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Chapter 12: The Rival

Author: Josh OA
last update publish date: 2026-04-15 15:15:01

POV: Lena Moretti

Three days after I touched his scar, we went to a fundraiser at the Langham Hotel. Neither of us had mentioned that night in the office. Not the argument. Not the scar. Not the moment my fingers traced the line his father had carved into him. We just kept moving, kept working, kept orbiting each other in the penthouse like two people who had gotten too close to a flame and were pretending they hadn't felt the heat. It was easier that way. Or at least that's what I kept tellin
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  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 18: The Map

    POV: Lena Moretti I threw myself back into the numbers the next day because numbers were safer than thinking about the photograph under my mattress or the kiss on the balcony or the man sleeping thirty feet away who was becoming harder to categorize by the hour. Numbers didn't confuse me. Numbers didn't make my chest tight. Numbers just sat there and told the truth. The shell company network I'd mapped was nineteen entities deep. I'd traced four hundred million dollars flowing out of Crane Industries through layered transfers. But I hadn't figured out where the money ended up. The offshore trust at the end of the chain was still a locked door. So I went around it. Instead of following the money forward, I followed it backward. Every shell company had to be created by someone. Every creation left a paper trail. Incorporation dates. Registered agents. Filing fees paid from specific accounts. I pulled every public record I could find and started building a timeline. That's when the pa

  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 17: The Photograph

    POV: Lena Moretti I couldn't sleep. My mouth still felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone who kissed dangerous men on balconies while the enemy watched from inside. Someone who grabbed a man's jacket and pulled him closer instead of pushing him away. I lay in bed for an hour replaying the kiss in fragments. His hand in my hair. The sound I made against his lips. His forehead against mine. That wasn't strategy. I know. I know. Two words. The most loaded two words I'd ever spoken, and I'd said "I do" at a hijacked wedding three weeks ago. At least "I do" was part of a plan. "I know" was just the truth, and the truth was that I'd kissed my husband because I wanted to, and that wanting terrified me more than anything Julian had done on that balcony. Around one in the morning I gave up on sleep and got out of bed. The penthouse was dark and quiet. Ezra's bedroom door was closed. No pacing tonight. Either the kiss had settled something in him or he was lying awake the same way I

  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 16: The First Kiss

    POV: Lena Moretti Going back to the Crane estate was Ezra's idea. A gala hosted by Victor for some arts foundation that the family used as a tax write-off. When Ezra told me we were attending, I thought he was joking. He wasn't. "Victor's house. Victor's guests. Victor's territory," he said. "And we walk in like we own it. That's the point." The point was provocation. Show up on the enemy's ground, smile for the cameras, remind everyone that the stolen bride wasn't stolen at all. She chose. And she'd choose again in front of anyone who wanted to watch. I wore red this time. My own choice. Ezra looked at the dress when I walked out of my room and his eyes stayed on me for a beat longer than necessary. He didn't say anything. He offered his arm. I took it. We went to war. The estate looked different at night with hundreds of people inside it. Brighter. Louder. Full of laughter and music and the clink of crystal glasses held by people who had never worried about money a single day in

  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 15: The Heat

    POV: Lena Moretti The retreat was at a lake house an hour outside the city. One of Ezra's business partners hosted it every year, a weekend of meetings and dinners and golf that nobody actually cared about. What they cared about was access. Two days in close quarters with the people who moved money in this city. Ezra needed to be there. I needed to be next to him. Naomi drove us up on Friday afternoon. Ezra read documents the entire ride and I stared out the window and tried not to think about the fact that the retreat coordinator had booked us a shared suite. Two bedrooms with a short hallway between them and walls that were, as I discovered when we arrived, approximately the thickness of a napkin. I could hear Ezra hang up his jacket. I could hear him set his phone on the nightstand. I could hear him exhale. This was going to be a long weekend. The corporate dinner started at six. Twelve people around a long table. Ezra's business partner at the head, various executives and thei

  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 14: The War Begins

    POV: Lena Moretti Ezra struck on a Wednesday. No warning. No buildup. I woke up and checked my phone and the financial news was on fire. Blackthorn Holdings had initiated a hostile takeover of Crane Logistics, one of Crane Industries' most profitable subsidiaries. The company handled shipping and distribution for half the Crane portfolio. Losing it would be like losing a lung. You could survive, but nothing would work the same way again. The move was surgical. Ezra had been quietly acquiring Crane Logistics shares through a network of shell entities for months, building a position large enough to trigger a takeover bid without alerting Victor's board. By the time the filing went public, Blackthorn already controlled thirty-one percent of Crane Logistics. Victor's team didn't see it coming. Nobody did. The stock dropped eight percent within the first hour of trading. I watched the news coverage from the living room at The Obsidian. Analysts trying to explain what was happening. Cran

  • The Billionaire’s Stolen Bride   Chapter 13: The Crack

    POV: Lena Moretti The nightmare always starts the same way. The rehearsal dinner. The long table with white flowers. Julian's hand on my thigh. Then the study. The lock clicking shut. His face changing. The mask peeling away. But in the dream, I don't get out. In the dream, the door doesn't open. I fight and it doesn't matter. I scream and nobody comes. The room gets smaller and his hands get stronger and there's no east wing hallway, no open door, no man standing in the light saying "wrong brother." There's just Julian and the locked room and the sound of fabric tearing and my own voice begging someone, anyone, to help me. I woke up screaming. Not a gasp or a sharp inhale. A real scream, loud enough to hurt my throat. I was sitting upright in bed, sheets twisted around my legs, sweat on my neck. My hands were gripping the mattress so hard my knuckles were white. The room was dark. The penthouse was silent. For three horrible seconds I didn't know where I was. Then the knock came.

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