LOGINA/N: Sorry for the inconsistent updates guys. School has been kicking your girl's ass and I'm currently writing three books at the same time so I'm stretched thin. Butttt, I promise I'm working on a schedule that won't end with me in a coma so I promise it will all stabilize in due time. Also..... gun grinding trigger warning for this chapter (is that even a thing??). Anyway, watch out for some weird ass gun kink with our favorite couple. Have fun! P.S. My new book "His Dominant Sub" is out on GoodNovel now, featuring another couple from the Red Room. Do give it a try and let me know what you think. ~ Chloe is standing by the doorway with her hands resting on the straps of her bag and her eyes moving from the smeared blood on the floor straight to my face. Priya is right behind her, chewing on a piece of gum, her brow raised in that classic, investigative way she adopts whenever she smells drama. “Find out what?” Chloe repeats, stepping further into the room. She looks at Emma,
The heavy glass entrance doors of the high school haven’t even fully settled behind me before Emma blocks my path. She is standing near the rows of green metal lockers with her arms tightly crossed over her chest. I try to offer a casual wave, but she doesn’t blink.“When are you planning on doing it?” Emma asks as I approach.I stop, adjusting the strap of my bag on my shoulder. “Good morning to you too, Em. I slept wonderfully, thank you for asking.”“Don’t do the sarcasm thing right now,” she says, refusing to smile. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Chloe. When are you going to tell her about you and Eli?”I look past her shoulder, scanning the crowded hallway to ensure a specific blonde head isn’t within earshot. “I really don’t know how to tell her, Em. You saw how she ran out of that hospital room. If I tell her that the guy she is crying over has been sneaking onto my roof for weeks, it won’t just hurt her. She will absolutely hate me forever.”“She’s hurting alre
The dining room is filled with the warm, rich scent of roasted lamb and rosemary, the heavy crystal chandelier overhead casting a soft glow across the polished mahogany table. For the first time since the shooting, my family actually feels like a family instead of a collection of heavily guarded assets trying to survive a corporate war. Tyler is currently mocking Lucas about his miserable attempt at a soccer tryout earlier this week, his voice full of that annoying big-brother superiority that usually makes me want to slide a fork into his thigh. “I’m telling you, David, he tripped over the penalty cone before he even touched the ball,” Tyler says, leaning back in his chair with a smug grin as he passes the basket of fresh rolls down the table. “The coach looked like he wanted to cry out of sheer embarrassment for our bloodline.” “It was windy, okay?” Lucas fires back, his cheeks turning a bright, defensive red as he aggressively stabs a piece of potato. “The ground was wet, and T
The white coat of the physician moves back and forth in front of the hospital window, the man’s voice a monotonous hum as he lists the post-discharge instructions. Eli sits on the edge of the bed, already dressed in a clean black t-shirt and jeans that the security staff had brought for him, his chest tightly bound beneath the fabric. “No heavy lifting for at least four weeks, Elias,” the doctor says, checking a box on his digital tablet. “The entry wound has closed nicely, but the muscular tissue beneath the ribs needs time to repair. You should strictly avoid any high-impact movements, keep your diet clean and low in sodium to prevent inflammation, and take the prescribed antibiotics every eight hours without fail. Do you understand everything I’ve just gone over?” “Yes,” Eli says, his voice flat as he stares at his own boots. He hasn’t listened to a single word the man has said for the past ten minutes. His entire brain is occupied by a suffocating mixture of frustration an
Emma’s chest is heaving as she looks from me to Eli and then back again, her face a mixture of deep betrayal and absolute disbelief.“Emma,” I say, my voice dropping into a frantic, hushed whisper as I step back from the edge of the bed. My mind is racing, scrambling through a dozen different lies before realizing that there is absolutely no way to explain away the fact that she just caught me swallowing my bodyguard’s tongue. “It’s not what it looks like. Just… just let me explain.”She steps fully into the room, closing the door behind her with a soft click that sounds like a guillotine dropping. “Oh, really, Lucia? It’s not what it looks like? Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like you’re hooking up with the guy who is supposedly supposed to be protecting you, while our best friend is downstairs crying her eyes out because he just broke her heart. Is that the explanation, or do you have a more creative script prepared?”Eli shifts slightly in the bed, a low grunt
The high school hallway is incredibly boring without Eli lurking near the exit doors. I sit through three consecutive lectures on European history, my real-time thoughts completely consumed by the image of a cardiac monitor and white hospital sheets. By fourth period, my sarcasm has entirely run out, replaced by a restless, twitching need to move. So, I do what any reasonable Reid would do when the world is suffocating her. I climb out of the first-floor bathroom window, navigate the blind spot in the parking lot cameras, and drive straight back to the hospital. I make it to the intensive care wing without being spotted by my father’s guards, but as I reach the door to Eli’s room, I freeze. A woman is standing right beside the hospital bed. Her hair is packed into a tight, neat ponytail, and she is wearing a simple pair of jeans and a dark winter coat. She looks remarkably frail, maybe in her late forties, her shoulders slightly hunched as she looks down at Eli. The air in the r
The room tilts. Not literally. Nothing so dramatic. The glass walls remain upright, the long walnut table stays polished and still, the city beyond the windows continues breathing in its slow, arrogant way. But something inside me slips out of alignment the second he steps through the door. Dav
“You’re pregnant.” The word echoed loudly in my head as I tried to pinch myself awake. It took a while for my brain to fully process what the words actually meant. Finally, it did. “That’s not possible,” I said quietly. She folded he
Vincent’s chair stays pushed back an inch from the table, the faint scrape still in my mind even as the elevator doors close behind me the next morning. His face when David made that condition stays with me too: the quick flash of possession in his eyes, the way his fingers tightened around mine
Tiny hands wrap around my legs and pull me out of the past so violently that I gasp. “Mama.” I look down blinking, my heart still somewhere years ago, still standing in my living room with divorce papers shaking in my hands. My daughter presses her cheek







