LOGIN207The thing they never tell you about someone like Avery is that they never lack love.They will forever have someone caring for them.Look at Jackson and Liam regardless of what she did to them they still want her alive.Jackson dialled her number which she didn't answer to.Damn it, have she been taken again after what happened in the few weeks ago?Not when she is still nursing a little baby. Though it is said that if you eat with the serpent, the serpent might as well bite your finger one day.Astor had played a lot of game in the past and you don't expect him to just be fine and okay even when he has a baby mama and a baby outside.“I will get the car ready.” Morgana walked of the hotel and then gets into a car, verily not hers. It is Liam's. But who cares to check whose car she is trying to get ready now.Liam hugged Jackson, lay a kiss on his cheek and let go for a while.“Believe it or not, she is strong, she is going to pull the hell through.”“I'm not believing that bullsh
Third person's POV Liam's looks were different from others. That only mean something. "No, we can't go to Viena." Jackson turned to him. "I know two of us are not supposed to go to Vienna but we need someone there before Marcus get there." Liam looked at Morgana. Person lady that could be sent over there. Morgana looked back at him with the expression of a woman who had already been three steps ahead of this conversation. Morgana said. "No need to fight over there, couples. we all know I'm halfway there already." "For what? That was different reason you were going there before." "No, it is for the same reason, if Jefferson is going, I'm going too. I've also been building this identity for eight months. Name's Elise Marchand, Belgian financial journalist covering the Simeon Wolf annual gathering. There is know any better way than this." "Do you have a death wish, he could have seen you a couple of times here, I mean you work as front for the ark contract." She asked Liam. "D
Chapter 205They were gathered in the corner suite of the hotel Janet's mother owned. Jackson and Liam had gutted and rebuilt these rooms three years back, and the place still smelled faintly of fresh paint when the heat kicked on.Morgana settled back into her chair. "Name's Henri Belloc. French. Runs an independent news outlet out of Brussels, reaches about three million readers. And here's the thing that matters. Zero ties to American political donors. Haddon's people can't touch him."Jackson turned the word over in his head. "Brussels."Morgana kept going. "Can't buy him, can't scare him either. Back in 2019 he wrote a piece naming a sitting French minister in a money laundering scheme. The minister sued him and lost. Guy's serving twelve years now. Henri doesn't scare easy. And he owes me a big favor."Liam spoke from the kitchenette in the corner. "Seems like everyone owes you a favor."Morgana smirked. "That's right. Twenty years of being useful, you don't get through that wit
204 Liam's POV Janet at three in the morning was something I had witnessed twice before and was always slightly awed by. She didn't get frantic. She got precise. She pulled information from sources with the calm efficiency of someone running a library search rather than a crisis, and she built what she built without explaining it until it was done, which was the most efficient approach and the most nerve-wracking. Morgana sat at the table with her. At some point around two a.m., they started trading information in a way that suggested they had arrived at some form of mutual professional respect, which, given the circumstances, was remarkable. Jackson was on his phone in the corner with a board member named Patricia Ellison, who was apparently awake because she had a toddler with an ear infection and answered his call with "Please tell me this is actually important and not more Jefferson nonsense." I was tracking Carter Wells. I had a contact in the financial intelligence world
203 Jackson's POV I called my lawyer instantly, as Morgana said he could be the one. Anyone could be right on this case, but what was different was the fact that things could never be the same if it was the person that I felt something for. Yes, Liam could be right too. But I believed so much that Avery wouldn't want to cause the family another pain by being an informant for a clown who portrayed himself as a good person; instead, he wanted to take the company away from us. Greedy old fucking arsehole! The phone rang, and I thought he wouldn't pick up. "You could be right on this one," I said, as Morgana felt that she was finally being seen and could be a useful tool for us all. Liam leaned forward. "Yeah, I could put all my money on that too; those white-collar lawyers aren't really being honest with us all." I really wanted to kiss his lips right now, but that would feel odd at this moment, wouldn't it? Theodore Marsh picked up on the third ring, which told me he was awake, wh
202Liam's POVI didn't sleep.That wasn't a metaphor or a dramatic statement.I literally did not sleep.I sat at the kitchen island with my laptop open and three separate document tabs running and a coffee that went cold somewhere around midnight, and I built a timeline.Not because Jackson asked me to. Because it was the only way my brain would stop spinning long enough to be useful.The timeline went like this.2001: James Carly appears inside Maddox Corporation through the Reyes family. Nobody questions it because the Reyes family is old money and their referrals don't get questioned. Carly spends the next eleven years building financial architecture that everyone thinks serves West Ark and actually serves something underneath West Ark that nobody can see.2003: The Delaware LLC. The same entity that Gerald Whitmore flagged. The same entity that Avery found connecting Marcus Jefferson's investment firm to a subsidiary of Maddox Corporation that no longer exists.2012: Carly "disa
Third person's POV 8 PM - Police PrecinctThe fluorescent lights in the precinct had that particular quality of making everything look worse than it was. Institutional. Cold. Officer Mackenzie sat at his desk with his fourth cup of coffee going cold beside him, watching Torres write up a statement
Third person's POV Jackson Maddox woke slowly, as if the world had to coax him back from the place where pain had been living under his skin. The hospital room appeared in soft squares of light that the morning sun coaxed through the blinds. His eyes fluttered, fighting gravity, fighting memory, f
Third person's POV Within minutes, social media exploded.Twitter was on fire with speculation. Instagram stories were filled with screenshots of the talk show segment. TikTok had already spawned a dozen conspiracy theory videos, each more outlandish than the last.@BreakingNewsNYC: BREAKING: Sour
Third person's POV Richard Maddox sat in his private office in his apartment, a glass of bourbon in his hand that had gone warm and forgotten, staring at his phone like it had just delivered news of the apocalypse.Which, in a way, it had.Three missed calls. Five text messages. All saying the sam







