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CHAPTER 132: OLIVER
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-09-15 21:23:30
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The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 184: FORTY DOLLARS AND A BUS TICKET
POV: Leo Ashford"Mr. Ashford," said Senator Kline, "you will understand if some of us are skeptical.""I would be surprised if you weren't, Senator."The hearing room was vast and paneled in dark walnut, with a high dais at one end and a long, scarred witness table at the other. Cameras ranged along the back wall. Every seat in the gallery was filled. Leo sat alone at the table in a charcoal suit with a single glass of water and a stack of folders, and he could feel the heat of a hundred stares at the back of his neck.Behind him, in the first row, sat his family. His mother, in navy, hands folded. His father, jaw set. Priya with the baby asleep against her shoulder. Beyond them, spilling into the aisle, were forty men and women in borrowed jackets and nervous ties.The senator leaned into his microphone. He was sixty-four, silver-haired, with a face like a disappointed hawk. "The Second Chance Initiative has held a federal reentry contract for six years. In that time, according to o
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 183: JUNE
POV: Oliver Hale"We're having a baby," Grace said. "In June. And before anyone screams, I would like to eat something."The dinner table went completely silent. A fork hung halfway to Maya's mouth. Thomas, mid-pour, held a bottle of wine at a slant while a thin red thread dribbled onto the tablecloth. Leo set down the baby's spoon. At the far end, Gerald Pryce, who had been invited for the first time and had not stopped fidgeting with his napkin, went white as the tablecloth.Then Maya screamed.It was a full-throated shriek of the kind she had last produced at the age of eleven, when a puppy had appeared on her birthday. She hurled herself out of her chair and across the room and flung both arms around her sister's neck, and the two of them rocked back and forth, sobbing and laughing, while the chairs scraped and the glasses rattled and the whole table erupted."A baby!" Maya was shouting. "A *baby!* You're going to be a mother! I'm going to be an aunt for the *second time*!""You w
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 182: ADMINISTRATION
POV: Anya Petrova "You are late," said Walter Boyd. "I asked for the Marsh girl at two." "It is four minutes past," said Anya. "I have waited forty years. You may wait four minutes." The old man's lips curved. It was an expression of astonishing cruelty, delighted and contemptuous at once. He lay propped on four pillows in a high hospital bed, in a sunlit room at the end of a quiet corridor, with an oxygen line in his nose and a monitor beeping softly at his shoulder. His hair was a thin white fluff. His hands, spotted and enormous, lay on the blanket like discarded gloves. But his eyes, pale gray and bright, followed Anya across the floor as if she were a mouse. "You have her walk," he said. "The mother. She moved like a ballerina who had been told she was too tall." Anya stopped at the foot of the bed. "I met her once. At a reception in 1984. She was holding a glass of champagne and arguing with an under-secretary about Pushkin." He chuckled, and the chuckle collapsed into a c
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 181: THE PIANO TEACHER
POV: Vivienne Ashford "Cordelia Boyd," Priya said. "Fifty-three. Harlan's younger sister. Lives alone in a cottage outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Never married. Never in the papers. She teaches piano to eight-year-olds." "And she sent the photograph," said Roman. "The number is a prepaid phone bought in Charlottesville nine days ago. The photograph was taken from a parked car across from the courthouse." Priya slid a printout across the dining table. "That car is registered to her." It was the morning after the sentencing. Pale sun lay across the long table in Westchester, across cold coffee and untouched toast. Vivienne sat with her back to the window. Anya sat beside her with a mug between her palms, saying nothing, her eyes on the printout. Alexei stood at the sideboard with his arms folded. "Why would she warn us?" Vivienne asked. "Maybe she isn't warning." Priya tapped the page. "Maybe she's inviting." "To what?" "To talk. The message said, 'You should have asked who
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 180: THE SENTENCE
POV: Roman Ashford "All rise," the bailiff called. "The Superior Court for the County of Westchester is now in session. The Honorable Margaret Hollis presiding." The courtroom was small and wood-paneled and smelled of floor wax. Dana Voss stood at the defense table in a plain navy dress with her hair tied back and her hands clasped in front of her. She had lost weight. There were shadows beneath her eyes. At her side stood a lawyer in a gray suit who looked as though he had not slept either. Behind her, in the second row, sat her mother, with a rosary wound through her fingers. Beside Marguerite sat Roman. He had come alone. Vivienne was in a back booth of a café across the street, because her presence, the lawyers had said, would make the judge uncomfortable. Roman had promised to call her the moment it ended. Judge Hollis took her seat. She was sixty, silver-haired, severe, with reading glasses on a chain. She flipped through a thick file for a long moment before she looked up.
The Billionaires Greatest Regret CHAPTER 179: MRS. PRUITT'S FRONT ROOM
POV: Anya Petrova "You've his mouth," the old woman said. "Anyone ever tell you that?" "A few people, lately," said Vivienne. "Well, they were right." Mrs. Dorothea Pruitt peered at her over the rim of a teacup. She was ninety-one, tiny, bright-eyed, with a cloud of white hair and a cardigan the color of oatmeal. Her front room in Dayton smelled of lemon polish and old books. A clock ticked on the mantel. "He had a way of pressing his lips together when he was trying not to say a thing. You've got it exactly." They sat on a faded floral sofa. Anya sat beside Vivienne with her hands folded, silent. She had asked to come. She had said, in the car, that she needed to see the places, and then she had said nothing else for two hours. "This is my sister," Vivienne said. "Anya." "I thought she might be." Mrs. Pruitt smiled warmly. "I've been wondering for forty years if I'd ever meet one of his girls. I'm so glad it's both." Anya's head turned sharply. "You knew about me?" "Of course
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