Lahat ng Kabanata ng under his control : Kabanata 101 - Kabanata 110

The sea was black that night black like the sky, black like the thoughts turning inside my head. We were miles away from land, the waves slamming against the hull of the covert ship that carried us toward Victoria’s offshore base. The air smelled of salt and steel. Every sound, the groan of the engine, the crash of the water felt louder than it should, as if the ocean itself wanted to remind us how small we were compared to what we were walking into. Ava sat across from me in the cabin, her face half-lit by the dim red glow of the emergency lamp. She was quiet, her hands folded on her lap, eyes focused on nothing. I’d seen her like this before she calmed down. But this time, something about it felt different. “Ava,” I said softly. She looked up. “Hmm?” “You’re too quiet.” Her lips curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I could say the same about you.” I leaned back against the wall, exhaling slowly. “If we don’t make it back ” “Don’t,” she cut in sharply. “You always ta

Liam pov The smell hit me first, old rust, oil, and something far more metallic, like the stench of dried blood trapped between steel. The bunker’s air was thick, unmoving, like it hadn’t been breathed in years. Ava walked beside me, her flashlight trembling slightly as it swept across the narrow corridor ahead. The light flickered over concrete walls lined with faded Carter West emblems, each one marked with a black X, as though someone had tried to erase them. We had stumbled upon the entrance hidden beneath a collapsed part of the island. Nothing about it was natural. The door had been welded shut, buried under layers of rock and salt. Whoever built it wanted it to stay hidden forever. But I couldn’t leave it closed. Not when it carried Victoria’s mark. Not when my father's company was tied to it. Ava’s voice came softly, almost afraid to echo. “Do you think anyone’s been down here recently?” I shook my head, keeping my hand on the cold metal wall. “If they had, we’d have see

Liam POV The night was heavy, quiet, and cold. I could still smell the salt from the ocean where we had left the raft, but my thoughts were far darker than the sea. Ava had fallen asleep by the fire, her face pale from exhaustion, her hair tangled and streaked with soot. I hadn’t slept. I couldn’t. The message from Victoria still burned on the tablet screen beside me. Trade yourself for his life. Midnight. You know where. Every second since then has been a fight inside my own head. I wanted to protect Ava. I wanted to save Morgan. But I knew Victoria too well. Every move she made was a trap wrapped in a lie. She would never just kill one of us when she could destroy both. And yet, as I looked at Ava’s sleeping face, I made a decision. I wasn’t going to let her walk into that hell alone. If Victoria wanted blood, she would get it but not Ava’s. I stood slowly, careful not to wake her, and walked down toward the shoreline where I’d left the small field kit I’d salvaged from the

Ava POV They locked me in a cold white room. The light was too bright. The air smelled like bleach and something metallic. My wrists were raw from the metal cuffs, and the floor beneath me felt too clean to belong to a place where people screamed. I sat there, staring at the blood on my hands. Liam’s blood. It had dried into thin brown lines between my fingers, but I couldn’t bring myself to wash it off. Every time I blinked, I saw his face again, his eyes fading, his hand slipping from mine, his lips trying to say my name even as life left him. I wanted to stop seeing it. I wanted to stop feeling it. But grief doesn’t wait for your permission. It just moves in and makes a home in your ribs. The door creaked open. Victoria walked in. Not with a smirk, not with her usual mask of arrogance but calm, almost gentle. That was worse. “You’ve been very quiet,” she said, sitting opposite me. “Not like the Ava I knew. The Ava who burned my labs and killed my guards.” I didn’t answer

Liam pov The metallic clang of the cell door echoed through the hollow corridors, each strike of steel against steel vibrating through Liam’s skull like a war drum. His pulse thundered, matching the rhythm of his father’s ragged breathing beside him. The stench of blood and decay hung thick, but beneath it, there was something else burning, alive. A fuse had been lit somewhere in this cursed place, and time was slipping fast. “Liam,” his father rasped, voice barely more than a whisper. “She’s not gone yet. You can still save her.” Liam knelt beside him, his hands trembling. The man before him was a shadow of the ruthless businessman he’d once been, eyes hollow, hair streaked with gray, body trembling from years of captivity. But in those eyes, even through the fog of pain, there was fire. “I’m not leaving you here,” Liam said, voice thick with conviction. “We’re both walking out.” His father gave a ghost of a smile. “You always had your mother’s stubborn heart.” His hand, weak b