POV: Elena MontroseI couldn’t breathe.The words on the screen—those damn words—stared back at me from my phone, flashing like neon lights in the dark, casting shadows over my thoughts. I should’ve known. Of course, it would happen eventually. It had been too perfect, too clean. I had buried my past so deeply, wrapped it up with lies and lies, and hidden it behind a facade that had started to crack. But now, the cracks were too visible to ignore.The headline was simple: The Mysterious Past of Elena Montrose: Secrets Revealed? Beneath it, a grainy photo of me from what felt like another life—distant, blurred, like a memory that no one should’ve been able to reach. The caption beneath the photo wasn’t much better: Sources claim Elena Montrose, wife of billionaire Damien Crest, has a history connected to a high-profile scandal involving Montrose Enterprises. But how deep does it go? My blood ran cold.This was it—the first salvo in the war I’d been waging from the shadows. Someone was
POV: Elena Montrose The countryside estate was as cold as the man who brought me here.Damien’s mansion in the city was an imposing fortress of glass and steel, but this place—this sprawling estate hidden in the hills—was another kind of isolation altogether. Surrounded by acres of thick forest, it stood like a monument to both wealth and solitude, with stone walls and a roof as dark as the sky overhead. A place designed for safety or so he said. I was starting to wonder if he believed in safety at all.The storm had rolled in the night we arrived. Thick clouds swallowed the moon, and the wind howled like a living thing, pressing against the walls of the house. Inside, the crackling of the fireplace was the only sound that dared to compete with the storm outside. I had expected this retreat to be a time of rest, a chance to regroup. Instead, it felt like a cage, albeit one gilded in luxury.I walked through the long hallways, my footsteps echoing in the silence until I reached the ma
POV: Elena MontroseThe crisp scent of old paper filled the air as I flipped through the file, each sheet a piece of history that had once belonged to my father, to Montrose Holdings. Names, dates, transactions—all meticulously documented, all proving what I’d already known: the empire my father had built was being dismantled, piece by piece.I ran my finger over the ink, pausing on one particular document. The paper was slightly frayed at the edges as if it had been handled often—maybe even hidden for years. It was a transaction record, an exchange between Montrose Holdings and several unknown entities. But the date was what caught my attention. Five years ago.A cold shiver ran down my spine as I read the next line. Damien Crest’s name was listed as one of the signatories on this document. He wasn’t just a bystander in the collapse of my family’s legacy—he had been involved. But the document told a different story than I expected. It wasn’t a purchase or a hostile takeover. It wasn
The night stretched before me like a shadow, thick and suffocating. I sat in Damien’s study again, this time with an entirely different purpose. The files that usually occupied the space, neat, had been swept aside. I wasn’t looking for evidence of his corporate wrongdoings, nor was I searching for ways to bring him to his knees. No, tonight was different. Tonight, I was hunting something far more personal, something that spoke to the heart of the man I was trapped with.I had found it by accident, of course. A slip of paper in the back of a drawer, buried beneath other meaningless notes. It had been too tempting. The curiosity that had led me into his study before was a beast that couldn’t be tamed. And when I had pulled the drawer open, I had discovered something unexpected: a small velvet box.At first, I had convinced myself it was nothing more than a keepsake. A trinket from his past—perhaps a token of his previous relationships, but nothing that would affect the present. But the
Elena Montrose’s POV There’s a difference between silence and stillness.The boardroom at Crest Enterprises was silent, yes—but not still. It pulsed with tension, sharp and alive like the room itself was bracing for war. Every man at that long obsidian table adjusted his tie one too many times, tapped a finger against a touch-screen, or glanced—carefully—at the man at the head of it all.Damien Crest.He hadn’t looked at me once since we entered the room, even though he’d pulled out the chair beside his with practiced precision. Even though his hand had hovered at the small of my back for a second longer than necessary as we walked in. The warmth of that gesture still lingered on my skin like a bruise I didn’t know I wanted.I wasn’t supposed to be here.Technically, it was a quarterly strategy meeting with international partners—meaning no spouses, no guests, and certainly no wives dragged from a sham marriage contract. But Damien had insisted.“Visibility,” he said cryptically the
The storm had passed, but the clouds hadn’t.They lingered over the countryside estate like a warning. Ominous and low, pressing against the sky as if the heavens themselves was reluctant to breathe.I stood by the window of the guest room, my arms wrapped tightly around myself. The countryside should have been a reprieve, a lull in the chaos of our marriage—a place to breathe.But the silence here wasn’t peaceful. It was loud with questions I couldn’t answer.Damien had been different since the night of the almost-kiss. That moment in the library—storm outside, firelight dancing across the scar on his chest—had left something unfinished between us. I hadn’t let it happen. I couldn’t. But the look in his eyes when I pulled away haunted me more than any ghost from my past.There was pain there. Not rejection.Something else. Something deeper.I hadn’t seen him since breakfast. He said he had meetings to attend via video call, but I didn’t ask questions. He didn’t offer explanations. Th
Elena Montrose’s POVThe morning fog clung to the estate like a secret, wrapping the manicured hedges and stone fountains in a damp hush. I stood by the tall windows of the drawing room, watching the mist blur the edges of the world, my fingers curled around a porcelain cup that had long since gone cold.Something had shifted since I found those photos in the cellar.The quiet between Damien and me was no longer filled with tension—it was heavy with unspoken truths, circling like vultures above a battlefield. He hadn’t brought up the photos. Neither had I. But we both knew that Pandora’s Box had been opened, and the clock was ticking until everything inside spilled out.I was about to set the cup down when a faint knock came at the door.It was one of the housekeepers—pale, nervous, holding a thin envelope in trembling hands. “This was left for you, madam. It wasn’t in the mail. It was… slipped under the door.”That alone was enough to make my blood run cold.I took the envelope and w
Elena Montrose’s POVThe silence between us was thick enough to choke on.Damien hadn’t said a word since we returned from the city, and neither had I. The air in the car had been tense, tight, like a bowstring drawn too far back. Now, in the quiet of the estate, it felt even more unbearable.He was pacing in front of the fireplace, sleeves rolled up, jaw clenched. Every movement screamed restraint like he was holding back something volatile.And I couldn’t take it anymore.“You haven’t said a damn thing since we got back,” I snapped, arms crossed as I leaned against the doorframe of the library.“I didn’t realize silence required your permission,” he replied without looking at me.It was infuriating—the way he wielded his control like a shield. A fortress. Always composed. Always in command. Even now, with that threatening note still burned into both of our memories, he acted as if nothing could touch him.But it had touched me.It had cut through the steel I’d built around myself.S
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 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 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 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 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 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
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
The silence between us was the kind that suffocated. Heavy. Impenetrable. I stood by the window, arms crossed over my chest, staring out into the night as if the moonlight might somehow illuminate answers that Damien refused to give.He sat behind me, still pale, fresh out of the hospital bed, but his voice was steady when he finally said it.“Elena, your father is alive.”The world didn’t tilt. It shattered. Glass-on-concrete kind of shatter. I turned slowly, too afraid that if I blinked, he’d say something cruel, something to take it back.“What did you say?”“He’s not dead,” Damien repeated, his jaw tightening. “He survived the fire. Barely. And he’s in hiding, under government protection.”My knees buckled. I didn’t fall, but I staggered, catching the edge of the table like it was the only solid thing in my collapsing world. “That’s not possible,” I whispered. “I saw the wreckage. The explosion. I buried a coffin. I,”“It wasn’t him in the coffin,” Damien said quietly.“No.” I sho
Elena’s POVThe quiet hum of the villa at dawn should have been soothing. The storm had passed, leaving only the distant sound of rainwater trickling down the gutters. But the air in the room felt thick - heavy with unspoken words, unfinished conversations, and the weight of everything that had unfolded over the past few days.Damien still lay unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady. The bandages on his shoulder had been replaced during the night, and his skin was pale, drained of color. But the subtle rise and fall of his chest gave me a sense of relief. The doctor had said the bullet wouldn’t kill him, but seeing him like this - vulnerable, at the mercy of whatever had brought him to this point - stirred something in me that I wasn’t ready to face.I couldn’t look away from him.My mind kept racing, flipping through everything I’d discovered. The flash drive. The contract. The confirmation that my father hadn’t just fallen victim to a fire, but had been deeply involved in some