Mag-log in~ Avelyn ~The first thing I noticed was the quiet. The kind of quiet that doesnāt belong anywhere near me. Not the silence of sleep, not the calm after a storm, something heavier. Thicker was waiting.I blinked. Slowly. My vision swam, sharp light cutting through my lids like it had been waiting for me. The bed felt too big. Too empty. My arms reached instinctively across the sheets. Nothing. No one.Panic fluttered like a trapped bird. My pulse jumped, loud in my ears. The memory hit me before I could catch it, the chaos, the shots, the screaming. Ciara. The child.I sat up abruptly, pulling the sheets around me like armor. My body still trembled, small jolts of adrenaline making my fingers shake. And then I realized the space beside me. The bed was undisturbed. The weight Iād expected⦠wasnāt there.Xander hadnāt come in.My stomach twisted. My chest tightened. A shiver ran up my spine, involuntary, like my body had remembered every second of fear it had been forced to endure. I sw
~ Xander ~ I walked away, didnāt go in. The door had been right there. A few steps. That was all it would take. I could hear movement insideāsoft, controlled. The quiet rhythm of machines. The low murmur of nurses who didnāt know they were standing in the middle of something that had just rewritten everything. She was in there and so was the child. My child. The word still didnāt sit right. It didnāt settle into anything I recognized. It moved through me like something unfamiliar, something that didnāt belong in the same space as everything else I was. I stood there longer than I should have. Long enough for it to mean something. Long enough for it to become a choice. I could walk in. Demand answers. Demand explanations. Demand what was mine. But the thought stopped before it could fully form. Because the truth was already there. Clear. Unavoidable. She hadnāt told me. Not by accident. Not by circumstance. By choice. Everything she had doneā
ā Xander āThe chaos was behind us. Gunfire, shouting, bloodāit all fell away the second I cleared her from the line of fire. I didnāt stop until there was space, until nothing remained between us and the men closing ranks behind. Then I stopped. Not because it was safe. Because I needed to see her.My grip on her arm was firm, controlled, as I scanned her face, shoulders, hands checking, assessing, searching. āAre you hurt?ā My voice was low, measured, but not without weight. She shook her head too quickly. āIām fine.ā A lie. Or maybe not. I couldnāt tell. Her chest rose unevenly, her hands trembling, her body still taut from the seconds sheād spent kneeling with a gun to her head.And it wasnāt just that. It was the way she looked at me, eyes meeting mine briefly, then slipping away. Avoiding. Not relief, not anger but something tighter, restrained. My jaw tightened. I stepped closer, hand rising to brush under her chin, tilt her face back toward the light. She stiffened instantl
ā Xander ā I had never knelt for anyone. Not for men with more power. Not for men with more money. Not for men who thought fear could bend me into something smaller than what I was. Power wasnāt given, it was taken. And once you had it, you didnāt bow. You didnāt lower yourself. You didnāt break. So when he said itā āKneel.ā The word didnāt land as an order. It landed as an insult. Silence followed, heavy and deliberate, stretching just long enough to demand a reaction. My gaze stayed on him, unmoving. Gjarpri stood there like he had already won, like the outcome had been decided and I was just catching up to it. Around me, my men shifted subtle, tense, ready. One command. One signal. That was all it would take to turn this place into a graveyard. I could already see itāthe angles, the openings, the first men to fall before the rest even understood what was happening. I could end this. Right here. Right now. Thenā A sound. Soft. Fragile. Out of place. My eyes flickered, j
~ Avelyn ~At first, I thought I imagined it.The sound didnāt belong here. It didnāt fit with the guns, the tension, the men standing too still like they were waiting for something violent to happen. It was too small. Too soft. Too⦠fragile.But it came again.Sharp. Unsteady. A cry.My heart didnāt stop. It dropped. So fast it felt like it tore through my chest on the way down.My head lifted before I could stop it, my body reacting faster than thought, faster than fear, faster than logic.And then I saw her.Everything inside me broke.āCiaraāāThe name slipped out of me, raw and breathless, my body lurching forward on instinct alone. The hand at my neck tightened instantly, the gun pressing harder against my temple, forcing me back down before I could move again.But I didnāt feel it.I didnāt feel anything except her.She was in someone elseās arms. Too small. Too exposed. Her face scrunched, her tiny hands curling and uncurling as she cried, the sound uneven, fragile, wrong in a
ā Xander āThe moment I saw her on her knees, something in me shifted. Not outwardly. Not in a way anyone here could measure or use. But insideāsomething tightened. Locked. Refused to move.They had forced her down like she was nothing. Like she belonged at the mercy of men who didnāt understand what they were touching. Her hands braced against the ground, shoulders tense, spine rigid, holding herself together by sheer force.And there was a gun to her head.I didnāt look at it for long. Because if I did, I wouldnāt be standing where I was. I wouldnāt be playing this the way it needed to be played. My gaze returned to her face. She had already seen me. I knew the exact second it happened. The slight stillness in her body. The way her breathing changed, almost imperceptible unless you knew what to look for. Unless you knew her.I let my expression remain unchanged. Cold. Controlled. Untouched. Anything else would cost her. And I wasnāt paying that price.āWelcome, Xander.āGjarpriās vo
~ Avelyn ~The screen blurred for a second and then snapped into sudden focus. One hundred thousand dollars. My mouth went dry and the stupid grin that announced itself felt like a betrayal, a twitching little traitor sitting like a light in the back of my throat. A hundred thousand. Not a hundre
~ Avelyn ~We arrived a humongous villa and they ushered me in, polite and efficient down a corridor I hadnāt seen before. Portraits stared from the walls with faces of men who looked like they had never learned to smile. The villa smelled of citrus and something older, like money that had been ste
~ Veronica ~The scent of bergamot and steam shouldāve relaxed me, but it never did. Iāve always found spas too performative, people pretending to be reborn while lying half-dead on heated stones.The masseuseās hands pressed down between my shoulders, slow and rhythmic. The oils were warm, tracing
āThe mistress doesnāt like to be kept waitingāI swallowed, and followed only because I didnāt want to get in trouble. Whoever this mistress was, I bet she was just as crazy as Xander. For the fact that these men were let through the security with ease and the maids seemed to mind their business as







