Lahat ng Kabanata ng Masked By Millions : Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

Zara didn’t sleep. Not after Juliette’s sudden appearance, not with Alec’s arm still warm around her waist like a question mark she couldn’t answer.She waited until his breathing shifted into something deep, soft, and trusting. Then she slipped from the sheets, silent as a ghost. Her bare feet kissed the cold marble floor as she moved through the penthouse, her body wrapped in Alec’s black silk shirt and her mind wrapped in war.Juliette didn’t come here by accident.The woman never did anything unless it set fire to someone’s kingdom.Zara padded to her home studio—what had once been Alec’s wine room and now housed sketches, fabric rolls, mannequins, and the growing chaos of a designer preparing for Paris Fashion Week.A single piece of crimson satin lay on the table, cut like a warning. She dragged her fingers along the edge, letting her thoughts spiral.Juliette had offered connections. Zara knew what that meant—dirty hands in cleaner gloves. Sponsors who whispered threats between

The invitation arrived on blood-red parchment.Tied with a black ribbon, sealed with wax, and delivered by hand—slipped under Zara’s door like a threat in disguise.She opened it with careful fingers.You are cordially invited to the Juliette Blackwell Fall Legacy Show.Location: Confidential until RSVP.Date: Three days from now.Dress: Show us what you’re made of.There was no logo.No address.No contact.Just a QR code.And a challenge wrapped in velvet.Alec looked over her shoulder and let out a low, humorless laugh. “She’s putting you in the lion’s mouth.”Zara smiled slowly. “Then let’s bring knives.”—Juliette’s show wasn’t listed anywhere in Paris Fashion Week’s official program.That was the point.It wasn’t a showcase. It was a trap.And everyone who was someone wanted to fall into it.Influencers began posting cryptic teasers.Stylists canceled fittings with Zara’s team.Buyers grew cold.And then the real betrayal came.Dior pulled out of their partnership.Without warn

New York wasn’t welcoming.It didn’t open its arms to Zara Lane’s return.It bared its teeth.Skyscrapers loomed like silent judges. Every sidewalk crack felt like a whisper: You shouldn’t have come back.But she didn’t come to be welcomed.She came to reclaim her throne.And this time, she was bringing the fire with her.—The first thing she did was buy a building.Not rent.Buy.A fifty-story glass tower in Tribeca, just across the street from Juliette’s old showroom—now boarded up and rotting like a corpse no one dared touch.Zara renamed her new headquarters House of Lane.The name was carved into obsidian stone at the entrance, right beneath a phoenix emblem—wings spread wide, feathers gilded with real gold.She didn’t announce her return.She didn’t need to.Fashion Week sent an invitation within hours of the building’s first light turning on.Headliner.Prime slot.New York’s fallen daughter risen again.Zara declined the mainstage.She would host her own show.On her own term

The darkness in Zara Milli Lane didn’t just surface—it unfurled like fire licking the edge of silk. She stood in the center of her Paris showroom, her heels sharp enough to kill, watching as her final sketches for the Fall Descent collection lit up the mirrored screens. This wasn’t just a collection. It was war, stitched in scandal, wrapped in silk, and soaked in vengeance.Across the room, Alec watched her like she was a live wire. He knew better than to interrupt when she was in this mode—unreachable, volcanic, magnificent.“You didn’t sleep again,” he said eventually.Zara lifted her gaze. “Sleeping is for people who aren’t being hunted by their ex’s mad mistress, sabotaged by a fashion council, and cleaning up human trafficking linked to their name.”Alec moved to her side. “We’re almost at the end of this.”Her eyes locked on his. “Are we?”Because beneath the polished layers of Alec Blackwell, she still felt the ripples of secrets—some too sharp, too recent, too unfinished.Befo

The vault beneath the Paris atelier was colder than she remembered.Zara Milli Lane’s heels echoed against polished marble as she moved past the reinforced doors Alec had once sworn didn’t exist. The air was thick with the scent of aged paper, old perfume, and gun oil. She could hear the silence bending around her, too quiet for a place holding secrets this heavy.Behind her, Jordan followed in his all-black suit, a pistol tucked beneath his tailored coat and his eyes trained on every shadow.“You’re sure about this?” he asked.Zara didn’t answer right away. Her gloved fingers brushed the frame of a photo—a faded Polaroid from the late ’90s. A fashion show in New York. A woman standing in front of the runway with red lips and a thousand-yard stare.Juliette Renault.“She was always two steps ahead,” Zara murmured, voice like steel. “But this time, I own the chessboard.”She moved to the next drawer, opened it, and pulled out a leather-bound portfolio labeled Client X. Inside were phot