All Chapters of The Rich Man's Proxy Marriage: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The ride back to the city was drenched in silence—heavy, taut, almost electric. The kind of silence that doesn’t sit between two people but inside them, like something waiting to detonate.Elena sat curled in the passenger seat, her hands clasped tight, knuckles white. Her head rested against the cold window as the trees blurred past. Every few seconds her breathing faltered, like her body kept remembering to panic.Holden kept one eye on the road and the other on her.She wasn’t just shaken.She was unraveling.“Elena,” he finally said softly. “Talk to me.”Her eyes stayed on the darkness outside. “I don’t know how.”“When you remembered the fire—”“I didn’t remember enough.” Her voice cracked. “Just flames. Screaming. Heat. It felt real, Holden. Too real.”Holden tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “That pendant triggered something. Someone wanted you to see it.”“Then why did they run? Why didn’t they tell me anything?”“Because they’re being hunted too,” Holden said, surpris

The drive to the edge of the old district felt like descending into a memory neither of them fully understood. Buildings thinned into cracked warehouses, the air grew colder, and the sky dimmed into a smoky shade that seemed too fitting for what they were about to face.Holden parked the car near the taped-off remains of the orphanage—though “taped-off” was generous. Only a few sagging strips of faded police tape fluttered in the wind, like exhausted spirits trying and failing to guard the past.Elena stepped out first.The burned structure loomed before her, dark bones of a once-living place. She felt the same tight pressure in her chest she had felt the first time she visited—but today, the air seemed to crackle with something different. Something heavier. As if the ruins had been waiting specifically for this moment.Holden walked to her side, hands in his coat pockets, eyes sharp.“Ready?” he asked quietly.“No,” Elena admitted truthfully. “But I’m here anyway.”“That’s enough.”T

The moment Holden shouted “Run!”, the basement erupted.Not with flames.Not with gunshots.But with the thunder of boots storming down the staircase—men in black tactical suits, earpieces glinting under the dim lights, moving with chilling coordination.Elena’s body reacted before her mind caught up.She sprinted into the dark corridor behind the basement shelves, heart punching against her ribs. Holden’s footsteps were right behind her—steady, controlled, lethal.“Left!” he hissed.She obeyed without question, trusting him more than her own thoughts.Behind them, Madam Lu’s composed voice echoed:“Do not harm her. Secure her. Holden is expendable.”Her blood went cold.Holden grabbed her wrist and pulled her faster. “Ignore her.”“But she— she said you’re—”“Elena.” His grip tightened. “Later.”Another crash behind them—The agents had reached the basement floor.“Sector C! Cut them off!”“Two heat signatures moving east corridor!”Heat signatures.They were tracking them.Holden cu

For a moment, the world stopped moving.The air in the burned hallway thickened until Elena felt it press against her lungs. The figure at the far end stood perfectly still—shadowed, faceless, terrifyingly composed—as if they existed outside time and fear. Holden’s stance shifted, his body angling protectively in front of her, but Elena still felt the cold weight of that sentence echo inside her skull:Unit 07.You were never meant to leave.Her pulse roared.Holden raised his flashlight, the beam slicing through falling dust and darkness.“Show your face,” he warned, voice low and deadly. “Now.”The figure didn’t flinch.Instead, they stepped back into the deeper shadows—just enough to remain visible, but not enough for Holden’s light to catch any clear features. When they finally spoke again, their voice was distorted—filtered through something metallic, like a voice modulator.“I see the orphanage failed to erase you properly.”Holden’s jaw locked, fury igniting behind his eyes. “S

The ride back to the Lu estate was silent.Not peaceful silence—but the kind that suffocates, the kind that crushes the ribs from the inside.Elena kept her forehead against the cold car window, watching the city blur past. Her fingers were clenched so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had turned white.She wasn’t crying.She wasn’t speaking.She wasn’t even blinking much.Holden had seen many forms of fear in his life—but nothing unsettled him as much as the emptiness in her eyes.It wasn’t shock.It was erasure.A quiet kind of collapse.He wanted to reach her. He wanted to say something—anything. But his throat felt tight.The car pulled to a stop in front of the estate.Holden stepped out first, then offered his hand.Elena didn’t move.“Elena,” he said softly, “we’re home.”Her eyes finally lifted.“Whose home?” she whispered.The words hit him like a punch.Holden lowered himself to her eye level.“This one,” he said quietly. “Where I am. Where you are.”Her expression didn