All Chapters of Too Late to Want Me; I chose your Billionaire Brother: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

The café’s windows steamed with the breath of too many conversations, too many cups of scalding tea and bitter coffee clutched like lifelines against the late-morning chill. Outside, Holloway Road pulsed with its usual weekday rhythm—delivery vans coughing along the curb, schoolchildren trailing behind parents, buses groaning against traffic lights. The ordinariness of it almost mocked Benita; the world carried on as though her father’s sins weren’t about to be cracked open across a sticky café table.Cillian entered first, his eyes scanning every corner with the precision of a soldier mapping terrain. He noted the exits, the single bathroom door, the slope of the counter where the barista moved. His hand lingered near the knife he didn’t technically carry, but everyone knew he would.Benita followed, folder tight against her ribs, the café’s warmth not reaching her. Her pulse thrummed loud enough she thought surely the whole place could hear. Behind her came Syl and Lola, Syl guiding

The folder sat between them like contraband, its edges curled from Benita’s tightening grip. She didn’t notice the chatter around them anymore. She noticed only the shadows — men in coats who didn’t drink coffee, eyes that tracked exits instead of menus, the subtle way the café’s warmth felt less like comfort and more like a trap.“We can’t sit here,” Syl muttered, his voice low. “Every second we stay, they’re closing the circle.”Kent cracked his knuckles. “Good. Let them. I’ve been dying to bloody someone’s nose since breakfast.”Benita shot him a look, but her own nerves betrayed her: her pulse throbbed hard enough she could feel it in her fingertips.Shanon’s jaw tightened. “You don’t understand. They don’t fight in public. They stain you, brick by brick, until no one remembers you clean. If you want fists, you’ll be waiting forever. They’re after reputations, not ribs.”“Then why are they here?” Lola asked, her voice sharper than she meant.Cillian finally spoke, his calm a blade

“I know what you’ve found,” Luke said quietly.Benita’s throat tightened. “Do you?”His gaze flickered toward the folder between them, then back to her. “I’ve been told. And I suppose there’s no point in denying it anymore.” He drew in a long breath and released it, almost like a confession already pressing at his lips. “Your mother and I should never have crossed paths.”Benita sat straighter. “What?”Luke leaned back, his eyes closing briefly, then opened them again, forcing himself to look at her. “It didn’t begin with Belle. It began with Julia Vale.”Benita blinked. Julia Vale. The name rang in her chest like a cracked bell.“Your grandfather thought me careless, spoiled,” Luke continued, his tone measured but shaking underneath. “But Julia… he was brilliant. Ruthless in ways I could never be. We were young men trying to build something out of nothing. The business wasn’t even called Bellington back then. It was just an idea—a building, a handful of desperate schemes. He wanted m

Belle Bellington had always known the day would come.Not this place, not this hour, and definitely not this man.The Gabby Dawson Foundation had become her refuge, the only corner of Oakland where she could reguag her past couldn’t whisper her name. Here, she was just a grieving benefactor, a quiet investor whose money built playgrounds and bought books. No one asked questions, no one looked too closely.So when the sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the marble corridor, her body stiffened before her mind even placed the rhythm.Not Luke. Not even Benita. Him?Cillian St. James.Relief pricked her first — finally, someone had found her. Someone who could take her out of this limbo of shadows. But that relief was instantly shadowed by disappointment, bitter and sharp. Out of everyone in the world, it had to be him. The ex-convict, the wild card, the man who had ruined her daughter’s life simply by existing on its periphery.She smoothed her scarf across her shoulders, lifted her

After Cillian’s declaration at the press conference, the chamber of the Elders was a storm.Heavy velvet curtains swallowed the morning light, but nothing could dim the fire in the voices bouncing off the domed ceiling. The long table of oak, polished so often it gleamed like glass, now rattled under fists and fury.“The audacity of that boy!” one Elder spat, his cane striking the floor with each syllable. “He drags us into the mud before the city!”“Who gave him the right?” another snapped. “We trusted him with one task — one! Defend us, stabilize the narrative. Instead, he paints us as villains!”“I warned you from the start!” cried a third, face red as flame. “St. James was a mistake! A wolf invited into the sheepfold.”Their rage overlapped, tangled into a chorus of outrage. Papers were flung, cups overturned. In the midst of it all, the only figure unmoved was the one who mattered most.Mr. Ade.Seated at the head of the table, the Elder of Elders did not speak. His hands were fo