บททั้งหมดของ The Mistress: บทที่ 81 - บทที่ 90

“Is she breathing? Just tell me if she’s breathing!”Zander’s voice didn’t sound like a man’s anymore; it sounded like a wounded animal’s. The sterile hallway of the Metropolitan Hospital’s private wing was a blur of white tile and frantic movement. The stretcher clattered against the floor, the metal-on-tile sound echoing like a death knell. I was drifting, caught in that thick, gray space between consciousness and the void. I could feel the cold air on my face, the sharp sting of an IV being shoved into my arm, and the weight of Zander’s hand clutching mine until a uniform stepped between us.“Sir, you need to step back. Now!”“That is my wife! Do you have any idea who I am?” Zander’s roar was muffled as the double doors of the Emergency Obstetrics unit slammed shut, cutting him off.The last thing I remembered was the smell of his cologne—sandalwood and expensive rain—and the crushing realization that the man who wore it was a stranger.====The silence of a hospital at 3:00 AM is a

“Do you ever look at the sketches in the vault and wonder why the lines are so much softer than the ones Silas signed?”Julian’s voice came through the phone like a low, vibrating hum, vibrating against my ear as I sat in the darkness of the central suite. I was staring at the brass key I had used to enter the sub-basement, my mind still reeling from the medical suite I had found below. I hadn’t told anyone yet. Not Zander. Especially not Julian.“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Julian,” I replied, my voice a brittle thread. I stood up and walked to the window, watching the rain streak the glass of the ancestral estate. “My grandfather built this empire. Every pillar, every blueprint has his soul in it.”“Does it?” Julian’s chuckle was dark and melodic. “Or does it have my mother’s? Check your email, Victoria. I just sent you a bit of family history that Silas conveniently forgot to include in your bedtime stories. The ‘Pure’ Vermon blood didn’t start with him. It started with

The night was far too quiet for a house inhabited by two warring kings. Outside, the ancestral estate was bathed in the deceptive peace of a waning moon, its silver light turning the manicured hedges into jagged obsidian teeth. The Vermon loyalists—the “Sparrows”—maintained their rhythm, their footsteps a steady beat against the gravel. But the shadows of the rose garden held a different kind of sentinel.Marcus sat deep within the stone gazebo, the blue light of his laptop the only glow in the darkness. His fingers danced over the mechanical keys with a frantic precision. He wasn’t just guarding the perimeter; he was hunting the digital ghost of the “Architect Protocol.” Every time he peeled back a layer of the estate’s encrypted server, he found more rot—backdoors that had been installed years ago, silent eyes that had been watching Victoria and Zander long before Julian ever stepped into a press conference.Suddenly, a high-pitched chime cut through the air. A red alert flashed acro

“Fasten the sapphire at the back, Zander. My hands are too cold to manage the clasp.”I didn’t look at him in the mirror. I couldn’t. I stood in the center of the dressing room, draped in a floor-length gown of midnight silk that felt more like armor than evening wear. The silence between us was so thick it felt like it had its own heartbeat.Zander stepped behind me. I felt the familiar heat of his body, a phantom of the man I used to crave. His fingers were steady, but I could see the slight tremor in his jaw through the reflection. Click. The sapphire sat heavy against my throat, right above the locket that now felt like a ticking bomb.“You don’t have to do this, Livy,” he whispered, his hands lingering near my shoulders but never quite touching the skin. “We can issue a statement. We can say the pregnancy—”“The pregnancy is the only reason the board hasn’t replaced you yet,” I cut him off, finally meeting his gaze in the glass. “And the stock market doesn’t care about my morning

“You’re shaking, Zander. The man who can face a firing squad without blinking is currently vibrating like a leaf.”My voice was barely a thread, thin and frayed. I was lying on the overstuffed sofa in the library, the only room in the estate that still felt relatively solid after the explosions. Every breath I took felt heavy, and a dull, rhythmic ache was beginning to bloom in my lower back—a warning I couldn’t afford to ignore.Zander didn’t look up from my feet. He was wrapping a cold compress around my ankles, his movements frantic and uncoordinated. “I’m not shaking. I’m just… the air is cold in here, Livy. I need to get you to the medical wing. Now.”“The medical wing is half-buried under a ton of limestone, Zander,” I gasped, a sharp, sudden cramp making me arch off the cushions. “And I’m not moving. Something is wrong. It’s too early. It’s too soon.”Zander’s head snapped up. The look in his eyes wasn’t the cold calculation of a CEO or the lethal focus of a soldier. It was pure