Lahat ng Kabanata ng The CEO’s Temptation : Kabanata 131 - Kabanata 140

**********************Rowe’s POV***********************I was never good at waiting.The action was my currency. Plans were my comfort. I needed structure, time and ng, and leverage—something to sink my teeth into. But right now, all I had was noise.The television in the corner blared the news. Liam’s face was plastered across every screen, his voice silent behind a mask of polished denial. The evidence Claire handed over had cracked the glass, and now the public was watching the empire bleed.But Liam hadn’t responded directly.Not yet.I leaned over the table in my apartment—what was left of it after the break-in. Papers were scattered across the surface. Maps. Notes. Photos. Timelines. It looked like a war room. Felt like one too.Etian would’ve known what to do next.I sat down slowly, the chair creaking beneath me, and let that thought settle like ash in my lungs.Etian should’ve been here.He wasn’t.Because I’d sent him into this. Because I hadn’t been careful enough. Because

**********************Claire’s POV**************************Etian was dead.But his voice—his mission—refused to die with him.I sat cross-legged in Mack’s study, silence curling around me like smoke. The flash drive Etian left through Nora blinked in the laptop’s port—a small, defiant pulse of life. The folders on-screen stared back at me like unopened doors: Dockside Footage, Clinic Records, SableCorp—and then, one simply titled SD-06.Sadie Arizona Allister.My hand hovered over the trackpad. Mack leaned against the doorway, a drink in his hand he hadn’t touched since I started going through the files. His gaze was steady, unreadable.“You sure you want to keep going tonight?” His voice was soft, but tight.I didn’t answer. Instead, I opened the SD-06 folder. Inside were transcripts, audio logs, and a short video file.“Mack…” I glanced up, my throat dry. “Etian was closer than we thought.”He set the glass down without a sound and walked over to sit beside me. I clicked on the vi

***********************Liam’s POV************************** The door clicked shut. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just stood there, fingers still curled slightly at my sides, my father’s cologne lingering in the air like a ghost. His words echoed louder than the silence that now swallowed the room. “You’re not the boy I raised, Liam.” he rasped. Disappointment and hurt boldly carved on his face. He was wrong. He just didn't want to admit what raising me meant. My success came at a cost. I paid it in blood and silence. And now he stands there, disgusted by his creation, pretending I'm the one who changed. The floor beneath me creaked as I turned slowly like it knew it wasn't supposed to hold the weight of monsters. My gaze fell on the untouched glass of whiskey, I brought out earlier__my peace offering. Or maybe it was meant to soften the accusations he eventually hurled at me like daggers. I picked it up and held it to the light. Then, I banged it against the

***************************Nora’s POV**********************I drifted back to consciousness with nothing but darkness around me.There was no sound, except the slow, maddening drip of water somewhere above me. No windows. No clocks. No way of telling how long I’d been here. My mouth was dry, throat raw like I’d screamed too long. My head throbbed, and every inch of my body ached as if I’d been dropped from the sky and left to shatter.The last thing I remembered was the parking lot behind the precinct. I’d stayed late—again. It had become routine, especially with Etian gone. The archives felt lonelier now, quieter than usual. His absence settled like a ghost on my shoulders.Then there was a hand over my mouth. The scent of something sharp and chemical. A low voice. And then, nothing.Until this very moment.I tried to sit up, but my arms were bound behind me. My legs too. Rope burned at my wrists when I moved. Duct tape pressed across my mouth. Panic clawed its way up my chest like a

**************************Morgan’s POV*******************It was early evening when I found Rowe again.He was alone in the small park across from Sadie’s old apartment—her favourite place. She used to sit by that fountain, the one with the cherub that never quite worked, scribbling poems into that little journal she never let me read. I hated that fountain. It always reminded me of things left unfinished.Tonight, it reminded me of everything I’d lost.Rowe sat on the bench like a statue, stiff, unmoving. His jacket hung loose on his shoulders, and he hadn’t shaved in days. There were bags under his eyes, but they weren’t from lack of sleep. They were from carrying too much pain.Pain I understood too well.I approached slowly. No need to announce myself. He already knew I was there. He just didn’t want to face me yet.I sat beside him, leaving a space between us. Not too close. Not too far.He didn’t speak. Just stared ahead at the rippling surface of the fountain, where the late su