All Chapters of After He Took It All: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Axel's POVI felt the rage rising in my throat, hot and choking. I grabbed the front of Victor's shirt, my knuckles white, pulling him in close across the mahogany desk. The expensive wood suddenly felt too flimsy for the violence in the room."The hell do you mean she's just disappeared?" I snarled, my voice raw, barely controlled. "Where were you? You had her secured! Richter's residence is a fortress!"Victor, to his credit, didn't flinch. He just held my gaze, utterly professional and defeated. "Sir, she didn't breach the perimeter. She walked out the front door two weeks ago."She was dressed normally, carrying a single bag, after a scheduled document transfer. She spoke to the guard, provided a release code, and left. She was listed as a 'temporarily withdrawn client' by Richter's office 30 minutes later. It was completely procedural. She left the fortress legally.I let go of his shirt, stepping back slowly, running my hands through my hair in pure, agonizing frustration. Two w

Axel's POVThe noise of the gala evaporated the moment the heavy door of the secured suite clicked shut behind us. It wasn't just a door; it was a barrier. It separated the blinding, theatrical lie we had just sold from the raw, dangerous truth we now faced.I shoved my hands through my hair, the gesture ragged and desperate. My composure, the perfect, unyielding shield I maintained in public, shattered instantly. The remnants of that forced kiss still lingered on my mouth, a metallic, confusing heat that was completely inappropriate.Brielle turned her back to me instantly, walking toward the small dressing area of the suite. She didn't look at me, didn't acknowledge the tension filling the room. She was already working on the zipper of that ridiculous designer gown, treating the entire performance like a costume she needed to shed.“Don’t you ever manipulate me like that again!” I said, my voice low and fierce. The banked-down rage finally escaped. “That kiss—that performance—you or

Linda's POVThe news was everywhere, and it wasn't the good kind. I was in my safe, quiet apartment in Geneva, watching the financial headlines roll across the screen. The Yacht Club. The one Henri and I founded, the one that served as the quiet, respectable front for our liquid European assets. Gutted.Brielle's latest motion, filed in some obscure German court, wasn't about seizing the club. It was about exposing the underlying financial liabilities of its board members. She made the club toxic, forcing the sale of assets at a loss, simply to avoid deeper legal scrutiny. It was a humiliating, public, and financially devastating blow.I stared at the anchor’s pristine face. The rage inside me was a mask of pure, elegant fury. I put my champagne flute down—gently, because breaking things is vulgar—and stood up.“Brielle,” I spat out the name, the sound of it laced with venom. “You will regret this.”I had tolerated her attacks on Jason. He was, as she correctly observed, a pathetic id

Brielle's POVI didn't wait for Axel to find me. I found him.After receiving Richter's frantic, coded message about the global market collapse—the chaos that confirmed Linda had finally sold the prototype—I knew the time for hiding was over. The game had just shifted from corporate survival to total, mutual annihilation.I used the emergency back entrance of his corporate tower, bypassing the security theater, and walked straight into his private command suite. He was standing in front of his wall of bleeding red screens. He was the image of a defeated general watching his fortress crumble. He didn't even turn around when I entered; he knew it was me. He could probably smell the desperation and the adrenaline.I didn't raise my voice. I didn't yell about the tracker, the lies, or the danger he had put me in. The noise outside was loud enough.“Your mother. Linda. They’re selling the empire,” I stated, my voice low, perfectly controlled, cutting through the panic of the market crash.

Brielle's POVThe noise was gone, replaced by the soft, ambient chatter of a high-end downtown café. I was sitting at a small table near the window, watching the silent, frantic faces on the muted television screen hanging above the bar. My hand rested on the subtle, undeniable curve of my abdomen. The baby was fine. We were both fine.On the screen, the financial pundit looked pale, sweating slightly under the studio lights. He was struggling to articulate the chaos—the complete, catastrophic collapse of the Julliard energy tech’s valuation. It wasn’t just the collapse of a stock; it was the collapse of an entire future sector, poisoned by the very secret it was built on.Axel’s move—the final, brutal injection of the instability flaw—had worked perfectly. It hadn't saved the legacy, but it had guaranteed that no one, especially not Linda, would ever profit from it. The market had reacted exactly as we calculated: with immediate, wholesale panic and utter abandonment of the technolog