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Chapter 82

Penulis: Samantha Ely
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-10-01 08:47:40

Aristide

I didn’t speak when we left the cells.

Enzo stayed behind with the guards to keep Carlo breathing—barely. Elena kept her silence, though I could feel her eyes on me as I gripped Bella’s arm and guided her out. She didn’t resist, but her steps were too calm, too measured.

The weight of her secret pressed against my ribs like a blade.

Cipher.

The ghost in the dark.

The one I had sworn to root out before he could tear apart what we were building.

And she had known.

We reached the upper hall, and I dismissed the guards with a sharp flick of my hand. Bella stopped then, turning to face me. Her chin was lifted, her shoulders squared, as if bracing for the storm she knew was coming.

I closed the distance, my voice low and cutting. “How long?”

Her eyes didn’t waver. “A week. Maybe less.”

I laughed, bitter and humorless. “A week. A week, Izzy, and you chose to carry it in silence?”

“I chose to be sure,” she said, her tone measured, deliberate. “You of all people should understand that
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  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 88

    BellaThe estate was too quiet.That kind of quiet that doesn’t soothe—it presses. Every tick of the clock, every shift of the floorboards sounded amplified under my skin. I’d been awake since dawn, though the sky outside was still gray, the Hudson shrouded in mist that looked like smoke rising from unseen fires.Aristide, Marco, and Enzo were in the lower wing—the old strategy room that Matteo used before the renovations. I could hear them faintly through the floorboards, the muted rhythm of male voices, sharp commands, the scrape of metal. Preparation. Precision. War.I stood by the window overlooking the courtyard, one hand resting absently on the curve of my stomach. The baby had been restless all morning, a quiet, rhythmic movement that seemed to mirror my heartbeat. I wondered if she could feel my nerves. I whispered to her without thinking.“Your father’s coming back,” I said softly. “He always does.”Mabel’s reflection appeared behind me in the glass, a steaming cup of tea in

  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 87

    AristideBy the time we reached the estate, the night had gone black and heavy. The convoy’s engines echoed against the stone walls like distant thunder. My shoulder burned with every movement, the bullet that grazed me leaving a hot ache beneath the bandage Marco had slapped on in the truck.The guards were waiting at the gate—silent, alert. Word must’ve already spread that the strike had gone off. When I stepped out, their eyes darted to the blood seeping through my sleeve, then quickly away. They knew better than to comment.Bella was waiting at the top of the steps, the glow from the house behind her. She didn’t move until I was halfway up. Then she came down fast, her eyes scanning me, taking in the wound before anything else.“I’m fine,” I said before she could ask.Her gaze flicked up to mine—sharp, unamused. “That’s my line.”I almost smiled. Almost.Inside, the air was thick with tension and the smell of gun oil. Enzo had already gone to the war room to start unpacking what w

  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 86

    AristideThe coast was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that came before something ugly.I stood on the cliff’s edge as the sun broke over the horizon, spilling gold across the waves and lighting the villa below. The structure had once belonged to an old smuggler my father used for covert shipments—one of Matteo Moretti’s many forgotten outposts. It was the perfect place for Cipher to hide what he’d stolen from us.The sea air stung the shallow cut on my cheek, a reminder of how close we’d come last time. My ribs still burned when I breathed too deep, but I didn’t care. We were here to finish this.Enzo came up beside me, scanning the lower cliffs through his scope. “Three guards outside. One pacing the upper balcony. But that’s it. Too light.”“Too light,” Marco muttered, adjusting his rifle strap. “It feels wrong.”It did. Everything about this mission felt wrong—too clean, too easy. But the signal that Elena and Bella traced last night came straight here, bouncing off an encryp

  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 85

    AristideThe sea hadn’t quieted yet.Even after the blast, the strike, the silence that followed—it was still out there, restless, breathing against the shore as if it refused to let go. I felt the echo of it in my bones on the drive back, the phantom pulse of adrenaline that refused to fade.By the time the convoy reached the estate, the sun was threatening to rise. The guards at the gate stiffened when they saw the lead vehicle—recognizing the signal lights, understanding what that meant. Success. But success came with ghosts. It always did.I stepped out first, the gravel crunching beneath my boots. Bella was already there, framed by the porch light, hair still mussed from sleep but eyes wide awake. She didn’t wait for me to come to her. She met me halfway.“Any injuries?” she asked quietly.“None that won’t heal.” I didn’t tell her about the near miss—how one of Bianchi’s remnants had tried to detonate a failsafe charge before we’d neutralized the relay. I didn’t have the heart. N

  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 84

    AristideThe salt hit first—cold and bitter on my tongue as we dropped into the shadow of the depot. Floodlights painted the rusting containers a sterile white, turned the yard into sharp shapes and hideous silhouettes. The air tasted like a city that had given up on itself: diesel, old blood, wet wood. It was all too familiar and suddenly not at all.I was on the northern flank, Marco sliding in beside me like a second shadow. Luca and Dante were folded into the darkness at the edges, breathing slow and low. Our comms were a thin thread—enough to keep us honest, not enough to drown us in noise.“Pattern,” Marco mouthed. One, two—he counted without sound. “Three on the wall. Two at the truck. Rotate. Two-minute sweep.”I watched the patrol like a man who’d memorized a clock. Their steps were routine. Too routine. That’s the thing with men who think they’re invisible: they perform their invisibility until something breaks the rhythm. I signaled with two fingers. Luca slid forward, a gh

  • The Chosen Bride   Chapter 83

    AristideThe war room hummed with tension, the kind that settled in your bones and refused to let go. Pins on maps, radios crackling, the smell of coffee that had gone cold hours ago—it was the familiar heart of conflict, but this time it felt sharper, heavier.Cipher’s name had been dragged into the light. And once a shadow is named, it becomes real.I stood at the head of the table, knuckles pressed against the wood, eyes scanning every mark and note laid out before us. Enzo leaned heavily on his cane at my left, but his mind was sharp as ever. Elena hovered near the radios, fingers dancing over the dials as she shifted through frequencies, hunting ghosts in the static. Marco kept silent, arms folded across his chest, his jaw locked tight.Bella sat beside me. She didn’t speak, not at first, but I felt her presence like a steady flame—quiet, grounding, unyielding.“Carlo confirmed what we already suspected,” Enzo said, breaking the silence. “Cipher’s network isn’t centralized. It’s

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