All Chapters of Bound by Fortune :A Scandalous Heir Billionaire Romance : Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

The first sound was a distant rhythmic thrum, the whine of a bad engine many miles away. Davidson, staring at a spreadsheet in front of him that was now irrelevant in the face of the financial apocalypse, initially dismissed it as construction. But it grew, coalescing from a thrum into a chant, one ugly word repeated with the monotonous persistence of a hammer driving nails into a coffin.He edged towards the window, his body jerking with a slow, mechanical horror. Sixty floors below, the plaza outside the Brian Empire building was no longer a space of shining granite and corporate serenity. It was a straining, furious beast.A crowd of hundreds jammed the square, a sea of handmade signs floating above their heads. They were not the usual financial protesters, the anti-capitalist demonstrators who were a daily presence in the area. These were different. Their faces were etched with another kind of anger—not against the system, but against something in it. They were older, buttoned dow

The calmness in the penthouse was no longer a tranquil one. It had turned bad, become thick and heavy, suffocating. It was a silence that bellowed hospital machinery and fading light, world constricting. For Davidson, it was the echo of his own impending death.With every tick of the antique clock hanging in the hallway, it was a shot of the hammer to the nail of his coffin, and Joe not breaking that silence was a betrayal more than Victor or Melissa could ever scheme.He'd kept it inside for days. In the crashing stocks, the vicious protests, the leaked video that played in an endless, taunting loop through his mind. He'd been the CEO, the strategist, the renegade heir. But the protégé, the man, was shattering.The breakthrough was on the night news. A video of the protest, the chanting of "SIN IN POWER!" and then a smug political commentator dissecting Joe's silence. "The most telling fact in the whole sorry tale," declared the man, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "is

The event was held at The Plaza, a site chosen for the old-fashioned respectability and strength that clung to it.It was light-years away from the sleek, contemporary menace of the Brian Empire tower.The room was a sea of nice flowers and forgiving, soft light, the clinking of china and susurrus of nicely dressed, sympathetic women and scattered serious-looking literary critics. It was more a high-end wake than a book launch, with Melissa Ekon the proper, mourning widow. And she played the part to perfection. She was at its center, in a plain, dove-grey sheath dress, with one pearl strand about her neck. She had elegant but subtle makeup, designed to highlight the shadow on her eyes, the quiver of a smile that suggested a courage honed in deep pain. She was no longer the jilted wife; she was a pillar of hurt dignity. The book was everywhere.Stacked in gleaming piles at the entrance, hugged in the arms of every single one of the guests, its cover a masterpiece of affective branding:

The Holy Redeemer Church stood on a green, tree-lined avenue in the suburb where Davidson had built his first life. Built of solid, weathered stone, topped by a high, plain steeple which pointed towards heaven, it had been his anchor. Within those walls, he and Melissa were married. Mark and Lily were baptized at the marble font. He asked his seat in the same oak pew, week by week, year by year, reassured by the venerable cadences of the liturgy, a temporary refuge from the mercenary world of high finance. It was the only place where he wasn't a protégé or an executive; he was just a man, a soul, among a congregation.He hadn't been inside in over a year. The upheaval of his new life, then the growing scandal, had prevented that. But sometimes, on unaccountable drives, he'd find his car making its way down the familiar streets, and he would sit opposite the church, simply observing. It was a form of penance, a nostalgia for the clean lines of that lost world.Today he caught the notic

The invitation, if indeed it was one, came not over phone or computer, but through a single, typed sheet, slipped under his office door at one of the few moments Clara was absent from her desk. The sheet was heavy, expensive, and utterly anonymous. It contained only an address—a suite at The Lowell hotel—and a time: 10 PM. No signing. No hint.A trap or a lifeline. Davidson couldn't decide which was more lethal in his present state.He went alone up, sending his security team away with general instructions to take some fresh air. The hotel itself was old-fashioned and discreet, the reverse of the glass-and-steel sleekness of his own prison-spire. The corridor to the suite was empty, its floor carpeted in a deep, sound-absorbing pile. He rapped once.Isabella Rossi opened the door.Her drawn, pointed face stood in the soft glow of a single table lamp, her eyes sunken and tired. She'd forsaken her usual power suits for a basic black turtleneck and slacks. She didn't speak, just stepped