Semua Bab Love Lies and Deceit: Bab 101 - Bab 110

* Alex Hamilton *Her whisper anchored me more than any oath ever had."Now we hunt her together."I didn't answer with words. I didn't need to. My hands found her face, her jaw trembling under my thumbs, her lips parted with the breath she'd been holding since I walked through that door.And I kissed her like she was the only real thing left in a world made of shadows and war.The cathedral spun around us, dust in golden shafts, the hushed weight of history pressing in, and yet the only thing I could feel was her. Silk beneath my fingertips, the slight hitch in her breath, the way she melted into me with the kind of surrender that wasn't weakness, but choice. Power.We stumbled back toward the altar, a blur of fingertips and fastened breaths, the velvet of her midnight dress gathering around her thighs as my hands slid lower. Every part of her was heat, alive and aching with purpose.She wasn't hiding anymore.Neither was I.The old wooden doors closed behind us as Lance signaled for

* Alex Hamilton *The trees parted like unwilling witnesses to the storm we brought.We caught up to her convoy at the edge of an abandoned industrial zone, rust and smoke hanging in the air like ghosts of the Cold War. Claire's fleet of matte-gray SUVs were parked in a half-moon around a dilapidated refinery. Men swarmed the perimeter in black combat gear, mercenaries, not loyalists. She had bought bodies, not hearts.I stepped out first, rifle low, breath even.Beside me, Penny was already moving, grace and fury dressed in black. Her footsteps made no sound, but her presence crashed through the silence like thunder. Calder's team flanked the north wall, his men taking the south, fanning out with grim precision. They knew the cost. We all did."Visual on Morrison," Calder's voice crackled in our comms. "East tower, third floor. Window broken. She's watching us.""Let her," I said.Because this time, we weren't the ones caught in the trap. We were the trap.Then came the flashbangs.F

* Alex Hamilton *Recovery wasn't linear. It was war, daily. A war of will over weakness.Each sunrise brought a new battlefield. My body, the terrain. My mind, the only weapon sharp enough to survive it. Muscles screamed in betrayal with every twitch. My shoulder was a raw ember, pulsing like a second heart. My lungs fought against invisible hands that squeezed tighter with every breath. The spine, gods, the spine, felt like it carried not just my weight, but every failure I'd lived with since the day Claire Morrison slipped through our fingers.But none of it compared to the stillness. Stillness was a different kind of pain. It echoed.When I know that Claire is still out there, breathing, bleeding, planning. While I lay tethered to machines, marked by gauze and scars, she was moving. Calculating. Every second I lay idle, she gained a mile. Every blink was a missed shot. Every breath, a delay in vengeance.But Penny stayed.Not with soft words or empty hope, but with discipline. Qui

* Alex Hamilton *At the Magnolia Manor one week later. The sun dipped low over the hills as the car pulled up the long driveway. Magnolia trees framed the road like a corridor of ghosts, white blossoms drifting down in slow, silent spirals. The manor loomed ahead, just as I remembered, too big, too quiet, too full of memories that creaked louder than the floorboards.But this time, Penny was beside me. And that changed everything.She stepped out first, heels clicking on the stone path, hand lifting instinctively to the fabric of her coat, light cream, elegant, something her mother might've once worn. Her shoulder was still healing, but the fire in her walk was back.I followed, slower, my left arm still tight from the last rehab session. The manor doors opened before we even reached them.Lance steps out. He looked like he'd come out of a portrait, flawless suit, controlled expression, no sign of the brother who had once knelt in hospital corridors, praying for his sister's spine to

* Alex Hamilton * Later that night, after Penny had gone upstairs... The manor had settled into quiet, the kind that only came after laughter had run its course and the glasses had been emptied. Upstairs, Penny was with Julliane, looking at fabric swatches or flower mockups, or maybe just breathing in peace. Whatever she was doing, I could feel her calm like a tether in my chest. And I needed that calm right now. Because tonight, I had one last thread to pull. One old, fraying thread that had held too much weight for too long. I found Lance in his study. The door was open, the warm amber of his desk lamp spilling across the polished wood floors. He sat behind the massive oak desk that had belonged to his father and his grandfather before that. He wasn't wearing the Dankworth mask tonight, no sharp suit, no cool command in his shoulders. Just a man with his sleeves rolled and his glass half-empty, staring at something I couldn't see. "You waiting on ghosts?" I asked, leaning a