Semua Bab HEIRESS REBORN: Bab 151 - Bab 160

KAIA (ALINA) POV Damien pulls the car to a stop two blocks away from the vault, his hands tight on the wheel like he doesn’t trust the night. The silence in the car feels heavier than it should. My heart is hammering so loud I swear he can hear it.“Kaia.” His voice is low, warning. “You don’t have to do this yourself.”I grip the folder of fake credentials so hard the plastic edges bite into my palm. “Yes, I do.”“You have Theo. You have Vivian. Hell, you have me. But you keep walking straight into the fire like you’re trying to get burned again.” His jaw ticks. “Why?”I look at him, and his eyes are too sharp, too damn clear. He sees too much. Always does. “Because this one… this one is mine.”He exhales through his nose, like he wants to argue, but instead he throws the gearshift into park and kills the engine. His hand lands on my wrist before I can reach for the door handle. “At least promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t give them anything they can use to trace this back to you.”

ELENA'S POV The sauna is hell. Steam clings to my skin, my hair plastered to my forehead, sweat running in rivers down my chest. My robe hangs half open, sticking to me. I hate this. I hate looking weak, vulnerable, exposed. But privacy is the currency here. No one dares bring a phone, no one records, no one listens in. The country club makes sure of it.Across from me, Carl Brigham leans back like the steam doesn’t bother him at all. He’s old money, slick, one of those political strategists who can gut a career with a single whisper at the right table. His stomach spills over the towel knotted around his waist, his face red and shiny from the heat, but his eyes, sharp and calculating, never falter.He sips water like we’re not roasting alive. “Elena.” His voice is calm, too calm. “Cross Industries is slipping.”I grit my teeth. “Define slipping.”He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, leans forward like he’s delivering the evening news. “The insider trading whispers didn’t

KAIA (ALINA) POV I sit in the dark, my knees pulled up to my chest, the only light in the room the soft glow from my laptop. My finger hovers over the spacebar like it always does before I press play. I shouldn’t listen again. I know every second by heart. But my hand moves anyway.The recording clicks alive.First, it’s me. My voice. Broken, shaking, desperate.“Please, Nathaniel… please don’t leave me out here—”The sound slices through me even now. I remember the way my throat burned that night, screaming, begging him to stop.Then his voice follows. Calm. Cruel. The same way he’d order wine or dismiss a maid.“You were never meant to be by my side.”A pause.Then the snap of the car door slamming, and the recording cuts off.I freeze. My hands don’t shake anymore—they used to—but my face feels like stone. No tears. No flinching. I’ve burned all that out of myself.I close the laptop, and the silence feels heavier than the recording.Enough.I reach for my phone. My voice is stead

Kaia (Alina) POVNumbers slide down my screen like falling glass, each one sharper than the last. A line of red, plunging, pulsing, screaming. Cross’s patents—slashed. One by one. First the surveillance suite that’s been their crown jewel. Then the logistics licensing that’s tied to three government contracts. The feed refreshes in real time, my fingers tapping the edge of the desk like a drumbeat.“Gone. Gone. Gone,” I whisper under my breath, watching the empire he swore was untouchable crack open like cheap porcelain.A ping breaks through. Theo.Theo: Cross just lost Brecht as a partner. Full withdrawal. Stock will take another dive at opening.I smirk, dragging the window wider. Another notification bleeds across the screen.Theo: Also, confirmation. One of their top-tier board members filed resignation papers this morning. Citing “irreconcilable ethical concerns.”I lean back, exhaling. My chest doesn’t feel lighter. Nothing feels lighter. But it feels… sharp. Like the air after

KAIA (ALINA) POV The cemetery is empty when I pull in. Just silence, the kind that presses down on you, the kind that doesn’t let you breathe right. The headlights cut across rows of gray stone until I park near the back, where no one ever goes this late. My hand lingers on the wheel longer than it should. It feels wrong being here. Like I’m trespassing on my own blood.I step out. The air is cold, sharp against my lungs. My shoes crunch on the gravel path as I walk, slow, steady, rehearsed. Every step feels heavier, like something inside me is warning me not to go closer. But I keep moving because I have to.When I see his name carved into the stone, my chest tightens so hard I almost fold.Alexander Rivers.Beloved father. Beloved husband. All the usual words people write when they don’t know what else to say. Words that mean nothing compared to the man he actually was.I kneel down, knees digging into the wet grass. For three years, I’ve avoided this place. Pretended it didn’t mat