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Chapter forty-six

Author: Lily Grayson
last update Last Updated: 2025-07-10 20:41:06

Sophie's pov

**The ICU**

The cardiac monitor beeps a jagged rhythm forty-seven beats per minute, too slow, too weak, too Damien.

Each mechanical breath from the ventilator sounds like the “Scheherazade” groaning against its moorings. The scent of antiseptic can't quite mask the lingering copper of blood. His blood still crusted under my fingernails in rust-colored half-moons.

I press my forehead against the cool glass partition, watching the medical team swarm around his motionless body like worker ants tending their dying queen. Their voices slice through the sterile air:

"Massive blood loss we're looking at seven units transfused..."

"Nicked hepatic artery miraculously it didn't fully rupture..."

"If he makes it through the night..."

Lillian's wheelchair squeaks beside me, the sound jarring against the ICU's mechanical hum.

Her fingers still too thin from months in her own hospital bed, the skin stretched translucent over her knuckles as she dug into my bicep with sur
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    Sophie's pov ** The Visitor's Room** The vial of blood glows ruby-red under prison fluorescents, rolling between Damien's fingers as he waits. The scent of industrial cleaner can't mask the underlying stench of sweat and hopelessness that permeates Blackstone Maximum Security's visitation block. A steel door clangs open. Arthur Blackstone enters with the causal grace of a man still accustomed to boardrooms rather than prison jumpsuits. The orange fabric hangs loose on his frame he's lost weight but his eyes remain sharp as scalpels. "Son." Arthur settles across from the bulletproof glass, amusement curling his lips. "Come to gloat?" Damien says nothing. Simply presses the vial against the divider, watching his father's pupils dilate at the label: **D.B. - GENERATION 18 - CONTAMINATED** Arthur throws back his head and laughs, the sound echoing off cinder block walls. "Took you long enough." His fingernails still manicured, somehow tap the glass. "Your mother begge

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter fifty-two

    Sophie's pov **The Asylum Lab** Rain slashes through the broken skylight of Blackstone Biomedical's abandoned Ward 7, the storm's fury echoing through derelict operating theaters. Damien's flashlight beam cuts through decades of dust, illuminating something worse than cobwebs“Rows of incubation pods.” Each bears a brass plaque: **SUBJECT D-14 | GESTATION: 28 WEEKS | TERMINATION REASON: "NEURAL MALFORMATION" **SUBJECT V-09 | GESTATION: 34 WEEKS | TERMINATION REASON: "CARDIAC DEVIATION" His leather gloves creak around the fire axe. The first pod shatters with a sound like a dying scream, formaldehyde and fetal tissue sloshing across the tile floor. “Sixteen years.”Sixteen years of swallowing Arthur's lies about "medical research".The axe finds another pod. And another. Until…… A glint of steel behind the wreckage. The safe's biometric scanner still glows faintly green. Damien presses his thumb to the reader. Access granted.The files smell of mildew and b

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter fifty-one

    Sophie's pov **The Ultrasound Room** The gel squelches cold against Sophie's abdomen, the transducer pressing deep enough to make her flinch. "Sorry," murmurs Dr. Chen, her brow furrowing at the screen. The Doppler whooshes too fast, too erratic as the image resolves into a grainy silhouette. “Our baby.”Damien's hand tightens around mine. His signet ring the one he'd melted down and reforged without the Blackstone crest digs into my fingers. "See these shadows here?" Dr. Chen freezes the image, circling anomalies with a trembling cursor. "These protein markers... they're atypical for 22 weeks." The numbers flash red on the secondary monitor: **AFP: 8.7 MoM (Normal: 0.5)** Damien goes statue-still. I know that look the prelude to violence*. "Run it again." His voice is Arctic calm. The doctor's throat bobs. "Mr. Blackstone, these results are consistent across three " "Run. It. Again." The

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter fifty

    Sophie's pov **Dawn at the Villa** 8:17 AM. The antique brass clock on the seaside villa's mantel chimes softly, its melody swallowed by the crash of Mediterranean waves against the cliffs below. Morning light spills through the open French doors, painting the hardwood floors in liquid gold. The scent of salt and Damien's freshly brewed coffee is always too strong, just how I like it wraps around me like a second skin as I dip my sable brush into cerulean blue. The canvas before me is new. Untouched. Uncharted. Just like the life growing inside me. My free hand drifts to the swell beneath my paint-splattered smock. Twenty-three weeks today. The baby kicks in response like a tiny rebellion against my ribs, as stubborn as their father and I bite back a smile. From the garden, laughter floats in on the citrus-scented breeze. "You're cheating!" Lillian's voice rings out, followed by the violent splash of pool water. "It's called strategy, not everyone has it" Damien c

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter forty-nine

    Sophie's pov The “Scheherazade's” skeleton glows under artificial moonlight, its rusted hull transformed into an altar of twinkle lights and memory. Exactly 365 days since we burned the Blackstone empire to the ground, and the scent of saltwater and scorched metal still lingers in its bones. I trace the railing where my father once stood, his fingerprints long since eroded by the sea, but the ghost of his presence is still humming in the metal. The same railing where Marcus held a gun to Lillian's head. The same deck where Arthur watched my world end. "Our fake anniversary," I murmur, the wind stealing my words. Damien's hands cover mine from behind, larger now that they're no longer fists, warmer now that they're no longer weapons. "Nothing about us was ever fake." When I turn, he's on one knee not the polished marble of Blackstone boardrooms, but weather-beaten decking still stained with our shared history. The velvet box holds two rings this time: “A Blackstone emerald

  • The Billionaire's Temporary Mistress    Chapter forty-eight

    Sophie's pov The Blackstone logo glares up at me from the sale documents, its sharp platinum edges dulled by Damien's aggressive pen strokes. The conference room air smells like lemon wood polish and impending revolution. "Last chance to change your mind," I whisper as he initiates another page. My reflection wavers in the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him, the Manhattan skyline he once owned stretched across the glass like a conquered kingdom. Damien doesn't hesitate. His fountain pen, the Montblanc I gave him on our first anniversary - scratches across the paper. "I've wanted to burn this place since I was fourteen," he says, voice low with decades-old venom. His cufflinks catch the morning light as he slides the papers to the new CEO , a wedding gift, platinum with "No More Lies" engraved in my handwriting. The man's tan pales to parchment when he reads the final clause: "All Blackstone patents released to the public domain effective immediately." Including the

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