All Chapters of Crossed Lines: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

POV: Damon Damon leaned back in his chair, the glow of the monitors casting sharp shadows across his face. His office at CrossTech’s tower was silent, but his pulse beat like war drums in his chest. He stared at the screen, at the frozen remnants of the trace he’d just executed. The threads led to one undeniable endpoint. No false trails. No decoys. No room left for denial. ShadowByte was Elara Duval. He should’ve felt triumph. Months of dead ends, endless taunts, and elusive signatures, finally cornered. Instead, what filled him was something far more dangerous. Her face rose unbidden in his thoughts. The sharp wit, the unyielding defiance, the rare flickers of vulnerability she couldn’t quite mask when she thought no one was watching. Damon clenched his fists, dragging his gaze away from the screen. She’s been lying to you. Manipulating you. Every moment, every word was an act. And yet… he remembered the copycat fiasco. The quiet way she’d seemed almost grateful when he’d ste

POV: Elara By the time morning light spilled across her apartment, Elara had forced herself into motion. Showers, coffee, laptop, the rituals of normalcy. If she moved fast enough, maybe her thoughts wouldn’t catch her. But Hailey was waiting when she reached the office, leaning against the glass wall with arms crossed. Her sharp gaze swept over Elara once, and her brow furrowed. “You didn’t sleep,” Hailey said flatly. Elara set her bag down, aiming for casual. “You sound like my step mother.” “Clarisse doesn’t care if you run yourself into the ground,” Hailey countered. She pushed off the wall, circling the desk with that unnerving ability to strip away excuses. “Talk to me. What happened?” The question lanced too close. Elara’s instinct was silence, but Hailey had been there from the start, the only one who knew what ShadowByte really meant. To lie now felt like betrayal layered on betrayal. “I made a mistake,” Elara admitted softly. Hailey’s eyes narrowed. “The breach?” El

POV: Clarisse The mirrored elevator walls cast Clarisse Duval’s reflection back at her: flawless makeup, elegant posture, a woman who owned every inch of the world she walked through. The mask of control. The armor of power. Her phone buzzed. Sienna’s name lit up the screen. Clarisse answered, voice cool as glass. “Well?” “She went to the Cross Foundation,” Sienna said without preamble, her tone edged with disbelief. “Not under your name. Not mine. Hers. Ava pitched some bleeding-heart initiative about access and community programs, and DaCosta actually listened.” Clarisse’s hand tightened around her glass clutch. Ava. The one who had always wilted beneath her gaze, who had flinched from the sharper games Sienna reveled in. A daughter born to privilege yet reluctant to seize it. And now, daring to act without permission. “How… bold of her,” Clarisse murmured. The words slid like silk, but underneath lay steel. Sienna scoffed. “Bold? It’s pathetic. She thinks this makes her ind

POV: Elara The music lingered in her ears long after the dance ended. Elara moved quickly, slipping through clusters of laughing guests, her pulse still caught in the rhythm Damon had left behind. His hand at her waist, his voice brushing against her defenses, it clung to her like smoke. She found the side corridor that led toward the balcony, a place where the noise of the ballroom dulled to a distant hum. The night air pressed cool against her skin as she stepped outside, bracing both palms on the stone railing. Her reflection in the glass doors betrayed her: the faint flush on her cheeks, the unsteady rise and fall of her chest. Fool. She had known what he was. Damon Cross didn’t set traps to waste them. If he hadn’t exposed her yet, it wasn’t mercy. It was leverage. He wanted her bound by the secret of her own mistakes, tethered where he could tug the line at any moment. And yet… her hand still remembered the steadiness of his grip. Her body still recalled the nearness, the

POV: Clarisse Clarisse Duval sat at the head of the marble dining table, the family crest gleaming faintly under the chandelier. The room was empty but for her, and that suited her well. Silence was the best place to sharpen knives. A slim folder lay open before her. Columns of numbers, signatures, projections, the bones of an acquisition no one outside her circle even knew existed yet. Soon Duval Holdings would swallow another competitor whole, and the board would call it Henry’s brilliance. She smirked. Henry hadn’t been brilliant in years. He had been… malleable. Her gaze flicked to the portrait on the wall: Henry with his first wife, Elara’s mother. Sweet woman. Soft. Died too young. Clarisse had made sure Henry never had time to mourn properly. Secrets, whispers, the right papers slid under the right pens. All it had taken was patience and precision. That patience had carved her path from secretary to stepmother, from the background to the throne. And she wasn’t about to let