All Chapters of The Chosen Bride: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

AristideI’d been awake since before dawn. The sky was still streaked with purple and ash blue when I left our room and headed down the long corridor toward the war room. The old floorboards creaked beneath my steps, but the rest of the estate was already humming with low activity. There wasn’t time for sleep anymore. Not when we were this close to locking the board.Inside the converted war room, Elena was stationed in front of a triple-monitor setup, fingers dancing across her keyboard. Enzo was pacing with a mug of coffee in hand, murmuring into a burner phone. Marco sat on the edge of a leather chair, field-stripping his pistol like it might offer him clarity. Not that he needed it cleaned, it was already spotless. But fidgeting gave him control.Bella had gotten up a little while after I did, still in her robe, hair unbrushed. She murmured something about helping Mabel and headed downstairs. Not for strategy or security, Bella left those pieces to us for the day. She needed to br

AristideThe room looked different this time.Same faces. Same table. But the energy had changed. No longer cautious or skeptical, no longer waiting to see if Bella would break under the weight of their expectations. Now, they were listening.Really listening.I moved to stand beside her again, my place as constant as her heartbeat. She didn’t look at me, not yet. Her focus was forward, sharp as a blade, but I could feel her… every breath, every calculation humming beneath her skin. She wasn’t just holding the room. She was commanding it.God, she was beautiful like this. Not just the kind of beauty that turned heads. But the kind that bent wills. That made grown men trained in power and silence lean forward without realizing they were doing it. That made me, her husband, her equal, feel proud in a way that dug deep into my chest and stayed there like a vow.“I asked you here because we needed a path forward,” Bella said, voice steady. “And now we have one.”She nodded toward Elena an

AristideSunlight slipped through the tall windows, golden and quiet, soft as a whispered promise. It painted lines across the white sheets tangled around us, and warmed the hardwood floors beneath our feet. But none of it dared to wake her.My Izzy lay curled against me, her body nestled into mine like we were two puzzle pieces shaped for each other. One of her legs was tangled with mine, her cheek resting against my chest, her hair a dark spill across my skin. Her hand rested lightly over my heart, as if it were instinct. Like, even in sleep, she knew exactly where I was.I didn’t move... I didn’t want to.My arm was wrapped around her waist, my other hand laced through hers, fingers resting just above the barely-there swell of her stomach.Our child.I’d faced death. Killed men. Led soldiers and sat across from traitors. But nothing… not even the strike we’d pulled off last night, had hit me the way it did to hold my wife and the life we’d made. She breathed slowly, evenly. Safe. L

AristideBella touched my arm as the others filtered out, her voice low but sure. “I want to talk to Marco. Alone.” I searched her face… clear-eyed, calm, but there was a tension beneath it. She didn’t need permission. She never had. But I appreciated that she told me first.I gave a short nod. “Okay. I’ll pull him.”Minutes later, we were in one of the smaller drawing rooms off the eastern corridor. One we used for side negotiations or quiet strategy. I stayed only long enough to make sure the door shut firmly behind her and Marco, then stood post just outside, giving them privacy but staying close.I didn’t need to hear their conversation to know it wasn’t easy. Bella had always looked up to her brother; she respected him in a way she hadn’t with many men. But learning what their parents had done. She has especially hurt by her father, and this new information and how Marco had carried that secret wasn’t something she’d just let slide.Still… she was in control. Not cold. Not detach

BellaI barely slept.Even with Aristide’s arm draped protectively over me and the faint, steady rhythm of his breathing beside me, my mind wouldn’t settle. The strike had gone well on paper. The relay hub was destroyed, Marco was safe; grazed, not gunned down, and the route was compromised beyond repair for Bianchi. We’d won a small war.But the storm behind my ribs hadn't cleared.When I padded into the war room early that morning, the table was already covered in files, laptop screens blinking to life. Elena sat at one end, scrolling through satellite footage. Enzo sipped espresso, his sharp eyes flicking toward me with a silent nod. Marco, arm in a sling, looked too smug for someone who had bled for this cause.“Sit,” Elena said, sliding a report across to me. “You’re going to want to see this.”The intel was fresh. A secondary frequency picked up off the destroyed relay suggested there had been deeper coding; a piggyback signal. Not just communications routing… but surveillance.