really—”Raye shook her head. “We don’t care about their luncheons or their public charities. What we need are leverage points. Names of their allies. Proof of what they’ve buried. Where they keep it and who they use to hide it. Can you give me that?”Mason shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “Don’t you think we should tone it down a bit? Take a cleaner path? Your… confrontational methods aren’t winning you any friends.”Raye let out a short laugh, bitter at the edges. “You think this is confrontational? The Elite have ruined families, bankrupted dynasties, and rewrote history itself. They’ve built their fortune on the backs of people like us. You can’t dismantle people like that by smiling pretty at dinner parties. The truth has to be dragged into the light, clawing and screaming.”Mason’s jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He just

  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 20

    Despite his assuring words, he didn’t smile. His hand was twitching at his side like he was nervous. Raye scared him.And I could see why.She stepped toward us, gun in hand. But she was just as nervous as he was. Still, her voice did not shake. “I want to hear it from your lips, little prince. Tell me what you told him,” she said, tipping her head toward Jules.Mason scowled at “little prince”, his lips curled in distaste, but he didn’t snap at her like I expected. “I want to join the Circle,” he said, full of conviction.Raye moved quickly, cocking the pistol and taking aim in the same motion. My heart stopped when she pressed the barrel to his forehead, but Mason didn’t flinch. “Why?” She hissed.“Because this world is all wrong. What my parents have done… what my brother will do, is wrong.”Even with a gun to his head, he still managed to speak calmly, but a bead of sweat trickled down his neck. Raye didn’t pull away, waiting for a better answer, and I found myself doing the same.

  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 19

    The Caldwell breakfast table was awfully quiet this morning.Evelyn read the morning paper with the poise of someone performing for an audience, chin high, wrists resting delicately beside her glass of water. Dean was scrolling through something on his phone, the faintest furrow in his brow. Mason sat across from me, relaxed, buttering a slice of toast.It would’ve been a normal morning if I hadn’t caught the headline first.A NEW REBEL GROUP HAS EXPOSED CALDWELL HOLDINGS IN FOREIGN ACCOUNTS SCANDAL.The words glared up at me from Evelyn’s paper, the black print too sharp to ignore. It wasn’t front-page center—that would’ve caused an earthquake—but it was there, above the fold, framed as a “developing investigation” by an overseas business journal. Just a little too coincidental, considering I’d only handed the Crimson Circle their first batch of ledger copies two nights ago.The words she was reading repeated themselves on the television. It revealed a grainy photo of the copy of th

  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 18

    I waited three hours before I dared to breathe properly.The ledger was heavy in my robe, the leather warmed by my body. In the darkness of my room it felt less like a book and more like a loaded thing, something that could change the angle of my entire life in a second if I even got caught. I locked my door and slid the ledger under my mattress, beneath the fold of yesterday’s sheet. The mattress creaked when I sat, and I imagined, absurdly, that the bed knew what I’d put there.I did not sleep. I lay on my back and let my mind sort through names and numbers until the ledger started to make shapes. The paper felt old and deliberate and entirely intimate. Whoever had kept it had done so with care.When the house began to wake, I pushed myself up and opened the pages for the first time in daylight. I read only the top of a page. It was a ledger entry with dates and shorthand and a list of transfers between numbered accounts. Then another name. Then another. My hand went cold on the pa

  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 17

    I waited until the house was still. The kind of stillness where you could feel the weight of the walls pressing in.Midnight came slowly, every second dragging its heels. Mason’s keycard sat in the pocket of my robe, cool and weighty. It felt heavier than it should. Like it knew what I was about to do.At 12:07, I slipped out of my room.The halls were dark, lit only by faint sconces along the walls. I moved barefoot, steps soft against the carpet, every creak of the floorboards sounding like a gunshot in my ears.I passed two guards near the west staircase. They didn’t look up. They probably just assumed I was going down to the kitchen for some water.Then I stepped outside, into the night air.The estate grounds were massive, open courtyards and manicured hedges giving way to paths that cut through groves of trees. And in the distance, far on the eastern edge, the shadow of a smaller, squat building. The vault.It wasn’t far. But it felt like miles.I kept to the hedges, pausing whe

  • Ruthless Hearts   CHAPTER 16

    By morning, I already had a plan.Not a good one. Not even a complete one. But it was something.The Crimson Circle’s words from last night sat heavy in my chest: You’re engaged to a Caldwell. Use it.Fine. I would.I spent the morning walking the estate like I had every right to be there. I smiled at staff, asked harmless questions, let them get used to seeing me in hallways I didn’t usually pass through.“Good morning, Miss Vale,” one of the older maids greeted me when she found me near the north wing staircase.“Good morning.” I smiled, trying not to wince. A few weeks ago, I was a maid just like her. “Finally getting to know the grounds?” She timidly asked, looking around like she was scared she would be caught and punished for talking to me.“I’ll be living here for a while, so I should know where I’m going.” I took the opportunity to innocently ask about all the doorways and everything else.She laughed and pointed out which doorways led to the kitchens, where deliveries came

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