LOGINShare
FAULTLINE
publish date:
2026-04-19 12:00:27The drive back feels longer than it should.
Not because of distance.
Because of everything sitting between them.
Taryn watches the road ahead, but her focus isn’t on it. Rowan can tell. Her mind is somewhere else running through names, connections, things that no longer fit the way they used to.
“You’re quiet,” she says after a while.
Rowan keeps his eyes forward. “There’s a lot to think about.”
“That&rs
Latest chapter
The Bodyguards boy Cornered
The television in the common room wasn't supposed to be on this time of day. Julian noted that immediately noted, too, that none of the guards had bothered to turn it off, which told him more about how tonight would go than anything actually being said on screen."...disturbing new footage allegedly shows Ward Holdings' Julian Ward directly ordering the assassination attempt on Cassian Wesley..."He watched his own face fill the screen. Not a photograph. Footage. Grainy, long-lens, but unmistakably him, standing on a bridge he remembered vividly, saying words he remembered saying."It's done, right?"Julian didn't move. Didn't blink. A lifetime of controlling every visible reaction on his face held, even now, even with his own voice playing back to a room full of men who already hated him for entirely different reasons.Inside, something colder was already calculating.Recorded. Someone was there. Someone followed me.The footage cut to Marcus Kade's face captured separately, garage
The Bodyguards boy Collapse
The first headline reached Preston before his assistant did.He read it standing at his own window, the city stretched out below him the way it always was, except now every light in it felt like an eye.WESLEY PATRIARCH ACCUSED OF BURYING SON'S MURDER INVESTIGATION TO PROTECT CORRUPT EMPIRE.He read it twice. Not because he doubted it. Because some old, stubborn part of him still expected the words to rearrange themselves into something survivable.They didn't.His phone hadn't stopped vibrating in eleven minutes. He'd stopped looking at the screen after the fortieth missed call.The office door opened without a knock. His chief of staff, Marion, normally unshakeable, looked like she'd aged five years walking down the hall."Board's requesting an emergency session," she said. "Within the hour.""Tell them I'm unavailable.""Preston." Her voice cracked slightly on his name, which was somehow worse than the headli
The Bodyguards boy Fallout
Lennox's laptop pinged three times in quick succession, then went quiet, like even the machine understood the weight of what had just landed."Rowan." Lennox's voice had changed. Flatter. Careful. "You need to see this."Rowan crossed the room already knowing it was bad. Taryn got there half a step ahead of him and stopped cold, staring at the screen like it might rearrange itself into something less true if she waited long enough.It didn't.The video was already live. Already spreading. A timestamp in the corner ticked upward in real time, view counts climbing in a way that meant this wasn't leaking it was being deployed.Cassian's voice, calm and unhurried, filled the room.Rowan's chest went tight before a single word registered."My name is Cassian Wesley," the recording said. "A year ago, the world was told I died. I let them believe it, because for a long time, it was safer than the alternative."Taryn's hand found the edge of the desk.Lennox didn't move at all."I want to te
The Bodyguards boy Momentum
The car pulled away from the curb before Cassian had his door fully shut.Adrian drove the way he did everything else. No wasted motion. No indication, from the outside, that anything in the last twenty minutes had gone wrong.Neither of them spoke for the first few streets.Cassian watched the house disappear in the side mirror, the kitchen light shrinking to a pinprick, then nothing."Say it," he said finally."I already said it.""Say the rest of it."Adrian's hands didn't shift on the wheel. "The rest of it doesn't help either of us right now.""Try me."A red light. Adrian let the car roll to a stop, unhurried, and looked over at him for the first time since the garden."Lennox is looking for my name," he said. "Not a shadow behind a file. My name. A. Vance."Cassian's jaw tightened. "How do you know that.""Because I built the trail he's following. I know exactly how far behind he is." A pause. "Tonight moved that up. Not by days. By hours."The light changed. The car moved agai
The Bodyguards boy Pattern
The tip came through Lennox's old contact inside the prison a guard he'd once paid for small favors, back before Julian's arrest made every favor exponentially more valuable.Something changed with Ward today. He made a call. Different tone than usual. Scared, almost.Lennox read it twice before showing it to Rowan."Scared isn't a word people use about Julian," he said."No," Rowan agreed. "It isn't."They met at Rowan's apartment within the hour Taryn arriving last, still in her work clothes, a folder tucked under one arm like she'd grabbed it on her way out the door without stopping to think."I couldn't focus at the office anyway," she said, by way of explanation, dropping the folder on the kitchen table. "Not after what happened at the estate."Rowan pulled out a chair for her without comment. The three of them settled around the table the way they had a dozen times before, except tonight felt different
The Bodyguards boy Proof
Julian didn't get many visitors.That was by design, mostly a reputation carefully maintained even from inside a cell, the kind that made most people think twice before requesting a slot on his list. But the man who sat across from him now wasn't on any official visitor log. He'd come through the same channel everything important came through: quietly, expensively, and off the books entirely."You look like you didn't sleep," Julian said, studying him.The man's hands were still faintly scraped, a bruise blooming dark along one side of his jaw. He hadn't bothered to hide it, which told Julian something on its own a man that rattled didn't usually care about appearances anymore."I didn't," the man said."Tell me."The man's throat worked once before he spoke, like the words themselves were difficult to get out."Someone was already at the property," he said. "Before I could get anywhere near the house. I didn't even hear h
The Bodyguards boy HOLLOW GRAVE
The rain hadn’t stopped since dawn.It came down in soft sheets that blurred the skyline and soaked through umbrellas, turning the city into a gray watercolor. The cemetery sat on a low hill, flanked by stone angels darkened by weather and time. Every inch of ground shimmered with rainwater puddles
The Bodyguards boy Ghosts of the Living
The Wesley estate sat at the edge of the city like a monument to wealth and denial three floors of glass and silence, sprawling gardens, and gates tall enough to keep the world out.Rowan’s car slowed as the iron gates swung open, creaking like something ancient that didn’t want to move. The headli
The Bodyguards boy Stop Digging
The night pressed in around Rowan like a weight. He had been moving through it for hours, the city’s lights slipping past the windshield of his car, unregistered, meaningless. He wasn’t heading anywhere specific, not yet, but if he stayed still, if he sat long enough in the penthouse where Cassian’
The Bodyguards boy Echo’s in the dark
The city never really slept, but tonight it felt like it was mourning. Headlines flickered across glowing screens on every corner:CASSIAN WESLEY PRESUMED DEAD IN COASTAL HIGHWAY EXPLOSION.A neat, devastating line for the tabloids to chew on. A scandal ended. A tragedy reborn. But Rowan Maddox cou
You may also like
In Love With My Hot Stepbrothers
Alexia Praks27.7K viewsBonded
Addie Bell35.2K viewsCLITERELLA
Rooms35.0K viewsHIS TO CONQUER
Purpleink31.9K viewsKnotting the Hunter
Quinn Montclair6.2K viewsThe monster's fated prey
Cece writes 281 viewsOmega of Two Packs
Blacktides601 viewsMy Grumpy Roommate Is My Fated Match
Grytonna429 views
