Semua Bab The Billionaire's Secret Surrogate : Bab 31 - Bab 40

COLTON The SUV hit a pothole, and the resulting jolt sent a spike of agony straight up my spine that was so intense my vision whited out for a second. I bit the inside of my cheek until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, refusing to make a sound. Beside me, Vinnie was checking the load on a sawed-off shotgun, his movements casual, practised. The other three men in the car were silent statues of impending violence. This was their Tuesday night. For me, it was the end of the world. I gripped the handgun tighter, the textured grip biting into my palm. I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a mercenary. I was a man who moved billions across borders with a phone call, who destroyed competitors in boardrooms with a signature. But none of that mattered now. My net worth couldn't buy my way into that house up on the hill. My influence couldn't shield Ava from whatever twisted game Nathan was playing. Tonight, the only currency that mattered was lead and blood. "Two minutes out," the driv

AVAColton hit the floor like his body had finally betrayed him.For one second, I forgot Nathan existed.I forgot the gunshot. The shattered ceiling. The men storming the room. The smell of whiskey and gunpowder burning my throat.All I saw was Colton.His body folded beneath him, strong hands suddenly useless against the floor, his face pale with pain. The sound that tore out of me didn’t even sound human.“Colton!”I dropped beside him so fast my knees slammed against the rug. Pain sparked through me, but I barely felt it. My hands flew to his face, his jaw, his chest—anywhere I could touch him and prove he was still here.“Hey,” I whispered, my voice shaking so badly the word barely came out. “Look at me. Please, Colton. Please.”His eyes fluttered, unfocused. His breathing was rough, uneven, like every inhale cost him more than he could afford.Behind me, Nathan was still screaming.“You think this is over?” he shouted, voice muffled as Vinnie’s men pinned him to the floor. “My f

AVABy the time I returned to Colton’s mansion, the gates looked less like an entrance and more like the border of a war zone.Two black SUVs rolled in ahead of us. Two followed behind. Men in dark suits lined the driveway with hard eyes and hands too close to their jackets. Beyond the iron gates, reporters crowded the street like vultures, cameras flashing against the gray morning.“Miss Carter! Did Colton Sinclair force Nathan Wright to confess?”“Ava, are you working with him?”“Is the baby really part of a fraud investigation?”My hand tightened over my stomach.Molly sat beside me in the back seat and muttered, “Keep shouting, parasites. I’d love an excuse to run one of you over.”I should have smiled.I couldn’t.All I could think about was Colton lying in that hospital bed, pale and furious, officers outside his door, pain carved into every line of his face. He had tried to order me to stay at the hospital. I had told him no.The argument had been quiet.That made it worse.“Yo

AVAThe truth did not save us.It was still sitting in the room with us, sealed inside Hale’s black case, when my phone vibrated against the hospital bed.Once.Then again.A sharp, ugly little sound.Colton’s hand was still over my stomach. His palm had gone still after the baby’s last kick, as if he were afraid that moving would break whatever fragile miracle Liliane had left behind.I almost ignored the message.Then Molly looked at my face and said, “Ava?”I pulled my phone from my pocket.Unknown number.The message had no words.Only a photograph.For a second, my brain refused to understand what I was seeing. A sidewalk. A brick building. A row of students moving beneath gray afternoon light.Then my lungs stopped working.David.My little brother stood outside his school with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, his head bent as he checked the laces on one sneaker. He looked smaller than I remembered and taller all at once, caught in that cruel in-between place where childh

AVA “The baby was never swapped.”Grace’s voice trembled through the speaker, thin as a thread stretched over a blade.For a second, no one in Colton’s hospital room breathed.Then Colton said, “Prove it.”His voice was low. Deadly. But I heard what lived beneath it.Hope.Grace went silent.I tightened my grip on the phone. “Grace, it’s Ava. I’m here.”“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why I called.”Colton’s gaze snapped to mine.I knew that look. No. Absolutely not. Over my dead body.But Grace was already speaking again.“No Sinclair men. No police. No lawyers. If I see one black SUV, I disappear.”“Grace—”“St. Brigid’s,” she said quickly. “The old chapel beside the women’s clinic. Forty minutes. You come with one woman. No one else.”The line went dead.Colton was already trying to sit up.Pain cut across his face, but rage pushed him through it. “No.”I slipped the phone into my coat pocket. “Yes.”“Ava.”“She won’t talk to you.”“She could be bait.”“Everything is bait now.”H