บททั้งหมดของ Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance : บทที่ 91 - บทที่ 100

Eleanor's Lie The yellowing wax letter rested precisely on the silver platter, warm, edges side by side. It was picked up by a maid, Odette, in innocence as directed and set out among the morning mail to be sent downstairs — a little below the crumpled Blackwood family notebook and Samuel's pale mint-green letter from the city. Hours later, Clara discovered it on the edge of the linen cupboard. There was no crest on the front. No name. No lavender or lemon balm scent, as with most of Eleanor's letters. Only a white thin crease with serrated edges… and the smell of smoke on the corner. She did not open it. But something had drawn her. The odd heaviness of it. The way it had been left, too trim, too far forward — as if the person leaving it had wanted it found, but not to be observed. She opened it. Her expression stiffened. In neat, formal print: > "Clara is aware of the power failure. She knew the corridor. The camera. She entered it. Question her why." No signature. No name.

---Blackwood Mansion – Harrison's Guest Room, MorningEverything was quieter than normal.Birdsong in the room outside the window was insufficient to soothe compression against his chest for the first time in life.He leaned against the guest bed frame, fingers resting on his forehead. Hangover throbed like a sleeping rhythm inside his head. Cotton mouth. Worst experience of his life.Things flashed.Leya.The corridor.Anger.Then. Nothing.He'd have burst into the ballroom in front of everyone, hadn't he?Yelled?Played the video?His heart closed down.Pounded had begun on the door before he'd even managed to turn around and look and see what sort of destruction had been done.Hard. Intentional.> Nathaniel.------Outside the Guest RoomHarrison had left the door open.Nathaniel stood there with that face — not cold, not furious. In charge."I said leave her alone," Harrison growled, rubbing his eyes."I did," Nathaniel said quietly. "Until you dragged her good name through the d

--- Blackwood Mansion – Later That Night The house was still. That unnatural, heavy quiet that weighted the air down, so that they all huddled, strained, waiting for something to shatter. Eleanor stood rigid at Harrison's study door, rigid fingers on rigid oak. Waited. She inhaled unhealthily and listened. No step. No whisper. But the quiet clinking of glass against glass. He had been drinking again. She gasped, turned around — the reflex smile she gave when she didn't. And plunged in. Shattered the space in two. --- In the Study Harrison did not lift his head. He sat in the chair that his father had screamed at him two nights before. A half-tumbler of whisky hung from the bend of his finger. She opened the door her heels whispering against the carpet. “I heard about what Father said,” she began, her voice soft. Still, he didn’t look at her. Eleanor stepped closer. “He was out of line. You’ve been under more pressure than anyone realizes.” His jaw ti

The house slept. The music and laughter of the night had been devoured by time, and there remained only the faraway hum of nightlamps. Harrison strolled down corridors in a sleepwalk, outflung arm holding on to the wall. There had been no anger burning in his breast that night. There had been nothing except stark, burning pain. Stood outside her door. Leya's door. Hand on doorknob. Twisted twice, paused. And a gasp afterward, opening it. Dark, curtains shut. Single candle on the dresser now long extinguished, wax dried out and powdered in shattered pieces. And she was there. Leya lay on her side, shawl cast off halfway on the ground. Her face twisted even in slumber, brow furrowed as if expecting impact. He took another step. And looked. The bruising. On her wrist. Her neck. Most concealed, on her shoulder. Bruising he couldn't remember having inflicted. Harrison's breath was gagged in his throat, his throat constricting. He pulled back from beside the bed onto the floor, g

Yesterday ash and smoke and worn leather floated in spirals. Books littered the walls. Broken covers lay out like an invisible witness. Skewed light of tomorrow cuts the high windows, unfettered to release the step-by-step arousal of the sleepwalker's dust which shakes the air. Samuel Blackwood sat behind a mahogany desk, reading glasses in place low on the bridge of his nose, scowling face all these years. Reading to be done in stacks in the last two minutes in front of him. He could sense his son surrounding him. Harrison was shoved through the door, stiff shoulders but trembling with something that he could not master. Samuel would not even glance at him for a duration. Silence was an affront, acrid. It was not until he eventually took off his spectacles and banged them on the desk that there was ease in the room. Samuel eased in his chair, narrowed and puckered his eyes. "You were wrong," he finally snarled, his own voice coming back to him, bottled- and worse for it. "In front