Semua Bab HEIRESS REBORN: Bab 131 - Bab 140

ALINA/ KAIA POV I wake up before my alarm. No light. Just silence. That kind that feels too still, like something is about to break.It is a feeling I am very used to now.Living on the edge. Waiting for the next show to drop.I check my phone. Nothing new from Vivian, Theo, or Margot.Good.I slide off the bed and head straight for the kitchen. The espresso machine purrs to life, and I wait, eyes locked on the marble counter like it holds the answers. My hands are steady. Too steady. It usually means something’s wrong.Then my other phone vibrates.The black one. The one nobody is supposed to touch.I grab it.One notification."Unusual activity detected in dormant offshore account."I stare at it. I don’t breathe.That account was buried. Killed, actually. It was Alina’s. Mine. From the past.Tied to the life I left in flames. No one should have found it, not unless they were looking for her. For me.I hit the link. Trace the IP.Fuck.Someone found me.Two pings. One from Manhatta

KAIA (ALINA) POVThe first thing I notice is the silence.It’s so quiet here it’s almost like the air is pressing on my ears.The kind of quiet that makes you hear things you don’t want to, your own pulse, the way your breath catches when you’re thinking too much, the creak of old wood settling.Not the kind that feels soft or comforting. Not the “peaceful countryside” kind. This is the heavy kind. The kind that makes the inside of your ears hum, like the air’s pressing down on you. Out here, the quiet doesn’t soothe, it waits.The cabin is small. One bedroom, a kitchen with mismatched cabinets, a couch that’s got this sag in the middle. No staff, no noise, no windows facing the road. Just wood walls, a stove in the corner, and mismatched furniture that smells faintly of smoke and rain. The place is bare.Exactly what I wanted, off-grid, no one to drop by, no signal except for the satellite line Theo hooked up.I sit at the small wooden table in the middle of the cabin, elbows on eith

SASHA'S POV I can feel it.The secrecy and lies. It's everywhere now. First it was Elena and now I have Nathaniel who is not saying anything, but I know.He’s shutting me out.It’s the way he doesn’t look at me in meetings, the way he walks out before I’m done talking, the way his phone suddenly matters more than my voice. Especially when I am talking about the xomaony..That is all we ever talk about now and even then, he still ignores me.He still puts on the act in public — hand at the small of my back, smile when the cameras click — but underneath, I can feel him slipping.And it’s not just him.The investors are pulling back too.They’re still polite, still making their rounds, but the tone is changing. I can hear it in the questions they ask, the ones they didn’t bother with before. “What’s your view on the Ashen pullout?” “Where do you see Cross Industries in the next quarter?” “Do you feel your position is secure?”The last one makes me want to throw my coffee in their face

KAIA (ALINA) POV The trace finally stops moving and the line of code on my screen freezes like it is staring back at me, daring me to follow it deeper. I lean forward, elbows on the desk, the glow from the monitors washing my hands in pale blue.That is it there. The breach.Not a sloppy hack. No, this one is surgical, cleaner than ninety percent of the pros I have crossed paths with. But there is a smell to it, a familiarity, like something I thought I had buried years ago.Something from my past.Theo’s voice cuts in through my earpiece. “Have you found the hole?” “I’m looking at it,” I say. “And it is old. Really old.” “How old?” “Old enough that I should be a ghost to it. But someone dug up a dead system.” My fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling metadata headers. “Hotel server. One of the ones that got wiped after my… ‘disappearance.’”There is a pause on his end. “You saying someone rebuilt it?” “I’m saying someone resurrected it,” I tell him. “Piece by piece. And they

SASHA'S POV I am halfway through my coffee when my phone buzzes. Unknown number. Normally I’d let it go to voicemail, but the day’s already been circling the drain, and curiosity’s a sickness I can’t seem to shake.“Yeah?” I answer, no smile in my voice.“It’s done,” a clipped voice says. No name, no greeting. I know who it is. Cross estate contact. The one I paid extra to pull the log history Nathaniel didn’t even know existed.“You are sure?” I lean back, pressing the mug to my lips just to keep from grinning too soon.“Positive. We should meet. I am not comfortable discussing this on a phone."“Very well,” i say as I get to my feet. “I will send you an address. I will be there in thirty minutes.”“Fine by me.”“I’m telling you, Sasha, you didn’t hear it from me.”The woman across from me leans forward, lowering her voice like the room’s bugged. Maybe it is. This is one of the Cross places, after all.I keep my expression flat, pen hovering over my notebook. “Two identities.”She