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Chapter 40: The Man in Handcuffs

Author: Olamilekan Adesola
last update publish date: 2026-09-29 01:18:04

The man walked out of the hotel less than ten minutes after he went in. Nothing had happened to make him leave. He had just spent too many days being hunted to trust a lobby with a clerk who looked at him twice, and he decided a moving target was harder to catch than a sitting one.

He kept his hood pulled low and his hands in his pockets, and he kept looking over his shoulder at every corner. His face was on the front page of a newspaper now, which meant every person on the street was a possi
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  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 56: The Distance Between Them

    Claire was awake long before Adrian stirred, lying still beside him, running back through everything she'd pieced together the night before. When he finally woke and reached for her the way he usually did in the mornings, she answered him politely enough, but didn't offer much beyond it. "You're quiet," he said, studying her. "Just tired." "Is something wrong?" "I'm fine." She sat up, pulling her hair back. "What are your plans for today?" "Knight Holdings. I need to get back in, even with the suspension hanging over everything." He hesitated. "You should stay home. Keep resting." Claire didn't argue, though she noticed the small, unmistakable relief that crossed his face when she didn't push back. Adrian opened his mouth once, as if he might say something more, something honest, but the moment passed, and he said nothing at all. He got dressed and left for the office with the uncomfortable sense that the space between them had widened overnight, though he couldn't have said exa

  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 55: Adrian's Second Lie

    "So what changed," Claire asked, her voice even, almost gentle, the kind of gentle that unsettled him more than anger would have. "You told the staff you were going to see Marsh. Then you weren't with Marsh. So what changed?" "I was going to see him," Adrian said carefully. "Then something came up. I had to deal with it instead." "What came up?" "A personal matter." Claire tilted her head slightly, watching him the way she'd started watching him this past week, patient, unhurried, like she had all the time in the world to wait him out. "What kind of personal matter?" "It's handled now. It doesn't matter." "It matters to me." "Did it involve Victoria?" "No." "Okay," Claire said finally. "I believe you." Her voice was calm, almost warm, and for one brief, foolish second Adrian let himself think the conversation was actually over. Then she stood, gathering her book off the sofa, and walked past him toward the stairs without another word. * * * He found her in the kitchen an h

  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 54: The Lie

    “Why would he tell the staff he was coming to see you?” Claire asked, the question coming out sharper than she meant it to.“I have no idea,” Marsh said. “I haven’t spoken to him in days.”Claire tried to wave it off, forcing a small laugh that didn’t quite land. “He’s probably just confused. It’s been a stressful week for everyone.”Marsh studied her for a moment, not fully convinced. “Has he been acting strangely?”Claire hesitated, weighing how much to say to a detective rather than a friend. “There’s a woman. Victoria. She keeps calling him, showing up at the house. He says it’s nothing, but—”“But you don’t believe him,” Marsh finished.“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”Something in Marsh’s posture eased slightly, the tension he’d been carrying since she first asked about Adrian settling into something more neutral. Whatever this was, it clearly had nothing to do with the case, which was, in its own strange way, a relief. He didn’t push her further.“When can I actually go

  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 53: The Condition

    Victoria called back within the hour, her tone entirely different from the icy calm of their last conversation."I don't want to fight over the phone anymore," she said. "Come to my apartment. Let's actually talk, face to face, like adults.""No.""I still have the pictures, Adrian." Her voice stayed level, almost gentle, which made it worse. "Don't make me remind you of that every time."He stood there a long moment, phone pressed to his ear, weighing every bad option against every worse one."One conversation," he said finally. "That's it."* * *Adrian checked on Claire before he left and found her asleep, curled on her side, her breathing slow and even. He stood in the doorway a moment, something heavy settling in his chest at the sight of her, before he quietly pulled the door shut and went to find one of the staff."If she wakes up and asks where I am," he said, "tell her I went to see Marsh."The lie came out of him so easily now that it barely registered as one anymore, and th

  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 52: The Lie

    "What happened between both of you," Claire asked again, when he didn't answer fast enough, her voice steady but insistent in the dark. Adrian felt the question land exactly where he'd been dreading it would all evening. He thought of Victoria's apartment, the wine, the photo that had already cost him so many sleepless hours this week, the voicemail he still hadn't let himself listen to twice. He wasn't ready. He didn't know if he'd ever be ready, and some part of him suspected that readiness was never going to arrive on its own, that he'd have to force the truth out eventually or it would keep eating away at every conversation they had like this one. "Nothing happened between us," he said. Claire studied his face for a long moment, the kind of look that felt like it was reading something underneath his skin rather than on top of it, the same careful attention she'd been paying him for days now, cataloguing every small inconsistency without saying so out loud. She didn't say anyt

  • The Substitute Bride   Chapter 51: The Question

    Claire went upstairs without a word, her mind still turning over what she'd heard on the terrace. She changed into her nightclothes slowly, replaying the fragments again and again as she moved, trying to arrange them into something that made sense. Delete it, she kept hearing. And somewhere in there, a name. Victoria. She got into bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin, though sleep felt impossibly far away. She stared at the ceiling, going back over the last few weeks in her head, every strange phone call, every sudden change in his mood, the aunt who hadn't really called, the night he'd disappeared without explanation after she'd been discharged, Victoria sitting so comfortably in their sitting room like she had every right to be there. None of it had made sense on its own. Together, it was starting to form a shape she didn't like. She heard Adrian's footsteps on the stairs sometime later, slower than usual, like a man bracing himself for something. He paused at the bedroom doo

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