Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

Chapter 11 – An Enemy’s Hand

The black diamond earring hadn’t moved.It waited on the edge of Elise’s vanity, catching the light like a secret. She hadn’t touched it. Hadn’t even stepped closer. Just sat on the windowsill in her robe as dawn pulled itself slowly over the city skyline.The silence in her room was deliberate. No music. No distractions. The only sound was her breath, steady but shallow, as she stared at the box.It shouldn’t exist.She had hidden the first one the night she woke in this life. It had been torn from her ear in the woods, lost to dirt and betrayal. She remembered brushing her fingers over it before everything went black. Now there were two again.Identical. Whole.That was not a coincidence.She stood slowly, the silk of her robe whispering against her legs, and crossed the room. Her fingers hovered just above the velvet. Close enough to feel the cold. Not close enough to leave a mark.Her face stayed neutral, but her eyes sharpened.Someone knew.Or someone wanted her to believe they

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-22

Chapter 12 – The Ghost File

The second earring never returned.Elise had checked. Not overtly. Not like someone afraid. But the drawer where she’d hidden the first one had stayed locked. The velvet box on the vanity remained undisturbed. The space beside it stayed empty.A calculated message with no follow-up.That was what bothered her.By the third day, Elise began to question the silence more than the threat.It was evening when she noticed the shift. A corner of her suite — the chair by the bookcase — had been moved slightly off angle. Just enough to catch the light wrong. Subtle, but she hadn’t left it that way.No sign of forced entry. No missing items.But something had changed.Her first instinct was to go to the house security logs.Her second was sharper.If someone had been in her room, they had come from inside.Not the outside perimeter. Not a break-in.Someone who belonged here.Someone with legacy access.She dressed in silence — black slacks, cream blouse, no jewelry — and left her wing without a

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-22

Chapter 13 – Lies Worn Like Silk

The dress smelled like lavender and time.Elise stood in front of the mirror, fingers smoothing the faded silk across her hips. It had belonged to Camila — a soft dove-grey with embroidered cuffs and a neckline that skimmed the collarbone without showing skin. It was elegant. Refined. The kind of dress worn by women who played the long game and smiled while doing it.Camila had laid it out herself.“You wore this the first time you met his aunt,” Elise said.Camila appeared in the doorway, hands already clasped.“And she remembered me. That’s the point.”Elise adjusted the sleeves. “You think this will disarm them?”“I think it will soften you,” Camila replied. “They’re not coming to be impressed. They’re coming to be reassured.”Elise didn’t look at her. “Then they’ll be disappointed.”Camila watched her for a beat longer.Then left.—The Caro estate had been transformed.Gardenias lined the courtyard. The sitting room gleamed with crystal and curated heritage — oil portraits, lacqu

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-22

Chapter 14 – A Favor for Matteo

The envelope was hand-delivered.No insignia. No wax seal. Just cream paper with her name in sharp black script. Camila passed it to Elise over breakfast like it was an afterthought.“A courier dropped this for you.”Elise opened it without comment.Inside: a note, folded once.Elise— I need a quiet favor. No drivers. No questions. You’ll be met at 7 p.m. sharp, corner of Via Ippolito and Silvestri. Black door. Use the alley entrance. — MShe read it twice.Then folded it back, slipped it into her coat pocket, and finished her tea.—The sun dipped behind the Caro estate in a smear of gold. Elise stood in front of the full-length mirror and adjusted her coat. Slate gray. Belted. Simple.She wore no perfume.No jewelry.No trace of softness.This wasn’t a seduction.It was a calculation.Camila passed her in the foyer, paused briefly, and asked nothing.Smart.Elise left through the side gate.No driver. Just silence.—The corner of Via Ippolito and Silvestri looked like nothi

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-22

Chapter 15 – Bruises You Can’t See

Elise didn’t speak of the gallery incident.Not to Camila. Not in her journal. She cleaned the blade. Burned the envelope. Acted like it hadn’t touched her.But the quiet that followed settled wrong in her chest.Matteo had sent her into danger, then covered her with protection.Her body pretended it didn’t matter.Her sleep said otherwise.The dream wasn’t new.But it had waited—quiet, patient—for the right moment to return.—Elise ran through the trees.Dark ones. Wet with silence. Not chasing, not fleeing. Just moving. Fast. Her boots caught roots. Her breath scraped. She knew what came next.Gunfire.Not a sound.A sensation.Then nothing.Except—A single voice.Her name.Said not in hate.But regret.—She woke gasping.Sheets tangled. Skin damp. The air in her room felt thinner than it should. She sat up too fast, elbows locked, heart stuttering against bone.The lamp was still on.Soft amber glow.It was past midnight.She stood slowly, moved toward the window. Opened it just

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-22

Chapter 16 – Unspoken Allegiances

Cassian didn’t mention the scream.Not the next day.Not the day after.But Elise noticed other things.He was still in the house.Camila had arranged it — “for appearances,” she’d said. A show of harmony. Of unity.To Elise, it was surveillance dressed as strategy.But she used it anyway.—He stopped deferring to Camila during meetings. Cancelled an outing arranged by the family council — one Elise was meant to attend for optics. When the guests asked why, he simply said, “Priorities changed.”He didn’t name her.But she felt the weight of it anyway.Not as affection.As strategy.—The morning after, Camila received a private call from the Foundation’s board and left the estate without comment.Elise took the opening.She crossed to the west wing.Knocked once on the study door.Cassian opened it.No tie. No jacket. Just a pressed shirt and quiet wariness.“Elise.”“Are you cancelling the gala appearance because of me?”He hesitated.“Yes.”“Why?”He stepped aside. She entered with

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-23

Chapter 17 – Elena Cruz is Born

Elena Cruz didn’t exist on paper until Elise decided she did.The apartment came first — a walk-up above a closed florist on Via Danzico. Third floor. No elevator. The kind of place that didn’t ask questions and kept its lights dim even in daylight. She signed the lease in silence, using one of the old cover identities Gerardo Valez had drafted for her family’s “quiet accounts” back when she was still too obedient to know what they were for.This time, she knew.The walls were bare, the windows locked. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, like someone had wiped away something that shouldn’t have been left behind. There were no family portraits here. No ancestral oil paintings. Just blank walls. Clean, unfinished. The way she liked it.Elise set her single suitcase on the narrow table by the window. It held only what she needed: a gray coat, a burner phone, two folders, and a black fountain pen.Then she waited.Gerardo arrived at 9:03 a.m.He had aged better than most men in his bus

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-23

Chapter 18 – The Ring He Never Chose

Cassian handed her the note late in the afternoon, while she was reviewing the Cruz documentation at the drawing room table. He didn’t ask what she was reading. He didn’t interrupt.He just placed the folded card beside her elbow.“Seven o’clock,” he said. “Rooftop.”She looked at the envelope, then at him.“Is this an order?”“No,” he said. “An opportunity.”The card was cream stock. No seal. No flourish.Inside, in his handwriting:Wear something that doesn’t apologize. — C—By sunset, the Caro estate’s rooftop had been cleared of its usual furniture. In its place stood a low table with a bottle of scotch, two heavy crystal glasses, and an old wooden box. Cassian stood at the railing, facing the skyline, sleeves rolled, his jacket slung over the back of a chair.She stepped into the space without slowing.Her dress was black, deep, and glitter-laced. A slip of starlight against her skin. It caught every breath of movement, clung like heat, and shimmered like threat. It dipped low a

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-23

Chapter 19 – Matteo’s Warning

Camila had invited Matteo to the estate for a late-afternoon strategy session. Something to do with donor placement and the Foundation’s upcoming portfolio. Elise hadn’t been asked to join.She didn’t ask why.But when she passed the library and heard Matteo’s voice — low, deliberate — she didn’t stop.She just walked away.—By dusk, the library was supposed to be empty.It wasn’t.She stepped inside without hesitation.The room smelled of old leather and cedar polish. Low light pooled across the rug, softening the carved furniture into suggestion. A decanter glinted like a forgotten temptation.Matteo was still there.She felt him before she saw him — not as sound, but pressure. The air thickened. Space shifted.He stepped into view between the central shelves, holding a slim leather folder, unopened.“Interesting ring,” he said.“It wasn’t yours to comment on,” Elise replied.He moved forward. “That’s never stopped you from wearing things meant for someone else.”“Cassian offered i

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-23

Chapter 20 – The Girl in the Mirror

Elise didn’t sleep.The estate was quiet past midnight — the kind of silence that hums under walls and in between breath. She sat in her suite with the lights low, the fire down to embers, the ring still on her finger and the taste of too many glances clinging to her skin.She should have been tired.But power had a way of keeping the pulse sharp.And tonight, it burned.She moved to the vanity with slow intent. The mirror caught her in fragments — hair undone, mouth too still, collarbone lit in slices of shadow. Her reflection didn’t soften. It didn’t forgive.It waited.She rose.And the gown moved with her.Black silk — nearly sheer — slid down the planes of her body, brushing against bare skin like it didn’t care who watched. It caught the light in ghostly gleams, enough to trace the deep lines of her waist, the sweep of her thighs, the soft dip at the top of each breast.She hadn’t worn anything beneath it.Not because she meant to be seen.But because she wasn’t hiding anymore.

Dernière mise à jour : 2025-06-23

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