Semua Bab MISTRESS OF THE GAME: Bab 71 - Bab 80

XAVIER STORMThe papers were ready within two days. Roland handled the negotiations while I reviewed every detail personally. I wanted full control of the property, purchased under a holding name registered in an offshore account. I did not want just anyone to know about the place. No noise, no traceable strings. By the end of the week, the house was mine.Ownership signed. Stamped. Locked in.Charles delivered the final documents to my office, his hands slightly trembling. "Congratulations, sir. She's all yours.""Of course, she is," I muttered, flipping through the final pages, eyes scanning for hidden clauses. There were none. Good.With the deal sealed, Roland and I sat down to discuss renovations. The house wasn't just going to be beautiful again. It would be reborn, rebuilt from bone to skin to blood. Every inch needed to serve a purpose. Function, security, control."I've contacted three firms," Roland said, tapping his tablet. "The first is a boutique restoration agency, top-t

MARIEAfter the meal, I felt good. Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. There was something so calming, so strange, about having no one breathing down my neck. No Storm, no Bull, no Dante, most importantly no eyes on me. I was finally in my own world, no matter how small it was. This felt good, too good to be true, it was almost unnatural, like standing in the middle of a battlefield and realizing the gunfire had stopped. There was silence, peace, even a sliver of happiness. I let it wash over me, enjoying every moment of it.My stomach was full. My nerves were calm. The light in the suite was warm and low, casting gold across the marble. I walked into the sitting room, my bare feet quiet against the floor. The room was spacious, minimal but luxurious, decorated in earthy tones and polished edges. For the first time since I had stepped into this suite, I really noticed the television. It was mounted neatly into a recess in the wall. It must have been at le

MARIEThe routine continued. I got tired of trying to fight the waiter. I never won any of my battles that way. I always win with my mind. So I had to think. But to think properly, I had to be of a sound mind, and I was far from that.I went down to the sitting room and turned on the television. Although I did not want to watch anything, but the silence was deafening, and I hated it. Music was my go to whenever I had a mental meltdown, so I switched to a music channel and turned up the volume just a bit.The sound filled the space with soft rhythms and familiar melodies. That healed my soul, my body relaxed slightly as the sound of instruments and voices drifted through the suite. The silence was gone, and I could think a little clearly. I curled up on the couch and let the music do its healing magic on me.As I laid there, I began to think about all that had happened, after replaying everything that had happened in my head over and over again, it occurred to me that I had not really

MARIETwo days passed since the television flickered, since that chilling voice called my name from the screen, since I had thought my phone call bluff had worked. I had waited, heart pounding, breath shallow, certain that Storm would walk through the door at any moment. But nothing happened. Not that night. Not the next morning. Not even the day after that.Everything remained the same, the same routine, the same suffocating silence that was only broken only by the television or music I turned on just to feel alive. The same waiter who arrived three times a day with food I had come to loathe, was the one who kept coming. I wondered why? Didn’t the hotel have other waiters, even if others did not know what to do, was he the only one briefed on how to handle me. Or was everything planned including his weird behavior? At first, the meals had been exquisite. Delicious, luxurious, plated like I was in a five-star hotel. But now, every bite tasted the same. Bland, cold, and lifeless. The

MARIEAfter he left, I sat on the bed for a while, my fingers curled around the edge of the mattress. My heart was still pounding, but slower now, as if it too was trying to make sense of everything. A mission. What mission again? The words echoed in my mind, it was so foreign, and misplaced. I was not in the right frame of mind to bring on my A-game for any mission. Not now, not after everything that I had gone through. My life right now just felt like it was revolving around the same type of men. Men who only seemed to care about me just because they wanted to weaponize my body and beauty, I was tired of that. I had convinced myself that Storm cared about me, in a weird twitted way, which he probably does. But if I was being honest with myself what he cared about was the ability I gave him to be able to get back at his financial and political enemies. This was exactly the same thing that happened with Garrick. He had presented himself as someone that cared. When he was done with me