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بيت / Mafia / The Bodyguard Who Broke Me / Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

مؤلف: Bonnie
Linnea gave my shoulder a light pat, her smile polite and false.

“Then prove it,” she said. “And do try not to be so sensitive.”

She left me at the sink.

By the time I came out, one of the others from my group had already heard what happened.

“Linnea studied under your mother,” she whispered. “She was also close to Cassian Hale’s sister.”

I stopped walking.

So that was it.

When I reached the front gate, I saw him at once.

Cassian stood under the stone arch, half-turned toward a woman in a pale coat. She leaned in to say something, and he lifted a hand to smooth her hair back from her face.

Linnea.

For a second, I couldn’t move.

Then I turned and walked the other way.

I cut through the west path and into the arboretum, but I didn’t get far. Two men stepped out from between the trees, both smelling of liquor.

One of them looked me over and laughed. “So it’s really her.”

The other said, “Didn’t know the quiet ones sounded like that.”

My hand moved before I thought. The slap cracked across his face.

“Move.”

He shoved me hard. My back hit the tree behind me, and pain shot through my shoulder. The other one grabbed my wrist and pulled.

I screamed.

The first man reached for me again.

He never got the chance.

Something slammed into him from the side, and he went down hard. By the time I looked up, Cassian was already there. The second man took one look at his face and ran. His friend staggered up a second later and followed.

Cassian turned to me at once.

“Aria. Are you hurt?”

He caught my arm, checking too quickly, too closely. I shoved him off and folded my arms over myself.

He froze.

“Why haven’t you answered a single call?” he asked. “Those videos—someone stole private footage and leaked it. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”

He sounded almost angry, almost hurt.

If I hadn’t heard him the night before, I might have believed him.

“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to your parents. We don’t have to hide anymore.”

Then he said it.

“Marry me.”

My chest tightened.

After three years in secret. After the videos. After my mother collapsed in front of half the city.

He stepped closer.

“I mean it. I’ll make this right. I’ll protect you. I’ll protect your family.”

A week ago, I would have broken down and said yes.

Now all I could think was that if I turned on him too soon, he might do something worse.

I didn’t answer. He took my silence for hesitation and pulled me into him.

I went rigid.

His mouth found my neck. Once, that would have undone me. Now it only made my skin crawl.

“Aria,” he murmured. “Forgive me.”

“Let go.”

He didn’t.

I bit down hard on his shoulder. He sucked in a breath, then only held me tighter, like he thought this was a quarrel he could kiss his way through.

“Fine,” he said against my skin. “If that helps, do it again.”

Then he kissed me.

I turned my face away, but his hand caught my jaw and held it there. Not rough. Not angry. Worse than that—familiar. Practiced.

My stomach lurched.

All I could think was:

Had he set up another camera?
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  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 10

    Three years later.Sunlight spilled across the lawn outside Marlowe’s commencement hall.Aria stood in her doctoral robes with a bouquet of deep red ranunculus in her arms. Beside her stood Adrian Sterling in black academic dress, both of them having just stepped down from the stage after the conferral. Around them, graduates were laughing, cameras were flashing, and faculty members were shaking hands beneath a sky so bright it almost looked unreal.Then Adrian turned to her.Before she could ask what he was doing, he dropped to one knee.The noise around them shifted at once. Conversations broke off. Someone gasped. Someone else started clapping before he had even spoken.Adrian took a slim black leather case from his pocket and opened it.Inside was an antique sapphire ring set in platinum, old enough to feel like history and simple enough to feel like certainty.“Aria,” he said, looking up at her with the same steady warmth he had given her for three years, “loving you has never fel

  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 9

    Cassian read the file once, then again, slower.His chief of staff stood across the desk and said nothing until Cassian finally looked up.“It wasn’t Evelyn Vale,” the man said. “Not the way you were told.”Cassian’s face did not change, but something in it seemed to go hollow.“The review committee did rule Elodie’s work compromised,” the man continued. “But the theft happened before it ever reached them. Linnea Shaw took Elodie’s draft, passed key sections to another lab, and had the findings circulated first. By the time Elodie defended her own work, it looked like she was the one who had copied.”For a second, Cassian said nothing.Then, very quietly, “No.”His chief of staff kept going.“We pulled old emails, submission records, and archive backups. The timestamps line up. Linnea had access. She moved first.”Cassian shut his eyes.If Evelyn Vale had not framed his sister, then everything he had done to Aria and her family had been built on a lie from the beginning.He opened his

  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 8

    Marlowe University was where Evelyn Vale had once studied, and it was where Aria would begin again.Everything about it felt different from St. Aurelius. The old stone formality was gone. Marlowe was all pale buildings, glass walls, clipped lawns, and long corridors washed in clean northern light. Even the air smelled different. Rain, cedar, cut grass.At the registrar’s office, Aria opened her bag to find her documents and caught her finger on something sharp.She looked down.It was the medal Cassian had once brought back for her from a monastery in Sicily, a small silver Saint Michael worked into a pin so she could wear it inside her coat. He had told her it would keep her safe. She had carried it for months without thinking, right up until she stopped thinking about him at all.She pulled it free, walked to the nearest trash bin, and dropped it in.A student beside her glanced over. “That looked expensive.”Aria gave the faintest smile.“It was,” she said. “Still belongs in the tra

  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 7

    It was Nina.She crossed the south court in a dark coat and low heels, reached Cassian without slowing, and slapped him hard enough for the sound to carry through the crowd.For one stunned second, no one moved.Then the court erupted.Cassian touched the corner of his mouth, looked at the smear of blood on his thumb, and raised his eyes to hers.“Where is Aria?”Nina laughed once, cold and sharp.“You are never seeing her again.”At that moment, one of the institute’s senior administrators hurried over with a folder of commencement papers tucked under his arm. He stopped when he saw Nina, then recognition crossed his face.“Miss Vale’s documents,” he said quietly, offering her the folder. “I also saw Professor Vale’s obituary this morning. I am very sorry.”Cassian went still.His expression changed before he spoke.“Obituary?”The administrator frowned, suddenly realizing he had said too much.Nina took the folder from him and tucked it under her arm.“Yes,” she said. “Professor Evel

  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 6

    That night, Ravencrest hosted a family supper.After the clinic photographs landed in the society pages, Julian Hale had his son called home at once. Officially, it was only dinner. In truth, everyone in the room understood what it was, a closed-door assessment of damage, reputation, and what had to be done next.Cassian stood by the windows with a drink in his hand and barely touched it.Women passed near him in silk and diamonds. Men spoke in low voices about alliances, timing, and whether scandal could still be turned to advantage. Cassian heard almost none of it. Every thought circled back to Aria, her face drained of color, the fury in her eyes, the way she had looked at him as though she had finally seen the full shape of him.A young woman in pale blue approached and asked him to dance.He declined with easy politeness.“Sorry,” he said. “I’m already involved.”Her gaze dropped to the ring turning idly between his fingers.“Linnea Shaw?”“No.”He said it without hesitation.“Not

  • The Bodyguard Who Broke Me   Chapter 5

    Glass had cut the side of my neck. My hand was worse.I could barely push myself upright before Cassian was already carrying Linnea out of the lab.He passed so close I could hear her crying against his shoulder.“If I scar,” she whispered, “I’ll never forgive myself.”Cassian’s face hardened. He looked down at me only once.“How does this institute keep admitting girls this stupid?” he said. “If Linnea leaves here with one scar, I’ll make sure you remember it.”Then he was gone.By the time I got to the private clinic, my right hand was slick with blood and reagent. A nurse pulled me into a treatment room, flushed the chemical burn, picked glass from my palm, and wrapped the whole thing tight enough to make my fingers throb.I was just stepping back into the corridor when Cassian caught me by the arm and slammed me against the wall.“What the hell were you trying to do?” he said.His voice was low, but it shook with rage.“I didn’t do anything.”“You expect me to believe that? She say

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