All Chapters of His To Take: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The smell of burnt coffee clung to the morning air as Ava Sinclair flipped through emails on her phone, pacing across her agency’s open-plan office. The space was all concrete floors, framed art, and mismatched furniturea blend of grit and style that matched her perfectly.Outside the glass windows, Manhattan pulsed with noise and power. Inside, her world was calm until Harper burst in like a storm.“He’s here,” Harper hissed. “Luca freaking Hart is in the lobby.”Ava blinked. “What?”“You heard me. Black suit. Ice stare. Looks like money and murder.”Ava tossed her phone on the desk. “What the hell does he want?”“He didn’t say. Just asked for you. Personally.”Ava straightened her blazer, spine locking tight. Luca Hart didn’t make personal visits. He sent assistants. Or lawyers. Or press releases.So why was one of the richest men in the country showing up at her agency uninvited?Harper leaned in. “You want me to lie and say you’re out?”“No,” Ava said, voice flat. “Send him up.”L

Ava woke up to silence.She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, not really. One minute she was staring at the ceiling, trying to mentally outpace her anxiety. The next, she was blinking in soft early morning light pouring through the floor-to-ceiling window.Her phone buzzed.Harper:Still alive or kidnapped and sold to a billionaire cult?Ava snorted, sitting up.Ava:Still alive. Can’t speak for the cult part yet.She rubbed her eyes and headed into the bathroom, hoping a splash of cold water would quiet the storm still brewing behind her ribs. The message from the night before he’s lying. He always lies.refused to leave her head.And Luca the more she watched him, the more convinced she became that he was playing two games at once.But what she couldn’t figure out was this:Was he protecting her or controlling the narrative?Luca didn’t sleep.He stood in his private study, the photo of Ava still in his hand. The one showing her outside his childhood home place she’d never been. A time sh

Ava had never driven to her mother’s place this fast in her life.She barely registered the route, the blur of street signs, the feel of her hands on the wheel, or the silence sitting thick between her and Luca in the passenger seat. Her thoughts were too loud. Her pulse was too fast.All she could hear was her voice repeating:What did she hide? What did she sign away?They pulled up to the small two-story house in Queens where Ava had grown up, still painted in the same pale gray, still trimmed with the same flowers Naomi planted every spring. The house looked unchanged.But Ava wasn’t the same girl walking through that front door anymore.Naomi opened it before Ava could knock.She wore an old sweater and soft slippers, her curls pulled into a bun, eyes sharp with concern the moment she saw them.“Ava,” she said. “Is everything okay?”“No,” Ava said, pushing inside. “We need to talk. Now.”Naomi’s gaze flicked to Luca.“He’s with me,” Ava added. “And you’re going to tell me the tru

They didn’t stop running until the city swallowed them.Luca led Ava down two alleys, through the back of a locked loading dock, then into a tunnel that opened beneath an old private garage. One of Hart & Co.’s forgotten safe routes was built for executive extraction. Now, it was saving her life.Inside the garage, a sleek black vehicle sat parked beneath flickering fluorescent lights. Luca unlocked it with a biometric scan. The engine came alive without a sound.Ava leaned against the car door, catching her breath.“We should’ve stayed and downloaded more,” she said.“We stayed as long as we could,” Luca replied, pulling onto a service road. “They were already there before we left.”“Which means they knew we’d come.”Luca nodded once. “We’ve tripped something. The Program’s no longer watching. They’re acting.”Ava looked out the window as the city lights blurred past. “That girl”“She’s not just part of it,” Luca said. “She’s their solution. Their insurance policy.”“The replacement.

The Hart estate wasn’t on any map.Tucked into a mountain ridge two hours outside the city, it was where Gabriel Hart retreated when the boardroom wasn’t enough to contain his ego. The road was unmarked, winding, and steep. It climbed into silence, cell signal, no Wi-Fi, no satellites in range.That was the point.Luca parked the car in front of an iron gate still bearing his family’s cresttwo interlocked serpents, one facing forward, the other coiled inward.Ava stared at it for a long beat. “That’s not a family seal. That’s a warning.”“Yeah,” Luca said. “It always was.”Inside, the house was like a mausoleum.Marble floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Everything dustless, untouched, preserved. It didn’t feel abandoned, felt watched.Luca moved fast, heading to his father’s private wing. Ava followed, eyes scanning everythingthe photos, the symmetry, the eerie quiet of a space that didn’t look like anyone ever lived in it.They reached the office at the back of the estate. Luca keyed