Semua Bab Contract Marriage With My Billionaire Boss : Bab 221 - Bab 230

VENUS The moment the door slammed behind Gerald, the silence hit me like a physical blow. For a long breath, I just sat there. Staring at the metal door. Listening to the fading echoes of his chains, the fading sound of his laughter, the fading ghost of his final words: You’ll never find her. My stomach twisted. My vision blurred. I gripped the edges of the table until my fingers burned, grounding myself in the cold metal because everything else felt like it was slipping. I forced myself to stand. My body didn’t appreciate that. Pain shot through my ribs, sharp and white-hot, slicing through the thin layer of adrenaline that had carried me through the confrontation. The room tilted for a second, walls leaning in, and I pressed my hand against the table until I found balance again. Then I walked. One foot. Then the other. Each step felt like dragging weights through mud. The guard outside straightened immediately when I pushed the door open. His smugness was gone, now repla

VENUSThe world wouldn’t stop tilting.Maybe it was the sedative wearing off.Maybe it was the adrenaline spike from confronting Gerald.Maybe it was the weight of knowing my baby—my baby—was still missing.Or maybe it was all of it.But I kept walking anyway.Dorian hovered beside me as we climbed the last few steps toward Rosemary’s front porch. He kept glancing at me like he expected me to crumble, faint, or evaporate entirely. Normally I’d snap at him for the hovering, but today… I was too tired to pretend I didn’t need it.My legs felt like wet paper.My ribs ached with every breath.My hand throbbed under the hospital bandage.And yet I couldn’t stop moving. Because stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering. And remembering meant drowning.I couldn’t drown.Not now.Not until Iris was in my arms and alive.We’d just stepped into the foyer—warm, quiet, smelling faintly of rosemary and honey—when a sound from outside punched through the stillness.A crack of metal.A

VENUSAaron returned just past sundown, the sky outside Rosemary’s windows streaked with dying orange and bruised purple. I’d been sitting on the edge of the sofa with Sabine still curled into my side and George leaning against Rosemary’s armchair, pretending not to be listening while listening to every sound from the driveway.The moment I heard the front door swing open, something in my chest snapped awake.He stepped inside, jaw set, eyes sharp—radiating that dangerous calm he always wore when he was barely holding himself back from breaking something. Or someone.His gaze cut across the room until it landed on me.I stood immediately.He came to me just as fast.“They found the vehicle,” he said without preamble. “The van. The one the kidnappers used.”Everything inside me froze.“Where?”“Abandoned outside a supply stall on the interstate.” His voice was gravel. “Reported stolen two days ago. Scratched plates. Wiped down. But—” His jaw flexed. “They’re reviewing surveillance from

VENUS The lie left my mouth so easily I almost hated myself for how natural it sounded.“It’s Sabine,” I said, lifting the phone just enough for him to see the contact name—without giving him a chance to read anything else. “She and Gianna were checking up on me.”Aaron didn’t blink.Didn’t look away.His stare stayed on me, sharp as cut glass, dissecting every twitch of my face, every beat of my pulse, every tremor hiding underneath my words.And even though he didn’t call me out again…He knew.He knew I was lying.Not because he had evidence.Not because he’d seen the message.But because he knew me.Too well and too deeply.Before he could speak—before he could strip the lie bare—movement in the hallway caught my eye.George.He stood by the doorway, small and fragile in the oversized T-shirt he’d been wearing for two days straight. His hair was rumpled. His eyes were swollen. He looked like he’d aged years in a week.I inhaled, then gestured gently for him to come.George padded

VENUSI killed the engine and the headlights. The sudden, absolute silence of the woods pressed in on me, broken only by the frantic hammering of my own heart and into the cold mountain air. The smell of pine clung to everything. The ground was soft with fallen needles. The moon hung low—too low, too bright—casting long, skeletal shadows between the trees.Cabin 9 sat at the very edge of the ridge, isolated from the others like it had been exiled.I checked the time.11:47 p.m.Thirteen minutes early.Good. Early was safe. Early meant control. Early meant—A chance to breathe.Except I couldn’t. My lungs felt like they were lined with glass. Every inhale scraped. Every exhale trembled.Iris.My baby.I closed my eyes for one second—one—and the memory of her voice came back, small and scared.My stomach knotted so violently I had to put a hand on the cabin’s outer wall just to stay upright.“Get it together,” I whispered to myself. “You came here for her. Focus.”The cabin had one dim