All Chapters of After He Took It All: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

162 Chapters

They Are Watching, Even Here

Brielle's POVI was leaning against the cold wall in the hallway, trying not to sob. The shame was suffocating. I, Brielle Julliard, the only one standing between my father and total ruin, had been publicly embarrassed and dismissed by the only person who could help, all because I was an hour late.I straightened up, shoving the documents back into my bag. I couldn't leave. I absolutely couldn't. I had to make him understand.I walked back toward the huge mahogany door of Richter's office. The receptionist, the one with the severe bun, was watching me with obvious dislike.“Please,” I pleaded, rushing to her desk, my voice raw and desperate. “I know I was late, but I need five minutes. Just five minutes to explain the security threat. It’s critical. My life, my father’s life, is in danger. This is not a game!”She just glared at me. Her expression didn't change, but her nostrils flared slightly. She started speaking in crisp, irritated German.“Frau Julliard, Herr Richter told you cl

Asset Is Active

Axel's POVThe office felt like a cage, even with the floor-to-ceiling glass that usually gave me a commanding view of the city. Now, all I saw were possible escape routes. I’d been awake for forty-eight hours straight, fueled by nothing but bad coffee and the gnawing need to find Brielle.The cold, controlled panic I’d felt right after discovering her escape had turned into a desperate, grinding anxiety. I needed to see her face. I needed to explain. I needed to apologize for the surveillance, for the lies, for turning her love into a leash. I needed her to understand that every boundary I crossed was because the life I led was always dangerous, and control was the only language I knew to keep her safe. It was a pathetic excuse, I knew, but it was the only one I had.I paced the length of the room, my hands shoved deep into my pockets.My eyes kept straying to the bottom drawer of my desk. That’s where the interface was. The interface for the tiny, custom GPS tracker I had embed

The Medical File Backdoor

Sophia's POVThe air in my own apartment felt suddenly thin, stifling. I was sitting on the edge of my pristine white sofa, staring at my phone like it was a live grenade. The last few days had been a descent into total, unstoppable chaos, and it was all thanks to Jason’s pathetic incompetence and Brielle’s sudden, terrifying transformation.My phone rang again. Caller ID: Jason. I let it ring twice before snatching it up.“What?” I snapped, not even bothering with a greeting.“What do you mean, what?” Jason’s voice was high-pitched, laced with pure panic. He sounded like a cartoon villain whose plans had been foiled by a common house cat. “The lawyers are sending notices! My accounts are being flagged! She’s moving to freeze everything we touched in the last six months, Sophia! You assured me Brielle was too soft, too emotional, too obsessed with Axel to ever focus on the business!”“Oh, spare me the drama, Jason,” I sighed, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. “I’m the one who did the gr

The Agreement

Brielle's POVThe silence after my desperate shout was thick and unstable. Richter’s face, framed by the door, wasn’t angry anymore. He was looking past me, past the guards, past the terrified receptionist, using my warning to confirm his own internal suspicion.He stepped back slowly into his office, leaving the door wide open. His voice, when it came, was low and deep. “Get in here, Ms. Julliard. Guards, wait outside. If anyone approaches this door, you alert the police. Do you understand?”The guards nodded immediately, looking relieved to have clear, non-physical orders.I stumbled into the office, my legs shaking now that the adrenaline was gone. Richter walked back to his desk, but didn’t sit down. He gestured toward the expensive leather chair opposite his desk, a sign that I was, reluctantly, allowed to be in his presence.I sat, clutching my backpack like a life raft.Richter didn't waste time on small talk. He stood over me, his face granite-hard. “That phrase—They are watc

Choosing The Case Over My Heart

Brielle's POVThe new apartment was okay, I guess.It was hidden, secure, and completely paid for by Richter’s firm, which honestly made me feel a little dirty.It was miles away from the clinic, and I was stuck here living under a fake name, just like in a spy movie—except this one was about emotional torture and tax fraud.The centerpiece of my new life was this terrifying red binder Richter had given me.Except… it wasn't just a book; it was a sarcophagus filled with secrets. It sat right on my small kitchen table, which had become my new desk, and I was spending every waking moment literally drowning in it."Drowning" is the right word because the corporate jargon felt like it was pulling me under.“A derivative contract on a leveraged buyout using the Cyprus trust as a proxy…” I mumbled, rubbing my gritty eyes at 3 AM.Even with my terrible translator app, the German documents were just noise.I kept thinking, “What the hell is a derivative? Why does everything need three layers

The Landlord's A Ghost, And I'm Breaking My Rules

Axel's POVInsane. That was the one word to properly describe me right now. I was basically living in a self-imposed prison of good behavior, so yes, it was driving me insane. I was stuck in my stupid office, running my empire with one hand, and monitoring Brielle’s safety through encrypted text reports with the other. I told Victor to keep his distance and prioritize her safety over my need for control, and now I was paying the price in white-knuckle frustration. The reports were routine, clipped, and maddeningly vague. 2:00 PM CET: Asset arrived at designated location (Richter Residence, secure). No contact. No anomalies. 6:00 PM CET: Asset confirmed inside. Motion sensors are stable. Perimeter secure. 10:00 PM CET: Lights still on in study. The asset remains focused.“Safe and accounted for.” Tch. God, I was frustrated. Victor’s definition of success was my definition of torture. I knew where she was—in some safe house arranged by that German lawyer—and I knew she was stu

Weaponizing The Files Against The Queen

Sophia's POVI spent the next day completely obsessing over that internal stamp on Henri Julliard's medical files. The anxiety was a physical weight in my chest, reminding me I was no longer playing chess; I was playing Russian roulette with the biggest corporate family in Europe. I was right about the stamp. After digging through some dusty, old private sector records I still had access to—the kind of proprietary knowledge you never erase—I confirmed it. That stamp belonged to a private research foundation established in the 1990s. The whole thing was a beautifully hidden facade, specializing in neurological trauma and long-term care for... well, for people you wanted to keep quiet and comfortable, but totally contained.And the initial funding for the foundation, the seed money, came directly from a holding company tied to the Ferdinez Group. Axel’s mother. The old woman who runs the show. I paced my living room, the expensive carpet suddenly feeling too thin. Axel’s mother, M

Finding The Ghost Company And The Bomb

Brielle's POVWeeks had passed, and the apartment was starting to feel less like a safe house and more like a prison library. I hadn't seen daylight that wasn't filtered through a tiny window in ages. The only things that mattered were German corporate law, dry financial statements, and the red binder. I was sleeping maybe four hours a night, waking up thinking about fiduciary duty and hostile takeovers. My pregnancy was starting to show, just a hint of a curve under my loose sweaters, a soft, constant reminder of what I was fighting for.Richter had only contacted me twice, both times via video chat, demanding detailed summaries of specific case sections. He was brutal; he didn’t care if I understood the jargon, only that I could recite the facts and identify the leverage points. He was hardening me, training me to see people not as family, but as corporate entities. “Sentience is a weakness, Ms. Julliard,” he’d lectured me once. “Your ex-husband is not ‘cunning.’ He is ‘destruc

Coded Warning And Getting Caught

Axel's POVThe security report finally landed on my desk, and I grabbed it like it was the last life raft on the Titanic. I hadn't slept properly in days, and all I could see when I closed my eyes was Brielle's furious face as she walked out that door. The financial damage Jason was doing was bad, but the psychological damage Brielle was doing to me was total. Victor’s data was clean, concise, and incredibly alarming. It was about the burly man, the ‘landlord’ who had delivered the threat package to Brielle. Identity confirmed: Günther Hess. Retired. Affiliations: Worked primarily in transnational security details for the Vandenberg Group, 2008-2019. Now operates as freelance intelligence.The Vandenberg Group. That name was like chalk scraping down a blackboard in my family's history. They were our quiet, corporate blood-rivals from the old world—the kind of people who didn't steal money, they stole leverage.They were the ones who would burn down a house just to prove they could

Using Axel's Warning And Learning To Lie

Brielle's POVI was hunched over the red binder, trying to reconcile the legitimate-looking Geist Verwaltungs records with the terrifying list of power brokers, when the secure terminal on the desk started beeping. It was some kinda encrypted whatever alert…And it looked kinda urgent. It wasn't a call; it was a text file, a bland-looking security notification. I read the initial jargon, my eyes already trained to look past the surface: SECURITY ALERT: Server Vulnerability Detected. HIGH PRIORITY. Focus on the integrity of the Geist Verwaltungs framework. Note that external access attempts are targeting PROTOCOL-OMEGA-11 via an unauthorized retirement-sector IP. Review old contracts for key vulnerabilities.It looked like a generic IT warning, and I almost dismissed it. But then my brain snagged on two things: Geist Verwaltungs and PROTOCOL-OMEGA-11. Those were the ghost company and the decryption file I’d just spent two weeks unearthing. No one outside of me, Richter, and maybe a

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