LOGINClara’s POV“Do you think the zipper is going to hold, or should I call Marcus’s courier back for a different size?” I asked, my voice cutting through the deep, heavy silence of the bedroom.The high-rise apartment was completely quiet around us, save for the low, distant hum of the city traffic moving far below the glass windows. It was exactly midnight. In less than twenty-four hours, we would be walking directly into the grand ballroom of the plaza, risking every single thing we had left to pull Camille off her stolen throne.“The zipper is fine,” Nikolai’s deep voice answered from the doorway.I stopped adjusting the fabric and looked up into the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door. Nikolai had frozen completely on the threshold, his shoulder leaning heavily against the wooden frame. His dark eyes were completely fixed on my reflection, shifting from a cold tactical glaze into something incredibly dark and heavy as they traced the entirely exposed skin of my spine.The s
Nikolai’s POV“You ruined my morning, Nikolai,” Camille said, her voice crackling slightly through the terminal speaker.“You lost eight percent of your market value in an hour,” I said, leaning closer to the microphone. “I told you that you did not know who you were dealing with.”“The board is in a complete panic,” she said, her breathing sounding fast and rattled over the encrypted channel. “They are demanding a full internal audit of the holding group before the opening bell on Monday morning. You think you have won this round, do you not?”“I know I have,” I said.“Do not be so certain,” Camille snapped, her tone sharpening with venom. “You leaked a single document from three years ago. If you release anything else, the trading regulators will halt all transactions for the Novarion Group completely. If the company goes under, your precious little ledger becomes entirely worthless.”“I have enough data to ensure you spend the next thirty years in a federal penitentiary,” I told he
Clara’s POV“Clara, please, you need to listen to me while my head is still clear,” my mother whispered, her dry fingers tightening weakly around my wrist.“Do not force yourself to sit up, Mom,” I said, leaning closer to the medical bed and pressing a cool damp cloth against her forehead. “The doctor said you need complete rest. The sedatives are barely out of your system.”“No, there is no time for resting,” she insisted, her breathing shallow but her eyes completely focused for the first time in days. “Before the men took me from the clinic, before that terrible fire at the shipyard even happened, she came to my room.”I froze, the damp cloth slipping slightly in my hand. “Who came to your room, Mom?”“The woman from the corporate office,” she rasped, her chest heaving as she struggled to draw a deep breath. “Victor’s wife. Camille. She did not come alone. She brought two lawyers and a massive stack of legal folders.”“Camille went to your private clinic?” I asked, my pulse taking
Nikolai’s POV“Are you going to speak to her?” Clara asked, her voice trembling slightly as Camille’s smiling face remained frozen on the digital terminal display.“Answering her directly gives away our exact operational layer,” I replied, my fingers already moving across the mechanical keys to isolate the connection. “I am shutting down the video feed right now.”“She cracked our encryption in less than ten minutes, Nikolai,” Clara noted, leaning over the console as the screen flickered back to black. “If she knows we are alive, she knows we are using Marcus’s network.”“She does not know where we are physically sitting,” I said, typing a rapid series of trace commands into the terminal. “She used a brute-force broadcast signal to hit every active ghost server in the central district. She was fishing for a response. I am tracking the return packets of the data stream right now to see exactly how she routed the override.”“Can you find her specific terminal?” Clara asked.“I just did,
Clara’s POV“Turn the volume up, Nikolai,” I said, my eyes pinned to the large flat screen television on the apartment wall.“There is no point in listening to more of her lies,” Nikolai replied, though his hand moved to the remote control and increased the sound anyway.“Look at what she is wearing,” I whispered, my fingers tightening against the back of the leather sofa. “That is a midnight black velvet dress from the Autumn collection of Maison Valois. Victor bought that exact custom piece for me three months ago for the foundation gala. He kept it in the private vault at the estate.”“She cleared out your closets along with the bank accounts,” Nikolai said, his voice flat and dangerous as he sat at his server terminal.“It is not just the dress,” I said, shaking my head as Camille continued her smooth address to the rows of reporters. “Look at her posture. Look at the way she handles the press core. She is completely calm. She does not look like a woman who just lost her husband a
Clara’s POV“She is finally stable, Clara, you can step away from the bed now,” the private medical practitioner murmured, dropping his soiled latex gloves into a plastic disposal bin.“Are you completely sure the sedatives are entirely out of her system?” I asked, my hands gripped tightly around the smooth metal railing of the medical bed.“The intravenous flush worked perfectly,” he replied, adjusting the dial on the saline drip hanging beside her pillow. “The violent tremors have completely subsided, and her temperature is back to a normal baseline. She just needs uninterrupted sleep now. Marcus paid me very well to ensure she received the exact chemical blockers she required.”“Thank you, Doctor,” I whispered, watching the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of my mother’s chest.Marcus had kept his word down to the very last detail. Within an hour of Nikolai’s meeting at the meatpacking plant, a secure black transport car had pulled into the alleyway behind the rail yard to pick us up.
POV: ClaraThe greenhouse smelled of damp earth and rot, a heavy scent that stuck to the back of my throat. It was supposed to be a sanctuary, a glass-walled escape from the marble and steel of the mansion, but even here the air felt thin.I found my mother sitting on a stone bench, her hands folde
Clara's POVThe black SUV pulled up the circular driveway, and my stomach performed a slow, agonizing flip. My parents stepped out, looking so small against the backdrop of the Draven estate.My mother looked even more slender than the last time I had seen her, her kind face was etched with that pe
POV: Nikolai The beach at six in the morning was grey and flat, the tide pulling back from the sand in long, slow sheets.Victor walked ahead, hands behind his back, talking. Quinn kept pace beside him, nodding at the right intervals. I walked a half step behind them both, which was where Victor p
POV: Clara The Draven beach house looked like something that was built to intimidate people rather than welcome them.It had floor-to-ceiling glass walls which reflected the setting sun. Apparently Victor loved it here, so of course I hated it on sight.He parked with a satisfied sigh and turned t







