They’ve shared something pure in the chaos, a love born not just of passion, but of survival and understanding. But now, the real world is calling them back. And neither of them will return the same. Get ready, everything is about to unravel.
The house was too quiet.Not the comforting quiet of safety, but the brittle silence of a place holding its breath. Shadows seemed longer. Footsteps felt louder. And every corner Emilia turned, she swore she could feel eyes watching, not just from cameras or guards, but from within the walls themselves. The estate wasn’t home anymore.It was bleeding.And the worst part? She wasn’t sure if it was Lucien’s blood staining it… or hers.She sat on the edge of their bed, staring at the vent above. The one Lucien had pulled the camera from. A small, jagged hole remained where the dummy cover had been pried off. It gaped like a wound, raw and violating.Every touch they’d shared in this room. Every whispered word, every moan, every time she’d reached for him in the dark,?they’d been watched. Recorded. Maybe shared.She clenched her fists and stood.She couldn’t sit and feel violated anymore. She wouldn’t.Lucien had left earlier, mumbling something about command checks and signal reports. He
The door clicked shut behind him with finality. Locked. Not to trap her, God, never to trap her, but to seal them into a moment that could no longer be avoided.Emilia stood near the center of the room like a live wire, arms crossed, eyes burning with fury and fear. The chandelier light cast over her skin like porcelain, cracked and radiant.“You’re going to tell me everything,” she said, her voice steady, even as the pulse visibly fluttered at her throat. “No more half truths. No more locked doors. You promised me no more secrets.”Lucien dragged a hand over his jaw, stubble scratching against his palm. He hadn’t slept more than an hour in days. Not really. Not since Raul looked him in the eye and said, “He knew I pledged myself to you. He knew everything that goes on in your house.”Emilia waited. She always waited… until she didn’t.“I’m not protecting you to control you,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”Her expression didn’t change. “Then stop treating me like glas
The silence in the Wolfe estate had changed.It wasn’t the peaceful quiet Emilia had grown used to, the kind laced with soft jazz from the parlor or the hum of distant voices in the kitchen. No, this silence had a shape to it. Heavy. Watchful. Like something coiled in the walls, waiting.She noticed it first when she entered the hallway that morning and caught two housekeepers murmuring near the staircase. They didn’t even try to hide it, just stopped mid-sentence and looked past her like she was a ghost. Or a grenade.“Do you need something?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.They both shook their heads and walked away too quickly.The day went on like that. Glances. Awkward pauses. Locked doors that used to be open. Even lulu, who had never liked her but used to at least pretend, refused to meet her eyes when she brought Emilia’s lunch to the sunroom.Only Mateo greeted her with warmth.He passed her in the hallway with a nod and a quiet, “Señora,” offering a small, reassu
The desert air was a slow suffocation, too still, too quiet. Raul Navarro stood beside the idling SUV, eyes scanning the expanse of dust and shadow. The rendezvous point was an abandoned fuel station, fifty miles south of the last paved road, swallowed by sand and time. The kind of place people didn’t stumble upon. Which meant someone chose it for exactly that reason.The sun had long since bled out behind the horizon, leaving rusted signage and cracked asphalt in monochrome shadow. His men moved in a loose perimeter, alert but calm, weapons drawn but low. Not posturing. Just ready.This wasn’t a battlefield yet.Raul lit a cigarette with a flick of his lighter. The brief flare carved sharp lines into his face, tired lines. He looked every bit the cartel don in his tailored charcoal suit, but the dust clinging to his cuffs and boots betrayed the truth. No one came out here clean.He hated being summoned.Worse, he hated not knowing who had done the summoning. The Vulture. A name wrappe
The evening air in the estate felt heavier than usual.Emilia stood by the window, watching the last brushstrokes of sunlight fade behind the stone walls. Even here, where Lucien said she was safest, shadows seemed to creep faster than they should. She had grown used to the silence, the isolation. It didn’t bother her anymore. Not really. She had simply learned to exist within it.But tonight… something had changed.Footsteps. His.The lock clicked open. The door creaked softly, and Lucien stepped inside.He didn’t speak at first. He closed the door behind him with a quiet finality, as if shutting out the weight of the world. His tie hung loose around his neck, the sharp lines of his suit wrinkled, as though he’d been pulling at them all day.His shoulders looked heavier than usual.“Lucien?” Emilia’s voice cut through the silence. She turned to face him, her heartbeat already quickening, not from fear, but from the sharp, restless energy radiating off him.He dragged a hand through hi
The drive to Lucien Moretti’s estate was too quiet.Raul Navarro didn’t like quiet. Not the kind that came with watching trees pass by like ghosts through bulletproof glass. Not the kind that made the back of his neck itch.He adjusted his cuffs. A gold chain glinted beneath his shirt sleeve. Clean. Sharp. Southern charm wrapped in cartel violence. He didn’t wear body armor. Didn’t need to. If Lucien wanted him dead, no Kevlar was going to stop it.The gates opened before the car fully stopped. That alone told him something, Moretti wasn’t in the mood to wait.He stepped out onto the gravel driveway, flanked by two of his own men, both silent, both armed. The sun hit hard here, but not as hard as it did back south. In his own territory, the heat came with life, sweat, grit, laughter, blood. Here, it was silent. Controlled. Like everything was waiting for permission to breathe.A Moretti man led him inside without a word.They didn’t need to talk. Raul had been here before. The halls st