Semua Bab THE PRICE FOR HIS NAME : Bab 181 - Bab 185

Dinner had ended. The table had been cleared, the dishes put away, and the house had settled into its usual post-meal routine. The warm scent of roasted lamb and garlic still lingered in the air, mixing with the faint hint of vanilla from the candle Maria had blown out before leaving the dining room. In the living room, Ella sat cross-legged on the floor, helping Ivy and Iris with their homework. The twins sprawled out beside her, their little legs kicking absentmindedly as they whined about long division. "Why do we even need math, Aunty Ella?" Iris grumbled, tapping her pencil against her workbook. "So you don’t get swindled when you start spending your father’s money," Ella replied without missing a beat. Ivy gasped dramatically. "People would steal from us?" "Absolutely." Ella turned the page. "Now

Fiero dropped his phone onto the bed with a dull clunk, the sound swallowed by the plush sheets beneath it. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just sat there, the tension crawling beneath his skin like static, fingers twitching at his sides. Then without looking, he reached for her. Joy. Already curled up beside him like she owned the bed. Like she owned him. And maybe she did. She always had. They’d known each other since they were babies—back when their mothers would leave them in a playpen in the sunroom and joke about arranged marriages. Fiero had pulled her pigtails at four, thrown a mud pie at her at five, and punched a boy for calling her bossy at six. She’d scratched his face with a pencil in second grade. He still had the faint scar beneath his jaw. His fingers slipped into her locs now, the motion rougher than he meant it to be, but she didn’t flinch. She never flinched. Her eyes stayed on him—watchful, amused, dangerous. “You good?” she asked softly, voice thick with

The video call had come in that morning—fuzzy and half-hearted, a family tradition more dutiful than joyful. Faces on the screen smiled too wide, voices strained as they chorused Happy Birthday! and promised he was missed. A chocolate cake had been delivered to House Six’s common room shortly after, its surface smeared with clumsy icing and one broken candle mashed into the corner.It sat there now, untouched. Ugly. Like something that had already been eaten once.The frosting was melting down one side, and someone—specifically, Dr. Xavier Peterson—had been carving at it with a butter knife for the past twenty minutes. He sat cross-legged on the floor like a gremlin professor, licking frosting from his thumb and occasionally humming tunelessly. Crumbs freckled the front of his slacks. The man looked utterly at peace.No one mentioned that he wasn’t invited to the birthday celebration.No one cared.Fiero wasn’t even in the room. He was in the upstairs bathroom, standing beneath t