LOGINThe envelope stayed on the floor between them.For a few seconds nobody touched it.Nathan finally crouched down and picked it up, turning it over carefully before opening it. No name on the front, no address, nothing that hinted where it had come from.He pulled out a thin stack of photographs and a folded document.Zara watched his expression change as he went through them."What is it?" Sebastian asked.Nathan didn't answer right away. He handed the first photograph over instead.Zara leaned closer to look. It was an old photo of a little girl standing beside a woman outside a large country house, the girl no older than four.She stared at it.She knew the woman.Her mother.Her breath caught. "I've seen this."Sebastian looked at her. "Where?""My mom had it."Nathan handed her another photograph, the same house from a different angle. A man stood near the entrance, younger than the Adrian they'd just met, but unmistakably him.Her fingers tightened around the edges of it. "I don'
Zara could not look away from him.For a moment the storage facility seemed to shrink around them. The dim light overhead, the cold concrete beneath her feet, Daniel standing several yards away with blood on his face, Nathan watching the corridor with one hand ready at his side. None of it mattered as much as the man standing in front of her.He looked exactly as she remembered.The same scar cutting through his left eyebrow. The same unsettling calm. The same eyes that had watched her from the doorway that night as though he'd known her long before she'd ever known him.Sebastian moved slightly in front of her.The man's gaze shifted to him at last. "You always do that."Sebastian's expression stayed cold. "Do what?""Stand between her and everything you don't understand."Zara felt his fingers tighten around hers."That's because I don't trust people who appear out of nowhere and expect me to believe they're protecting her."A faint smile touched the man's mouth. "I never said I was
The message stayed lit on Nathan's phone."COME BEFORE HE LEAVES AGAIN."Zara stared at it for several seconds before looking up. "He wants us to go there.""That's what it looks like," Nathan said.Sebastian took the phone and studied the photograph again. Daniel stood outside the storage facility, his face visible under the security light, tense but not visibly hurt. The man beside him had his back half turned to the camera, but the scar above his left eyebrow was unmistakable.The same man who had stood in the doorway that night.The same man who had told Zara she would come back to him.Sebastian handed the phone back. "We're not walking into a trap without knowing what we're dealing with."Nathan gave him a look. "We already know it's a trap.""I know.""Then why are we still standing here?"Sebastian reached for his keys. "Because this time, we're going prepared."Zara watched him closely. There was something different in his expression now. He wasn't angry, anger would have bee
Zara stayed staring at the photograph on Nathan's laptop.Daniel.The same man who'd smiled at her across the office every morning. The same man who had once brought her coffee when she was too buried in work to leave her desk. The same man she'd spoken to a hundred times without ever once wondering if there was another reason he kept finding excuses to be near her.Now she couldn't stop replaying every conversation they'd ever had. Every question he'd asked. Every look that had lingered a beat too long. Every moment she'd dismissed at the time because it had seemed so harmless."He knew me before I knew him," she said quietly.Nathan didn't answer right away.Sebastian's fingers tightened around hers. "We don't know that yet."She looked at him. "He had pictures of me from three years ago.""I know.""He was watching me.""I know.""Then what else don't we know?"He held her gaze steadily. "Everything that happened between those pictures and the day you walked into my office."The wo
Zara barely slept.Every time she closed her eyes, the photograph appeared again. Three years ago. Her younger self standing outside the old apartment. And beside her, the man whose face she had spent weeks trying to remember.But that wasn't the part that kept her awake.It was Daniel.Daniel, sitting across from her at work. Daniel, asking if she'd eaten. Daniel, laughing at something Chloe had said. Daniel, once telling her she looked tired and should go home early.How many of those moments had been real?How many had been an act?By six the next morning, Zara gave up on sleep entirely. She sat at the edge of the bed with her knees pulled to her chest, staring at nothing in particular.Sebastian woke almost immediately, watching her for a moment before sitting up beside her."You haven't slept."She shook her head. "I tried."He reached for her hand, and she let him take it."I'm scared."His expression tightened. "Of Daniel?""Of not knowing." She looked down at their joined hand
For the first time in weeks, Zara woke up without fear.No footsteps outside the door. No unknown number lighting up her phone. No photograph waiting to ruin the morning.Just sunlight slipping through the curtains and the steady sound of breathing beside her.She opened her eyes. Sebastian was still asleep, his arm stretched across the space between them, hand resting loosely against her waist, like even unconscious, some part of him still needed proof she was there.Zara smiled. Small. Almost unfamiliar.Peace.She turned onto her side and studied his face. The man who had terrified half of New York. The man who could silence a boardroom with a single look. The man who had once told her, in the earliest days, that he didn't need anyone.Yet somehow he'd spent the last few weeks making sure she never had to face anything alone.Her fingers drifted toward his face. Before she could touch him, his eyes opened."You're staring."She froze. "I wasn't.""You were.""You were sleeping.""I
The crowd wasn’t on Zara’s side not even for a second. Hands held her down while Tessa stood free in front of her, breathing hard, eyes burning with something ugly. “Hold her properly,” Tessa snapped, fixing her dress like nothing had happened. “If she doesn’t know her place, I’ll remind her.” Z
The reception area felt quieter than it should have.Or maybe it was just Zara.She sat with her back straight, hands resting neatly in her lap, her fingers loosely intertwined, but the calm was a performance. Beneath it, her thoughts moved too fast, slipping over each other, refusing to settle int
The café was already crowded when Zara Rahman stepped in, the warmth pressing gently against her skin as she closed the door behind her. The air carried the rich scent of coffee and quiet urgency, filled with people who moved like they had somewhere important to be. Zara barely noticed them. Her fo
“Girl… guess what?”The door slammed shut with unnecessary energy, and the sound echoed through the small London flat like a warning bell. On the couch, buried under a thin blanket, Zara Rahman groaned and dragged the pillow tighter over her head, as if that alone could block out Chloe Bennett’s vo







