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Chapter 20 – The Breaking Point
Huling Na-update:
2025-05-05 17:15:19
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The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 21 – Smoke and Secrets
Elena Montrose’s POVThe world around me shattered with the explosion. One moment, Damien and I were standing in the hallway, the heat of his anger and the tension between us thick enough to cut with a knife. The next, the world exploded into chaos.The force of the blast threw me to the ground, the world spinning in a blur of fire and smoke. My ears rang. The taste of ash and metal lingered in my mouth. For a moment, everything felt muffled, as if I were trapped in a nightmare. My heart raced, pounding in my chest like a drum.I tried to push myself up, but a sharp pain shot through my leg, making me gasp. My vision swam. Then I heard Damien’s voice, distant but familiar.“Elena?”His hand was on my arm, pulling me to my feet, his touch firm but shaking. He was covered in debris, dust settling in his hair and along his jacket. His face was a mask of focused fury, but there was something else - something I couldn’t place. Concern? Fear?He caught sight of the blood on my leg, his face
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 22 – She Dreams of Fire
Elena Montrose’s POVThe night pressed in around me, a suffocating stillness. I could barely breathe as I lay there, staring up at the darkened ceiling of the villa. The soft rustling of trees in the distance was the only sound, but even that felt too loud in the silence that stretched between Damien and me. The weight of everything that had happened, everything we’d uncovered hung over us like a thick fog, choking out any peace.I shifted in the bed, pulling the covers closer despite the heat. My leg throbbed, a constant reminder of the chaos that had unfolded hours before, but it was nothing compared to the ache in my chest. It wasn’t just the physical pain; it was everything I had learned. The explosion, the secrets, and the realization that Damien had been caught up in something far bigger than either of us. And now, I was trapped in this web, struggling to find a way out.I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would bring some relief. But instead, it brought only nightmares.Flames, So m
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 23 – The Hacker’s Final Message
Elena Montrose’s POVThe villa was too quiet.That kind of silence, the unnatural kind - wasn’t peace. It was the hush before a scream, the breath before a bullet. And I knew it. My instincts had been honed by fire, betrayal, and years of surviving in the shadows. Every tick of the antique clock on the wall was a countdown. I just didn’t know what it was ticking toward.I sat alone in the study, the laptop open on the desk. Milo's encrypted drive was plugged in. I’d been trying for hours to decode the remaining files, but every firewall he’d bypassed in his final upload felt like a warning. Like he knew he wouldn’t be able to protect me much longer.The message came in at 2:13 a.m.Unknown Sender: Check your secure inbox, now.I didn’t hesitate.I opened the private vault—an encrypted server Milo had set up years ago, buried under false identities and routing tunnels. The message was waiting. One file. No text. Just a timestamp: Ten minutes before he died.My heart dropped.I clicked.
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 24 – Trust Without Truth
Elena Montrose’s POV“What did you say?”Reid stepped forward.“Damien doesn’t know. No one does. But the truth is, your father didn’t die in that fire.”My knees buckled. “You’re lying.”“Am I?”He leaned down, his breath cold against my skin.“Ask yourself this, who benefits from a dead man’s legacy staying buried?Who stands to lose everything if the truth comes out?”He straightened. “You wanted the truth, Elena. Now you have it.”He turned to go.And then, just before he disappeared into the night, he said one final thing: “Your father is still alive.”The villa Damien had taken me to after the explosion was high in the cliffs, secluded and shielded by thick forest and security no one could breach without setting off alarms loud enough to shake the earth.But it was too quiet.Too still.The kind of silence that made the lies between us hum louder.I stood at the balcony’s edge, watching mist curl between the pines like smoke from a ghost fire. The hacker was dead. Milo—the one
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 25 – The Ex Returns
Elena Montrose’s POVThe sky was a dreary gray when the black car pulled up the gravel drive of the villa. Rain tapped lightly against the tall windows, the sound somehow more ominous than soothing. I watched from the shadows of the foyer, heart clenching as the sleek door opened and long legs emerged, followed by a flash of designer heels and windswept auburn hair.She walked with the kind of confidence you couldn’t fake.The kind that came from once having been loved by Damien Crest.Damien didn’t move when he saw her. He stood by the fireplace, a tumbler in hand, his jaw ticking once.“Hello, Damien,” she said smoothly like she’d been rehearsing the line in the mirror. “It’s been a while.”I stayed just out of view, but not out of earshot.“Charlotte,” Damien said flatly. His tone didn’t betray anything—no surprise, no warmth. But his hand tightened around the glass.She smiled, unbothered. “You’re as cold as ever. I take it the explosion hasn’t thawed that icy heart?”“You shouldn
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 26 – Elena’s Father’s Watch
Elena Montrose’s POVThe rain had finally stopped by morning, but the villa still carried the weight of damp shadows. I moved through the quiet halls barefoot, drawn by a strange restlessness in my chest. Something had shifted. Last night’s whisper “What do you want me to do with her?” - Still echoed in my skull like a curse.Charlotte was dangerous. That much was clear.I passed Damien’s study, his door ajar. He was on a call, his voice low and curt. I paused long enough to catch a few words “Keep surveillance on all entries… I want a full report on who accessed the servers last week”.Tension bristled at the edge of his tone. He was suspicious of everyone now. Maybe even me. When I reached the master bedroom, I found myself moving toward the mahogany dresser by the window. Damien never let anyone touch the top drawer. That made it irresistible.My fingers trembled as I eased it open.Inside, amid the chaos of cufflinks and sealed envelopes, was something I hadn’t seen in years.A wa
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 27 – The Night of Almost
Elena Montrose’s POVThe villa was silent, the kind of silence that wrapped around you and made your own breath sound intrusive. I stood on the balcony, the doors cracked open just enough for the cold night breeze to brush against my skin like ghost fingers.Somewhere behind me, Damien was pacing. He’d been doing it for hours…back and forth across the floor, saying nothing, glancing at me every so often like he wanted to speak but didn’t trust his voice.We hadn’t spoken since the discovery of my father’s watch in his drawer. Since he swore he hadn’t taken it. Since he looked me in the eye and told me someone had mailed it to him, no note, no explanation. A mystery wrapped in metal and time.And now… now I felt like the edge of everything was fraying.“Do you ever sleep?” I asked quietly, not turning to face him.A long pause. “Not much.”“Because of work?”His footsteps stopped. “Because of ghosts”.I turned, slowly, leaning my shoulder against the balcony doorframe. “You mean the on
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 28 – The Enemy in the House
Elena Montrose’s POVI’d always believed danger would come in shadows, in distant phone calls or veiled threats coded in silence. I didn’t expect it to knock on our front door in broad daylight.The villa had settled into a deceptive calm since Damien’s ex-fiancée departed, leaving behind a heavy silence and a sharper wedge of doubt between us. I hadn’t spoken to him much since “The Night of Almost” We’d both withdrawn, nursing old wounds and the taste of a kiss that never happened.But quiet wasn’t safe.And when the housekeeper brought me coffee that morning, her hands trembling slightly, I should’ve known.Something was wrong.Damien had gone out back to make a secure call, leaving me alone in the study. I was flipping through one of the files Milo had decrypted before his death, useless fragments, timestamps, a few more references to “Viper” when I heard the softest sound behind me.The click of a safety being released.I turned slowly.He stood at the threshold - Colton, one of D
Huling Na-update : 2025-05-05
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The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 40 – The Real Enemy… Is Family
The mansion felt quieter than usual. Not just in volume, but in energy. Like it was holding its breath, waiting for something to detonate.I stood at the tall glass window of Damien’s study, the night bleeding into the sky, the city twinkling in oblivion. Everything was moving forward out there, cars, people, deals. But inside me, everything had come to a halt.The revelation from hours ago still pulsed behind my eyes: Damien’s assistant, the one who knew every security detail, every shadow in this house, had been Viper’s mole.The explosion.The threats.The surveillance.All orchestrated from the inside.And yet… that wasn’t the part haunting me.It was what Damien had said just before we confronted the traitor, his voice hoarse, like dragging confession from his throat. “There’s still someone worse than him. Someone you trust.”I had brushed it off in the chaos. I didn’t want to believe it. But now, every memory from my past seemed to shift under that possibility. Because the trut
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 39 – Betrayal from Within
The silence in the Crest estate was deceptive, like the calm before a devastating storm. I stood by the window, arms crossed, staring at the sprawling grounds bathed in the pale gray of a brooding dawn. The mansion had been too quiet lately, too perfect. And that perfection unnerved me.Damien was in his study, poring over files that had arrived from a private investigator he trusted. Since discovering the truth about my mother’s locket and our shared past with his brother Lucas, things between us had shifted again. Not in an explosive, heartbreaking way, but quietly. Intensely. Like the slow tightening of a knot, we both knew we couldn’t escape.We were living under one roof, sharing information, even meals, but neither of us said what needed to be said. There was too much history, too much pain. And something told me the worst was yet to come.The creak of the floor behind me pulled me from my thoughts. I turned.It was Samuel.Damien’s longtime personal assistant. Impeccably dresse
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 38 – The Fake Affair
The photo still burned in my mind.That image of me and Lucas Crest, Damien’s younger brother, laughing in a sun-drenched garden, tucked away inside my mother’s old locket. A locket that Damien had kept hidden in his safe, buried beneath layers of secrets. I hadn’t spoken much to him since confronting him about it. The look in his eyes that day, half guilt, half pain, told me everything and nothing.I didn’t know what to believe anymore. But I knew I couldn’t run.Not with Viper still out there.Not with the pieces of this puzzle finally starting to fit.And certainly not with the media closing in after someone leaked a tip that Damien Crest and I were back under the same roof. The headlines were spinning wild theories. Most were salacious, and all were wrong. We needed to shift the spotlight. To misdirect whoever was watching. Whoever had been feeding on the chaos surrounding us.That’s how the idea of the fake affair was born.It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Just a strategy. A
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 37 – The Locket
The air in Damien’s office felt heavier than usual, thick with unspoken words and unresolved tension. After the revelations about my father and the increasingly complicated web of lies we were trapped in, I wasn’t sure where I stood with Damien anymore. His silence, though, was what was strangling me now.As I wandered the room, I tried to shake off the unease that had settled deep in my chest. The papers on Damien’s desk, documents, contracts, more secrets, didn’t hold my attention. Not right now. It was the feeling of being watched, of being on the edge of something, something huge, that had my mind swirling.I moved instinctively toward the safe in the corner of the room. It was a part of this strange world Damien inhabited, locked away in secrets, protected by a combination no one but him could crack. Yet, in the weeks I’d spent at his side, I’d come to realize that nothing was truly safe in his world, not even the things he hid.The door to the safe creaked open, and I felt a thr
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 36 – Someone's Watching
The knock on the door startled me, pulling me from my thoughts. My hands were shaking as I set the file down, eyes scanning the words on the page, the weight of the information pressing against my chest. The familiar tension between Damien and me was still heavy in the air, but there was something more, a lingering sense that the ground beneath us was crumbling, and we were running out of time.I stood up quickly, smoothing my dress as I approached the door. My heart raced in anticipation of what was coming next.When I opened it, I found a manila envelope lying on the doorstep. No one was there, and the silence felt unnerving as if the world had stopped, holding its breath. I bent down to pick it up, my mind spinning with possibilities. With one swift motion, I tore open the envelope. Inside, I found a stack of surveillance photos. The first one hit me like a punch to the gut.Damien.And my father.The photos were grainy, taken from a distance, but unmistakable. Damien was sitting
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 35 – The First Kiss (That Meant Something)
The event had been a disaster from the start.I knew it was going to be bad when I stepped into the lavish ballroom, my heels clicking loudly on the marble floors. The Gala for Women in Business had always been one of those affairs where the high-powered elite gathered to pretend they liked each other, exchanging smiles that never quite reached their eyes. But tonight felt different. The air was thick with tension, and the room was buzzing with whispered rumors.Elena Montrose. The notorious daughter of the disgraced billionaire. The woman who’d somehow gotten herself into the good graces of one of the most powerful CEO's in the world, Damien Crest.I had learned to ignore the rumors, to block out the judgment. But this time, it was harder. Because I wasn’t just the daughter of a man everyone despised; I was also the woman whose name was now permanently etched beside Damien’s. And not in a way that was accepted by everyone.The whispers, the glances, the subtle slights, I had become a
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 34 – The Alliance
The sound of the rain against the villa’s glass panels was steady, calming, and almost deceptively peaceful. But inside, the air between Damien and me was charged. Not with anger or suspicion, but something far more volatile, truth.Real truth.We sat across from each other in the dim glow of the living room, a spread of files, photographs, and encrypted flash drives laid out between us like the pieces of a broken life. Mine. His. Ours.Damien leaned forward, his sleeves rolled up, revealing a constellation of bruises and healing cuts. The gunshot wound to his shoulder still had him favoring his left side, but he hadn’t slowed down. If anything, his intensity had doubled."This one," he said, tapping a picture of a board member from my father's company, "was at the meeting where the Montrose Agreement was signed. But he died in a car crash two weeks later. That’s too convenient."I nodded slowly, my eyes tracing the fine lines of suspicion and betrayal etched across the documents. "Th
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 33 – Back to the Fire
The scent hit me first.Ash and damp wood, long cooled by time but never forgotten. It clung to the ruins like a ghost. The burned Montrose estate stood before me, the skeletal remains of what used to be my family’s empire. A mausoleum made of memories.The wind rustled through the blackened trees lining the perimeter, whispering secrets in a language only the past understood.I hadn’t planned to come here. But something inside me, something raw and restless, had driven me back to this place. The flash drive Damien showed me had ignited more than just questions. It had cracked open a door I thought I’d sealed forever.Now I stood here again. Alone. Or so I thought.“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice came from behind me, low and rough.I turned, heart jerking. Damien stepped out from the shadows cast by what used to be our garden archway. His coat fluttered in the wind, his face pale beneath the overcast sky.“I needed to see it,” I said my voice barely a whisper.Damien walked beside
The CEO’s Vengeful Bride Chapter 32 – Code Name: Viper
Elena’s POVI stared at the encrypted file again, the name “Viper” pulsing on the screen like a warning I couldn’t unseen. The drive had been locked tight, but Damien’s tech specialist, reluctantly sworn to secrecy, managed to recover fragments of conversations, redacted signatures, and timestamps. Everything pointed towards a corporate elite… someone powerful, protected, and cold enough to order executions under code names."Viper says she's getting too close. Remove her."My hands shook slightly as I scrolled through the fragmented logs. The deeper I looked, the worse it got. Government connections. Offshore accounts. A cover-up that spanned a decade. And all of it centered on one question that haunted me like a whisper in the dark:Who is Viper?Damien stood at the edge of the study, arms crossed, face unreadable as always. But his silence was different now, no longer suspicious, just... resigned."You're thinking what I'm thinking," I said without looking at him.“That the snake
