Alle Kapitel von After He Took It All: Kapitel 121 – Kapitel 130

Brielle’s POVThe silence after the blackout felt like a nightmare come true.It was worse than all the threats he'd spat out in less than an hour.It was…my nightmare.Lights flickered back on after a few seconds—backup generators humming in that soft, expensive tone, reminding me that I was back to this place.I should scream.Heck, I should faint from this damned news.But I didn't. Didn't curse or overreact.I mean, I couldn't even move.I just stood there, staring at the monitor as the red warnings burned themselves into my vision.Axel was already at the console, fingers flying once again, his jaw locked so tight I thought it might start to hurt anytime from now. Then, he muttered under his breath to himself—systems, failsafes, contingencies.Something of the sort.But I could barely hear him.Heck, I barely heard him at all.Because my phone was vibrating in my hand repeatedly.It'd been going off since the blackout.I didn’t want to look.Mainly because I already knew what was

Alexei's POVI really should have stayed in the bathroom. Or better yet, I should have just stayed at the table and finished my drink while watching Axel and Brielle pretend they weren't totally obsessed with each other. But no, I had to be the guy. The one who notices the black car with no plates, and the one who decides that tonight is the night I officially become a private investigator.I slipped out the side exit of the restaurant, the cool night air hitting my face and reminding me that my life choices lately have been questionable at best.My ride was parked right there—my beautiful, mint-green Vespa named Ginevra. She’s a masterpiece of Italian engineering, but she’s not exactly a stealth vehicle.She’s bright, she’s shiny, and when I start her up, she makes a sound that is basically the mechanical version of a loud cough.I hopped on, adjusted my hoodie so my face was mostly a shadow, and kicked the engine over. Ginevra sputtered to life, and I winced.I looked across the str

Axel's POVI’ve had a lot of job titles in my life. CEO. Engineer. Widower. Vigilante.But tonight, as I pushed the SUV through a red light and felt the weight of the tactical gear in the back, I was back to the one I was actually best at: a guy who knows exactly how to break things with technology.I wasn't just angry. I was in that zone where everything becomes a series of data points and tactical windows.My father thinks he’s the only one who can play god with people's lives? He forgot who designed the sensors that guard his vaults. He forgot that I’m the one who turned his "legacy" into a digital playground.We were three minutes out from the hospital when I reached into the back and pulled forward the heavy, matte-black Pelican case. I popped the latches, the sound sharp in the quiet of the car."Axel, what are you doing?" Brielle asked, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. She was holding a suppressed 9mm, checking the magazine with a mechanical coldness that still weirded me out

Axel's POVI’ve spent a lot of my life thinking that the hardest part of any engineering project is the final stress test. You know, that moment where you push the machine to its absolute limit to see if your math was right or if the whole thing is going to blow up in your face.But standing at the edge of the abandoned shipyard, watching the wind whip Brielle’s hair around her face, I realized that the hardest part isn't the machine. It’s the people. Especially the people who share your DNA but none of your soul.The shipyard was a graveyard of rusted metal and broken dreams. Giant cranes loomed over us like the skeletons of prehistoric monsters, and the air smelled like salt, old oil, and the kind of deep, damp cold that gets into your bones and stays there.I kept my hand on the grip of my sidearm, my thumb hovering over the remote trigger for the Aeroscout drone I had hovering six hundred feet above us in the dark."You ready?" I whispered, glancing at Brielle.She didn't look at

Axel’s POVI don’t remember driving here.Sure, I remember red lights turning green across the traffic.I remember Brielle’s hand clenched around the door handle like she was scared she'd been flung away if I pressed too hard on the brakes.I remember my heart beating so loud it drowned out the engine.But the road itself?Gone.The estate gates recognized the plates on my car and slid open smoothly, obedient as always, and something about that—how normal it was—made dread crawl up my spine.Security was already moving when we stepped out. Radios crackling through the speakers. Voices tight with panic and a calm tension like they knew everything.But they were too late.I didn’t wait.I ran.Not walking. Or jogged. I ran like a man chasing a thief, boots pounding against marble, breath heaving in and out of my chest as the house blurred around me.“Axel—” someone called.But I didn’t stop.The nursery door was still ajar.That was the first red bell ringing in my mind.The second wa