All Chapters of The Rich Man's Proxy Marriage: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The Red Gate Orphanage wasn’t a building.Not anymore.It was a carcass.Charred beams. Collapsed walls. A skeletal archway blackened by old smoke.But the iron gate—the one from the photograph—still stood.Red. Rust-red. Blood-red. Memory-red.Elena’s breath hitched as soon as she saw it.“That gate…” Her fingers trembled. “I’ve seen it. I know I’ve seen it.”Holden didn’t look away from her. “Stay behind me,” he said quietly. “Silas plays with symbols. Don’t let him play with yours.”But Elena had already stepped forward.The wind stirred the ash around their feet, whispering through broken frames. Somewhere in the distance, metal groaned—either the structure settling or someone moving.Holden’s team spread out, armed, alert, forming a perimeter.James muttered, “There’s movement inside. One heat signature. Could be him.”Holden didn’t blink. “Position A. No shots unless I say.”James nodded.But Holden’s eyes were fixed on Elena.She walked slowly toward the Red Gate as if a s

The east wing alarms were still blaring when Holden pushed Elena behind him, every muscle in his body locked in hunter’s tension. Security guards rushed past them, but their eyes revealed the truth before their words did.“Sir—there’s no intruder. The system was triggered remotely.”Silas.Of course it was Silas.Holden exhaled through clenched teeth. A misdirection. A test. A warning.Or worse—an invitation.He turned to Elena. “Stay close. Don’t disappear on me again.”She stiffened. “I didn’t disappear. You kept things from me—”“This isn’t the time,” Holden cut sharply, though his voice held the edge of fear rather than anger.But Elena didn’t back down.Because she was no longer the trembling woman who arrived at the Lu estate. She was someone who was starting to remember… and starting to fight.“Everything Silas does is connected to me,” she said, her voice low but steady. “You can’t protect me by hiding things anymore.”Holden’s jaw tightened—a habit she had learned to read to

The child did not blink.She simply stood there in the flickering blue corridor, feet bare against the scorched tiles, clutching a half-melted plush toy that looked like it had survived the same fire that destroyed this hospital.Her voice—thin, trembling, too old for her age—scraped across Elena’s spine.“Nora… you came back.”Holden stiffened. Elena felt the tension ripple through him like a tightly coiled wire ready to snap. His arm shot out in front of her, shielding her from the little girl.“Stay behind me,” he muttered.But Elena stepped around him anyway.“Hey,” she whispered softly, lowering herself slowly, carefully, instinctively. “Sweetheart… what’s your name?”The child blinked. Once. Twice.Then her eyes—gray, haunting, scared—lifted to Elena’s face.“You don’t remember me,” she said with a strange kind of certainty. “Silas said you wouldn’t.”Elena’s breath faltered.Holden moved forward, muscles rigid, voice dangerously low. “Where is he?”The little girl only clutched

The night had long settled into the forest, but Elena felt no cold, no air, no sense of time. Only the echo of Silas’s words spun through her mind—You erased yourself. You chose to disappear. And Holden, the man who claimed he wanted her truth, had known something all along.She walked without speaking. Holden followed without speaking. And Silas, infuriatingly calm, led them through the narrow footpath carved between gnarled trees.The moon above seemed dull, its light weak, as if even the sky feared illuminating the truth that comes next.“Where are you taking us?” Elena asked stiffly.Silas didn’t turn. “To the place where your memories began dying.”Holden’s voice sharpened. “Silas—”“But also,” Silas continued, “the place where they can be revived.”Elena’s heart thudded painfully.Holden stepped closer to her, lowering his voice so only she could hear. “You don’t have to trust him.”She pulled away.Not dramatically. Not violently.Just enough for him to feel the distance in he

The emergency scaffolding groaned under the pressure of shifting debris. Pipes hissed, dust pressed down in thick curtains, and every surface of the half-collapsed underground corridor felt like a ribcage threatening to snap.Holden and Elena had taken refuge in a narrow alcove carved by the explosion from Silas’s trap. The flickering lights overhead bathed their forms in intermittent flashes of white and shadow, giving the illusion that they were blinking in and out of existence.Elena sat with her knees pulled against her chest, arms wrapped around them, breathing shallowly. Her pupils were dilated; adrenaline and terror still threaded through her bloodstream like venom. Holden watched her—too intently, too protectively—while running a slow hand through his dust-covered hair.“Elena,” he murmured, sinking down beside her. “Look at me.”She didn’t. Not at first.She was staring past him, into the dark corridor, as though the shadows whispered something only she could hear.“Elena,” h