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Chapter 24 — The Terms of Surrender
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2025-12-09 18:24:03
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The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 24 — The Terms of Surrender
ScarlettThe phone is still vibrating on the floor when my knees give out.My mother’s face—peaceful, oblivious, lit only by the muted glow of her living-room lamp—fills my vision like a threat wrapped in false innocence. Someone is in that room. Someone close enough to take that picture. Someone close enough to kill her without making a sound.My stomach twists so hard I have to grip the coffee table to stay upright.Miles scoops up the phone, his entire expression changing—hardening the way steel does under flame.“Scarlett,” he says quietly, “don’t move.”“I—” My voice breaks. “They’re inside her house, Miles. Inside.”“I know.” His jaw ticks. “But don’t run into the fire without knowing where it burns.”My breath comes shallow and fast. “She’s my mother. What do you expect me to do—sit here? Wait?”Cole, who has been standing like a silent pillar near the window, finally turns toward us. His normally unreadable face carries something startling—concern. Not soft, delicate concern.
The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 23 — The Weight of the Truth
The car doesn’t slow.Rain hammers against the windshield like it’s trying to break in. Streetlights streak past in broken gold lines, and every one of them feels like a countdown. Miles’s words are still sitting in my chest, heavy and poisonous.Your father didn’t train him to break your heart… He trained him to frame you.My hands tremble in my lap. I press my palms together like I can physically hold myself together.“Say that again,” I whisper.Miles’s jaw tightens. “Scarlett—”“No.” My voice cracks. “Say it again. Slowly. Like I’m not already losing my mind.”He exhales through his nose. “Your father was murdered. And the evidence was designed—carefully—to point to you.”The city blurs. My ears ring. “That’s impossible. I loved my father. You know that.”“I know,” Miles says softly.“Then why would he—” My voice collapses. “Why would he turn the world against me like that?”“He didn’t,” Miles replies. “Ethan did. Under orders.”The name feels like a knife twisting deeper.I squee
The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride CHAPTER 22 — The Man At The Door
No one moves.Not me.Not Miles.Not Daniel.Not even my mother.Ethan’s voice sits in the air like a blade balanced on a fingertip.“Scarlett…” he calls again, softer this time. “I know you’re scared. You don’t have to be.”My stomach twists painfully. Scared doesn’t even begin to describe it. I feel like my past just broke into my present with muddy boots and a loaded gun.Miles shifts slightly in front of me, blocking my view of the door entirely. I realize then how protective the movement is. Instinctive. Silent.Daniel’s hand hovers near the inside of his jacket. I don’t ask what’s there. I already know.My mother stands frozen, eyes wide, shaking—she looks like she’s staring at a ghost she helped create.Ethan’s footsteps move closer.Slow.Unrushed.Confident.Each step sends a quiet shock through my chest.“Scarlett,” he says again, right outside the door now. “I’m not here to hurt you.”I let out a quiet, broken laugh before I can stop myself. “That makes one of us,” I whispe
The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride CHAPTER 21 — THE MAN WHO NEVER LOVED ME
For a second, the world doesn’t just go quiet.It stalls.Every memory I’ve ever had of Ethan flickers through my mind like someone yanking a string of lights—our first dinner, our first kiss, the way he’d tuck hair behind my ear, the late-night talks about future homes and wedding colors and vacations we’d never take.My mother’s words ring like a bell that won’t stop vibrating:“Your father groomed him to destroy you.”I blink slowly, as if I’m trying to wake up from a dream that plays too real, too sharp.“No,” I whisper. “No. That’s insane.”My mother meets my eyes with that same sick, trembling sadness. “Honey, I wish it were.”Miles doesn’t try to intervene.Daniel doesn’t object.Nobody gives me a lifeline.I’m drowning in silence.“What are you talking about?” I ask—my voice too soft, too childish, too desperate. “Ethan loved me. He wasn’t—he couldn’t—”“Scarlett,” Daniel says gently, “look at the footage again.”I do.And there he is.In my father’s vault.Moving with certain
The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride CHAPTER 20 — THE VAULT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE OPENED
For a few heartbeats, nobody speaks.The words your father feared you echo through the room like they have their own pulse, bouncing off the walls until they lodge under my skin and stay there. My mother stands completely still, her posture soft but immovable, like marble sculpted into grace.Daniel looks furious, his jaw locked tight.Miles looks like someone unplugged his emotions and replaced them with pure alarm.And me… I feel weightless. Hollow. But also painfully aware of every breath I pull in.“What do you mean he feared me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. It trembles anyway.My mother doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she takes off her gloves one finger at a time, revealing small, faint scars on her palm—scars I’ve never seen before. She smooths the gloves, folds them neatly, sets them on my father’s desk.It’s such a gentle motion that it unnerves me more than anything else.“Scarlett,” she begins, “your father… he wasn’t only powerful. He was dangerous. And his
The Billionaire’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 19 — Things Break Quietly Before They Shatter
For a moment, nobody moves.My mother stands in the doorway like she was carved out of stillness. Elegant. Controlled. Beautiful in a way that feels almost weaponized. Her presence fills the room the way perfume does—soft, invasive, impossible to ignore.Miles blocks me like a wall.Daniel stands at my father’s desk, face unreadable.And I’m frozen with the black folder pressed against my chest, my fingers gripping the edges like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.My mother’s eyes don’t leave the folder.“Give it to me, Scarlett,” she repeats, quieter this time. Too gentle. Too careful.A tone she uses when she’s about to break something without raising her voice.I swallow. “Mom… what are you doing here?”She finally looks at my face.And the smile she gives me is wrong.It’s the smile she uses at charity galas, when reporters shove microphones at her and she has to pretend everything is perfect. That smile has never belonged in a moment like this.“I came because you’ve put you
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