로그인ADRIAN’S POVThe garage door of the East Wing clicked shut with a heavy, pressurized thud, sealing the Bugatti into the dark, concrete underbelly of my property. The cabin of the car was dead silent, save for the rhythmic, mechanical ticking of the cooling engine and the sound of my own ragged, suffocating breaths. I didn't turn off the ignition immediately. I sat there, my hands still locked onto the leather steering wheel at the ten-and-two position, staring blindly through the windshield. The tiny blue compliance light on the center dashboard console was still blinking—Silas’s attorneys were still recording my audio metrics, waiting for the King to slip up and act like a husband so they could slam the prison gates back shut on Elara's neck.Beside me, Elara didn't move. She sat with her knees pulled tightly against her chest, her fingers clawing at the frayed cuffs of her old grey hoodie. In her lap lay the crisp, white piece of paper I had secretly tucked beneath her seat framew
CHERRY’S POVThere are moments in life when you realize that marrying a billionaire is completely useless. This was one of them.The high-beam headlights of the two dark SUVs pinned us against the brick wall like a pair of high-intensity stadium lights. The engines were idling in a low, rumbling growl that vibrated straight through the soles of my sneakers. Julian was currently leaning his entire, massive six-foot-two frame against my shoulder, coughing up a lung and smelling heavily of old copper and fever sweat. He was pure, unadulterated dead weight. I looked at his ruined, mud-stained designer loafers, then at his pale, bloodless face, and a highly inappropriate thought flashed through my brain: Why do these upper-crust guys have to be so goddamn heavy?"Julian, move your legs," I hissed, grabbing him by the collar of his grease-stained mechanic’s jacket and hauling him toward The Silver Diner’s back door. I grabbed the metal handle and rattled it. Locked. Of course it was. Mar
CHERRY’S POVThere is nothing quite like the experience of sharing a roof with your husband’s brand-new second wife to make you appreciate the quiet simplicity of a maximum-security prison cell.I sat on the edge of my bed in the East Wing, staring at the tiny silver medicine cap Adrian had slipped onto my breakfast saucer. It was just a small piece of metal, but according to the scratch mark on the bottom, it was a message. A message that his mother, Helena, might still be breathing. Adrian was currently trapped in the West Wing, forced to act like a cold-blooded corporate robot because his father, Silas, had wiretapped his phone, his car, and probably his thoughts. Adrian was playing the villain to keep me from being sent back to Rikers Island. He couldn't look for his mother without triggering an alarm. Which meant the waitress had to become a detective. The problem was, I couldn't even leave my bedroom without running into a tactical array of gossiping maids, private security gu
ADRIAN’S POVThe titanium cap felt like a piece of burning dry ice against my thigh as I stepped out into the freezing pre-dawn air. My home, a sprawling, modern minimalist fortress of dark steel and reinforced glass perched on the craggy edge of the Hudson, was completely silent. It was a palace I had built with my own hands, miles away from the choked air of my father’s estate, designed to be a sanctuary for Elara and Leo. But today, the clean, sharp lines of the architecture felt like the blueprint of a prison. I walked down into the subterranean wine cellar, the temperature dropping instantly as the thick limestone walls closed around me. This was the only structural dead zone on the property, a cavern carved so deeply into the bedrock that Silas’s newer, short-wave audio bugs couldn't cleanly penetrate the density of the stone. Ethan was already waiting in the shadows of the vaulted archway, his large frame completely still, looking like a gargoyle carved from the dark. I didn
CHERRY’S POVThe East Wing nursery was the only room in the entire mansion that still felt real. It was a sun-drenched sanctuary of soft creams and light woods, smelling faintly of baby powder, lavender, and the sweet, milky scent of my son. The heavy, suffocating weight of the boardroom—the memory of Adrian’s dead obsidian eyes announcing his second wife—didn't belong here. In this room, the "Gilded Prison" couldn't touch me.My bruises had finally faded into a dull, yellowish shadow along the curve of my jaw line, the tight stitches through my eyebrow now nothing more than a thin, pink scar. I had just finished washing my face, stripping off the thick layers of medical cosmetics, wanting nothing but to hold my boy without a mask. I pushed the double doors of the nursery open, a soft smile starting to form on my lips. The smile died instantly, turning into a cold, hard knot of acid in my stomach. Sandra was sitting on the plush carpet in the center of the room. She had already repl
ADRIAN’S POVThe digital grandfather clock in the dark corridor of the West Wing chimed 3:00 AM, its deep, synthetic tone vibrating through the floorboards like a low pulse. The storm had finally passed, leaving behind a cold, heavy fog that pressed against the tall glass windows, blocking out the light of the city completely. The mansion was dead quiet, but the air felt charged, thick with the scent of white hothouse lilies, expensive port, and the suffocating rot of my father’s complete victory. I sat behind my mahogany desk, dressed in a fresh charcoal shirt, my eyes fixed on the illuminated screen of my laptop. To anyone watching the closed-circuit network—to the corporate layers of data-analysts Silas had paid to monitor my activity—I was simply an executive reviewing international clearing logs. I went through the Zurich trust files page by page, my finger clicking the mouse with a steady, robotic precision that showed no emotion. I had to look like a machine. I had to look l







