AIDENSixty minutes earlierIt was a little after seven in the morning in Greece when I finished my meeting at the Orphanage of St. Demetrius in the suburbs of Patras. I came here to learn a little about Landon and his twin brother. Fortunately, once I made a rather significant donation to the orphanage, Reverend Mother Helen agreed to meet with me. The surly, annoying-as-fuck, seventy-year-old woman graciously allowed me to take some of her time, but only at six-thirty after she finished her morning prayers. I respected her demand solely because she allowed me to enter the archives and go through the files without any supervision. Well, dealing with those nuns wasn't easy, but at least I found what I wanted.The Allard family made a lot of effort to destroy everything about the adoption, but they didn't know that the Reverent Mother had a habit of creating copies of the adoption documents, and those she kept hidden in her private storage. Thanks to Mother Helen's cunning side, I now

AIDEN"Nathan's dead." Logan's words forced air out of my lungs. "He died trying to save Charlie."I called Logan as soon as our cleaning team entered to take care of the bloody mess in Thomas's pub. I was already on the edge. After learning more about the twins, finding out that they might have been following some kind of sick plan to take over the world, and discovering these fucked up similarities between Charlie and the twins' biological mother, a little could turn me into a ticking bomb. It was a miracle that I hadn't exploded. My hands fisted into balls as I looked for a way to contain my rage. "Where is Charlie now?" I didn't know if I was breathing as I waited for his answer."She's in the hospital. The police took her there. Dominique escaped.""Does this fucker have nine lives or something?!" Hearing about it didn't help improve my anger management either. "Tell me that at least he has the NYPD on his tail right now!"There was a silence that lasted several heartbeats. "I he

AIDEN"I will officially resign from the company if you pull this kind of stunt ever again!" Logan roared and gulped down his whiskey as if he were trying to emphasize how mad he was. "I made myself look like an absolute idiot in front of those cops!""You're exaggerating and being overdramatic." I chuckled and leaned closer to clink his glass. "You've done an amazing job and helped your friend out. I would even call your acting skills superb.""Screw you," he grunted and poured himself more whiskey.The truth was, I was amazingly grateful for what he did. He came to the hospital after I called him before six in the morning, and told the policemen that there was a man dressed in black at the end of the corridor. He even ran two floors back and forth with them before awkwardly announcing that the man whom he had found suspicious must have been one of the cleaners working for the hospital."I hope you at least found what you wanted," he grumbled before taking another sip of whiskey.My

AIDENComing home whenever my father needed us to pretend that the Harts were a perfect and loving family was one of the things I hated the most. Since the news about my father's condition leaked out to the press, the gate outside the residence was crowded with reporters. I hated the fact that my father lied about his condition. Was I the only one who didn't know? Had he shared this sensitive knowledge with Ceasar and Christopher? Rage filled my veins with liquid fire, and I spent a decent amount of time debating whether I could handle being a part of this family masquerade. Finally, sentiments had won.I couldn't recall the last time I sat in my office in our family mansion, but here I was, working on my laptop while hearing my mother's raised voice coming from the corridor. My patience flew out the window in less than a second, and before I could evaluate the situation, I slammed the door open and barged outside. As soon as I did, I saw Mother spitting venom at the poor, obviously f

CHARLIEThe message from Julienne proved something I hoped wouldn't turn out to be true. Someone from the Hart family was involved in Julienne's murder. Julienne accused Christopher, but I knew too damn well that if I had brought her recorded message to the police or the FBI, they would have begun to suspect the entire family of some kind of conspiracy. Julienne's message could be used as a weapon, able to make many people suffer and cause much greater damage to the company than the manipulated footage had caused. I couldn't make the same mistake twice.It had nothing to do with protecting Aiden's brother; if he had anything to do with Julienne's death, I would gladly hand his ass to the police after severely kicking it first. It was about doing the right thing. It was about not hurting innocents.I studied all the files from Julienne's flash drive, and Emily helped me read the list of transactions. Neither of us specialized in business and economy, but the sole shipment destinations