All Chapters of Shadows of Desire: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

The next morning arrived with the metallic scent of tension and the bitter taste of coffee-fueled nerves. The moment I stepped into Elysium, I could feel it—the air was taut, charged like the atmosphere before lightning strikes.Marco's urgent voice drifted from the control room. "He's reached out again." My pulse quickened. "Adrian?" But Marco shook his head grimly. "No. Feld. The reporter messaged Lena directly through a private channel. He wants the 'final package.'"I froze in disbelief. "After the injunction?" Leo's voice answered from behind me, heavy with concern. "He doesn't know yet. The process server's visit didn't scare him off—it cornered him. Now he's desperate."Lena sat at the long table, her hands folded tightly around a paper cup that threatened to crumple under her grip. Her eyes were wide but dry, her breathing controlled in the precise way Elise had taught her—counting silently, grounding herself through rhythm. "He said today," she murmured. "One last handoff. He

When systems wake, they do it in layers. First the hum—the servers in the control room drawing breath. Then the glow—the monitors warming from blue to white. After that, the people follow in their own stutters: coffee on, locks off, voices low. Today, Elysium woke early and on purpose. We were done being prey. We were learning how to hunt ethically.Marco was already at the console when I came in, hoodie half-zipped, hair doing its best impression of static electricity. He had six screens up like a stained-glass window for nerds: corporate registries, tax records, WHOIS lookups, and a spreadsheet that looked like it had made other spreadsheets call it “sir.”He didn’t look up when I set a paper cup beside him.“You’re a saint,” he said, reaching for the coffee without breaking typing rhythm.“I’m a witness with a caffeine budget,” I corrected, sliding onto the spare chair and pulling my notebook into my lap. “Tell me what we’re hunting.”“Money,” he said. “The only language Adrian res

I remembered the sound first — a soft ripping that felt like a small surrender, like tissue tearing under too-stiff fingers. It echoed in the tiny apartment the way a dropped glass might in a cathedral: too loud, too honest. I held the page in both hands and watched the words I had given life to fold into something useless. The headline still sat on the top like an accusation: ELYSIUM — THE WORLD INSIDE A GILDED THEATER. I had believed, once, that truth had a duty to be loud. Tonight, the truth sounded cruel.I’d written that article with a fever. I’d tried to stitch complexity into it — the rituals and the rules, the safeguards and the lapses, the people who had trusted me with the backstage of their lives. I’d tried to make it carefully. But when I read it as if it were someone else’s thing, I heard only the edges: the part that would feed the appetite for scandal, the parts that would strip nuances until the people I loved were caricatures beneath a shaming headline. I thought of V

I didn’t expect the room to feel this quiet.Victor had booked one of the smaller rehearsal spaces — the one with the deep red curtains and the dim lighting that made everything look softer than real life. I stood inside the doorway long enough for him to notice I wasn’t moving. He didn’t speak at first. He just watched me with that slow, measured attention that always felt like he was reading the spaces between my breaths.“Close the door, Cassie,” he said finally.The sound of it shutting clicked like a lock inside my chest.He stood near the padded bench, sleeves rolled up, posture straight but not rigid. Not angry. Not cold. Just… waiting.“I destroyed the article,” I blurted. “All of it. I tore every page.”“I know,” he said.“How?”“Marco told me. And I believed him.”A pause.“Do you want me to believe you?”My stomach tightened. Not from fear — from the weight of responsibility.“Yes.”He nodded once, the smallest nod. “Then we talk. And then we negotiate. And only then do we

I knew something was different the moment Jennifer knocked on the rope-room door.Not timidly — Jennifer Hale doesn’t do timid — but with this strange, hesitant rhythm, like each tap was an argument she was having with herself. I was walking past on my way to the common room when I heard it.Marco looked up from inside, rope draped over his forearm, giving her his “What’s going on?” look — the one soft enough to invite honesty and firm enough to mean Don’t dodge the question.Jennifer hovered in the doorway, arms wrapped around herself. And if I hadn’t been watching closely, I would’ve missed it — the tremble in her posture, the vulnerability trying to hide behind her usual sarcastic armor.“I want… to try something,” she said.Marco’s brows lifted in surprise, but he stepped aside.Jennifer walked in. I didn’t follow, but I lingered in the hallway, leaning lightly against the wall. Not eavesdropping — not intentionally — but the door was cracked open, and Jennifer’s voice was thinner