LOGINRonan's POV The words hung in the air, poison-tipped arrows finding every unguarded crevice of my mind. Shadow Fang. Sabotage. Murder. For a second, the world whited out, reduced to the frantic drum of my own pulse and the vicious triumph on Jessica’s face. The grief for my parents, a wound I carried so deep I’d built my entire being around it, was suddenly ripped open and violated. “What did you say?” The question came out as a raw scrape of sound. “You heard me,” Jessica hissed, leaning further over the desk, her eyes blazing. “The Hubbard name is a lie. Her ‘human’ parents were Shadow Fang operatives. They planted the device that sent your parents’ car off that cliff. Gideon has proof. Financial records, communications… it’s all there. She didn’t come to you by accident, Ronan. She was a mission. A revenge mission, or a cleanup. And now she’s cozying up to my father, digging for more secrets. She’s not your mate; she’s your family’s curse.” Every instinct roared to reject it,
Ronan's POV The pain was a living thing. It started behind my eyes, a rhythmic, punishing throb that pulsed in time with my heartbeat and radiated out, tightening my skull and coiling nausea in my gut. I hadn’t been this hungover since I was a reckless twenty-year-old. The stale, sour taste of bourbon and regret coated my tongue. I’d tried to drown the image of Lana walking away, the phantom feel of the mate bond stretching thin and cold, in a bottle of my best whiskey. It hadn’t worked. It never did. Sunlight, entirely too cheerful, stabbed through a gap in the heavy drapes. The sound of the estate coming to life, the distant clatter from the kitchens, the low murmur of voices in the hall, the thud of something heavy being moved, was an assault. Every noise was a hammer on the anvil of my head. A firm, familiar knock sounded at the door. Idris. He didn’t wait for an answer. He entered, a solid, disapproving silhouette against the bright hallway. “You look like death,” he observed
Lana's POV The cold night air was a slap, shocking me into a desperate clarity. I couldn’t run to my room looking like this, torn blouse, scraped palms, leaves in my hair. That was a confession. I skidded to a stop behind a large marble statue of some hunting goddess, my breath coming in ragged, silent gasps. I could hear shouts from the west wing, but they were disorganized. Jessica had screamed “intruder,” not “Lana.” In the dark, from a balcony, she might not have gotten a perfect look. Think. Clean up. Look normal. I frantically brushed twigs and leaves from my hair and clothes. The tear in my silk blouse was high on the sleeve, near the shoulder. I could hold my arm to mask it. My stinging palms I shoved into my pockets. The phone, with its incendiary photos, was a hard, guilty rectangle against my thigh. I forced my breathing to slow, adopting the weary, bored expression of someone taking a late-night stroll. I stepped out from behind the statue and began walking at a normal
Lana's POV The heavy gates of Thornwood closed behind me with a finality that echoed in my bones. The drive back had been silent, the driver’s eyes fixed ahead, but I felt Gideon’s invisible gaze on me as if he’d been watching from every dark window. Had he seen me with Maison and Kaelia in the park? Did he know the Thorne name? My room felt less like a sanctuary and more like the elegantly appointed cell it was. I leaned against the locked door, replaying Maison’s words. You marry me. The proposal hadn’t been on bended knee with promises of forever. It had been a tactical maneuver, presented with the calm logic of a military extraction plan. A life raft. A fortress. A way to become Lana Thorne, a woman who could walk in the sun without looking over her shoulder for shadows with fangs. I had turned him down. Not outright, but with a whispered, “I need to think,” which in the language of dire choices, was a polite refusal. To marry Maison was to surrender. To declare the bond, tha
Lana's POV The word hung in the park’s twilight air, absurd and terrifying. Wolves. Kaelia and I stared at Maison, our carefully constructed world of half-truths and coded conversations shattering around us. He stood there holding two coffee cups, his expression not one of confusion, but of patient, grim understanding. My mind scrambled for a lie, any lie. “It’s… it’s a figure of speech,” I stammered, the words sounding hollow even to me. “A bad joke. Like, ‘throwing someone to the wolves’…” Maison set the second coffee cup down on the bench. He didn’t smile. “Lana. It’s okay. I know.” Three words. I know. Kaelia found her voice first, sharp with suspicion. “Know what, exactly?” Maison’s gaze shifted from my panicked face to Kaelia’s defensive stance. “I know about them. I’ve always had my suspicions about Bastien. The way he moved. The intensity in his eyes. The way everyone around him seemed to… defer.” He looked back at me. “But I knew for sure the day he broke my nose.” He
Lana's POV I moved like a ghost at work as my eyes still felt hazy from the revelation I made a few days ago. When I had this thought they treated me like I was insane but I was right. Every last words from Gideon kept replaying like a broken record in my head. My hands trembled slightly as I tried to adjust my hand on my computer. I clicked the wrong tool, accidentally deleting everything I had been working on. I swore under my breath, a sound swallowed by the sterile office air. How could I think about linen textures and accent lighting when I’d heard a man calmly ordering a mutilation? When that man was my self-proclaimed protector? Every interaction at Thornwood now felt like a performance, and I was waiting for Gideon to drop his mask and show me the monster beneath. The fear was no longer a generalized anxiety; it was a specific, chilling certainty. I was living with the monster. “Lana?” I jumped, my heart lurching against my ribs. Dana, the office manager, stood by my des




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