Lahat ng Kabanata ng Hired My Ex's Sister as Wife: Kabanata 351 - Kabanata 360

RafeI had been on the streets for three days straight, slipping in and out of spaces like I was built from them. Melordy didn’t give me full instructions on who exactly she was looking for. She never did. Not that she ever had to. It was always just a name without a name, a motive without a face. This time, someone had framed Savannah, and that someone thought they were clever enough to move under Melordy’s radar. Most people didn’t get away with that. My job was to make sure this one didn’t become the first.On the third night, I ended up in Old Briar, the part of the city where I heard that news traveled quietly. I’d spent hours bouncing between bars, back rooms, tiny shops that pretended to sell groceries but really sold information. Everyone said the same thing at first…nothing, nothing, nothing. But by evening, I had my lead.It came from a skinny kid who looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He hovered outside a half-dead laundromat, smoking something that smelled like gasoline

SavannahI woke up the next day feeling that same knot in my stomach I’d been carrying for the past few days. It wasn’t exactly fear, more like that low, simmering anxiety you get when you know you’re about to walk into something that could go sideways, and fast. The kind that makes your hands itch to do something, but also wants you to freeze in place. And this time, it was Clint.By mid-morning, I found myself striding into his office, my shoes clicking against the polished floor, feeling every bit like I was about to throw a temper tantrum I’d been bottling for too long. I didn’t even pause at the door. He was leaning against his desk, with his arms crossed, and his eyes scanning some papers that I didn’t care to read.“Clint,” I said, keeping my voice calm but sharp enough. “We need to talk.”He didn’t get up immediately. He just turned for a moment and gave me that look that said, ‘not now, Savannah.’ But I didn’t care. I was past the point of polite warnings or subtle nudges.“I

SavannahFor a moment, all I heard was my own breathing even as it was shallow, uneven, and barely keeping up with the pace of my thoughts. Clint’s confession lingered in the air a little longer than he must have intended. He had finally said it. He killed Rafe. But he still hadn’t told me why.“Which truth, Clint?” I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper. “What were they close to exposing?”He didn’t answer immediately. He just stared at me like he was trying to measure how much I could handle before my mind snapped in two. His jaw suddenly clenched, then loosened, then clenched again, like every version of the story he considered saying tasted wrong.“Savannah…” he started softly, and my stomach twisted at the way he said my name. “This is bigger than you think.”“I’m already in it,” I shot back, but my voice trembled. “So just tell me.”He dragged both his hands over his face, then down to his jaw, rubbing his chin like he wanted to scrape the truth out of himself by force.

SavannahI didn’t speak for a long moment. I couldn’t. It felt like my brain had jammed itself trying to process everything Clint had dropped on me in the span of a few minutes. It was all too overwhelming, from his daughter to the cartel. The stolen money, a dead man behind a locked door. I didn’t know how to react.So I stood there with my arms wrapped around myself, staring at the floor like it might give me instructions, while Clint kept pacing in front of me. He looked wrecked, tired, frantic, almost hollow, but still trying to hold himself together enough to convince me to do the one thing I wasn’t sure I wanted to do.“Savannah… please,” he said for what felt like the tenth time. “You can’t expose me. Not to the police. Not to Melordy. Not to anyone. If they find out, if they trace anything back…”“They’ll kill your daughter,” I finished, because he didn’t need to repeat it. The words were already burned into my head.He stopped pacing, turned toward me, and nodded in acceptanc

JulianI didn’t sleep much after Evan left the apartment. I didn’t bring up anything that could throw him off yet. I knew how difficult it was battling addiction, and if I pressed him now, I feared there might be no reaching him, so I let him go.However, after he left, I stayed up replaying the moment over and over, wondering if I should’ve pushed harder or backed off more. But then morning came, and with it that heavy sense of unfinished business. I knew I couldn’t let it sit any longer. Not when the numbers in those reports spelled trouble. Not when Savannah kept calling.Maybe that’s why I walked back into the office building that morning with a kind of determination I hadn’t felt in months. I wasn’t here for the company. I wasn’t here for the transition papers. I was here for Evan.He didn’t come into work until noon, and somehow that alone told me how bad things had gotten. He used to be the one who got here before everyone when we were teenagers, always eager to impress, eager