FAZER LOGINThe Kingsley estate remained quiet long after Kyra left Cressida’s sitting room. But miles away in Ashbourne, a different kind of silence filled Aria’s study.The room was dim except for the warm desk lamp near the window. Reports and documents were spread neatly across the table beside her laptop, most of them connected to Stonebridge, Kingsley Holdings, and the growing network surrounding her mother’s past.Aria had been staring at the same page for several minutes without really reading it.Too much had happened too quickly. Solen was still missing. Alessia had nearly been taken. Stonebridge was already moving quietly behind the scenes. Every step now felt heavier than before.Her phone vibrated beside the desk.Marcus.Aria looked at the screen briefly before answering after the second ring.“You just got engaged,” she said lightly, leaning back in her chair. “Shouldn’t you be spending time with your fiancée instead of calling me? I don’t want Beatrice misunderstanding this.”Norm
Back in Stonebridge, Kyra Kingsley had not been idle.While Ashbourne remained wrapped in music, glass, and carefully spoken conversations, Kyra sat alone in a private office inside the Kingsley estate, going through reports that never reached her under her own name. Nothing she read could be traced back to her. Every update passed through layers of intermediaries, quiet handlers who filtered, reworded, and moved information so the source stayed invisible.On paper, Kyra Kingsley was only the daughter of the Kingsley family. Polished, presentable, involved in branding and public relations under Kingsley Holdings.Nothing beyond that.In reality, she had been tracking Aria Montclair for a long time. The latest report arrived without ceremony.Aria had been seen moving through Ashbourne’s elite circles, Marcus Sterling, Nolan Volkov, Adrian Wolfe. Names that carried influence across different layers of power. She wasn’t just appearing in social spaces anymore. She was moving through the
The celebration continued deep into the night, but for Aria, it felt less like a party and more like something to quietly move through.She had arrived without drawing attention and stayed near the edges of the ballroom where she could observe without becoming part of the crowd. Her black satin gown was simple compared to the glitter around her, but that simplicity only made her stand out more.From across the room, she noticed Adrian watching her.He didn’t come over.Not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew what a place like this could turn into. In Ashbourne, even a simple exchange could become gossip by morning. So he stayed where he was, posture controlled, expression steady, though the tension in his jaw gave him away.Still, his eyes stayed on her.A few men had been circling Aria through the night, speaking to her under the polite cover of business. Too smooth. Too interested. Adrian couldn’t tell if they
A few days after Solen’s disappearance, the Vale household no longer felt like a home.Richard rarely stayed in one place. His days were spent in closed-door meetings, encrypted calls, and quiet consultations with people who could operate without drawing attention. Officially, Solen’s disappearance didn’t exist, no headlines, no ransom demands, nothing.That silence unsettled him most.He had already exhausted every discreet channel he trusted, private investigators, former intelligence contacts, legal firms with offshore reach. Every lead ended the same way.Nothing.It was as if Solen had been erased.As the days passed, frustration grew heavier, turning his office into a war room, stacked files, constant surveillance reports, and a phone that never stopped ringing.That frustration slowly hardened into anger. And whether he admitted it or not, part of it kept circling back to Aria.Before Aria returned, Solen had been safe and the family stable. Now Selene’s past had returned throu
Meanwhile, at his private study in the Kingsley estate, Shawn remained buried in work long after the rest of the world had slowed down.The room was quiet except for the soft ticking of an antique clock and the soft glow of a desk lamp reflecting off polished wood. Everything inside it was arranged with precision and restraint, the same way Shawn lived his life.He sat behind his desk reviewing documents from a late board meeting, expression steady and unreadable. Nothing in his posture suggested distraction. Nothing suggested doubt.A knock came at the door.“Come in,” Shawn said without looking up.The door opened and his longtime assistant stepped inside. Parker had worked for the Kingsley family for nearly thirty years, long enough to understand timing, silence, and when not to ask questions.“There’s something you may want to see,” Parker said carefully.Shawn didn’t look up right away. “If it concerns tomorrow’s meeting, send it to legal.”“It’s not about business.”That made Sh
Back at the safehouse, silence settled heavily after the masked man left.Solen remained seated, staring into nothing. The room was plain and temporary by design, but that only made it feel more isolating. No clocks. No sense of time. Just the low hum of the air conditioning and her own thoughts pressing harder by the minute.She told herself to stay calm.Her life had been built on discipline, control, and separating emotion from judgment. But control only worked when there was certainty. And right now, certainty was gone.The masked man’s words kept circling in her mind.At first, she resisted them. She recognized the pressure for what it was, carefully placed, deliberate, meant to bend her thinking without direct force.But awareness didn’t make it weaker.The moment Alessia was mentioned, the leverage became clear. That was what they had found in her, fear for her daughter, not for herself.Her breath tightened as she remembered how close Alessia had come to being taken. The threa







