Semua Bab The Unmasked Heiress: Isabella Hartman is back: Bab 11 - Bab 20

Elijah's pov-I exited the elevator at Ashcroft headquarters, my blazer and jeans standing out among the buzz of polished suits hurrying by me. I’d come to visit Isabella, my head still buzzing from dinner—her tears, her story about Ethan getting shot for her, that car nearly hitting us. Something was off and my gut knew it was connected to my twin’s falsehood. But as I approached her office, a loud crack halted me in my tracks. I peered through the glass walls to see Richard Sinclair—Lilian’s father and a particularly nasty man I had the misfortune of meeting years ago—slap Isabella across the face. Her eyes had widened and I felt a hot red mist surging across my vision.I didn’t think. I burst into the office, my boots slamming the hardwood. “Get your hands off her!” I screamed, grabbing Richard by his bespoke lapel. Pressed him against the wall and punched his jaw while that smug face pulled a weird expression in surprise. The collision reverberated up my knuckles but I did not let

Bella's pov-When Elijah came into my office, his blazer wrinkled, blackened by the shadows over his eyes but still warm. “You shouldn’t have stuck around.” His voice, was low, and rough. Shaking my head, I reached for his hand. “Yes, I did.” My fake dating to ward off corporate games had been cast into something else entirely. The world was aware of it, too — fans wrote in squeeing following sightings of us together at the tech summit, arms linked, smiles utterly genuine. Tabloids published fawning stories, referring to us as a “power couple,” and Maggie began giving me a hard time over coffee, eyes twinkling. “You’re too good at pretending you don’t care, Bella. That chemistry? It’s not fake now, is it?”I laughed and dismissed it, but she wasn’t entirely off the mark. Elijah fit too neatly into my world: his quiet confidence, his late-night campaign strategy sessions, how he’d noticed my scars and didn’t look away. It worked for his, too, and the things we’d gone through together m

Bella's pov-My arms shot up on reflex, but I was rooted to the spot in surprise, my eyes opened wide, my hair plastered to my neck with the sweat beading there. “Step away from the body!” snapped an officer, his gun pointing at me, his voice breaking my thoughts. Before I had a chance to move, my hands were snapped into cold steel cuffs, digging into my skin. “Isabella Hartman, you are under arrest for the murder of Lilian Sinclair,” another stated.I attempted to object but my voice choked,“I didn’t do this! I just got here!” —but they didn’t listen. My security team, stranded outside, was helpless as they yanked me through the lobby, cameras flashing. The San Francisco night enveloped me as they forced me into a squad car, the sirens wailing a lament for my freedom. My thoughts spun, replaying the text from Lilian: I am sorry... come over. A trap. It had to be. But who? Ethan, still wanting to control me? Kilan, my treacherous uncle? Within hours my name was being sprayed like a w

Bellas pov-My  hair was yanked carelessly into a messy knot that I wore pulled through my jumpsuit throughout the time I sat in my cell, the scratchy jumpsuit itching as I scratched at imaginary bugs I felt crawling on my skin. My eyes, which had been fierce with defiance were now glassy and void as I gazed past a scratched window and through the communal area at a flickering TV screen. The news flashed on repeat, my picture next to Lilian’s beaming face, the headlines pounding at me: “Murdering Heiress Isabella Hartman Denies Killing.” The bail hearing had been a circus, the judge’s gavel a hammer on my hope. “Too many stories,” he had said, and his voice had been cold. “Too much heat. You are a flight risk, Miss Hartman.” The passport I had turned in weeks before counted for nothing. I was lost, my empire was falling, my own name became a curse.The world outside had betrayed me. Beyond the jail’s barbed wire, protesters stood 10 to 20 deep with signs that read like a gallery of ha

Elijah's pov-Maggie’s defiant words echoed, her eyes hard as they blazed a call for resistance that made my nerves fizz. She’d walked out a ticking time bomb who knew too much — my fake heroism with Isabella, framing Elijah, Lilian’s death. My hold on the Blackvale empire, this time as CEO, felt flimsy with her running loose in the world. I stared out at the city skyline with my gray eyes and I was wringing the fabric of my clothe as I did so. Maggie had been helpful, a trustworthy fixer, the type to bury a mess of mine, but now her betrayal — of threatening to expose me — had made her a liability I couldn’t risk.Isabella was still my endgame; we’d merge our empires and I’d become untouchable, but having Maggie’s could blow everything. She had put herself in a position for me to send the hammer down on the palm of her hands. Sure, her attempt to frame Isabella for Lilian’s murder had forced a string that connected her to me—though allegiance could be fickle. She’d move if I turned he