All Chapters of BROKEN BILLIONAIRES: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

ADRIAN.I didn't know how long I sat there.Time moved differently in this room. The monitors kept their rhythm. The oxygen machine breathed for him. And I sat in the chair that had molded itself to my shape over the past year and talked about nothing that mattered.I told him about the decoy at the airport. About Lolette falling apart in Sev's arms instead of mine. About the fact that whoever had my sons was always going to be three steps ahead because they understood something fundamental that I kept refusing to see.They knew exactly how desperate we were.And they were using it.My father's face didn't change. The monitors didn't skip. Nothing in the room acknowledged that I'd spoken at all.I stood up eventually because sitting there wasn't changing anything."I'll be back," I said.The same thing I always said.The same thing that never made any difference.I left the room and pulled the door shut behind me with that soft click that always sounded too final.Rai was waiting in t

ADRIAN.Nobody in the room moved.The voice on the phone filled the silence with that particular quality of calm that only came from someone who had rehearsed this moment. Who had planned it. Who knew exactly what it felt like to have a room full of people go completely still at the sound of it.I’d heard that kind of calm before. Usually right before something irreversible happened.Richard was already signaling to one of the FBI agents. The agent pulled out his own phone and started typing.“What do you want me to reveal?” I asked.“Your father’s condition.” The voice didn’t hesitate. “Full disclosure. Press conference. On camera. You tell the world that Alexei Emporio has been in a vegetative state for the past fourteen months and that you’ve been running the company and hiding it from shareholders, from the board, from the public.”“That’s not—”“I’m not finished.” The pleasantness drained out completely now. “You also disclose the terms of the Eastwood deal. What Theodore wanted.

ADRIAN.The statement took six hours to write.Sasha drafted it. I revised it. Sasha revised my revisions. We went back and forth until the words stopped meaning anything and just became sounds strung together in an order that might keep us from getting sued into oblivion.Lolette sat in the corner of the conference room with Richard and went over security protocols for after the press conference went live. Escape routes. Safe houses. How to handle the reporters that would inevitably camp outside her hotel.The FBI agents came and went. Each time they returned, they had less useful information than before.No leads on Damien’s location. No trace on where the call had originated beyond the stolen phone. No security footage from any of the airports or train stations showing two blonde boys matching the twins’ description.Nothing.By four in the afternoon, my eyes burned from staring at the same document for too long.By six, the protesters outside had doubled in size.By eight, Sasha l

LOLETTE.I set the phone down.My hands were shaking again.I'd known the statement was coming. Had sat in the room while it was being written. Had heard Adrian and Sasha argue about every word.But seeing it written out like this made it real in a way it hadn't been before.Tomorrow this would be public.Tomorrow everyone would know.I got up and walked to the window. The ocean stretched out black and endless under the moonless sky. I couldn't see where it ended and where the sky began. Just darkness layered on darkness with nothing to separate them.My phone buzzed on the bed behind me.I turned and looked at the screen.A text from an unknown number.My heart stopped.I grabbed the phone and opened the message.Unknown: Your sons are safe. For now. Make sure Adrian keeps his word tomorrow. If he doesn't, you'll never see them again.A photo loaded below the text.Ruslan and Ivan asleep on a bed. They were wearing pajamas I didn't recognize. The room behind them was dark but I could

LOLETTE.The Eastwoods had gone on their business trip and taken Mabel with them.I didn’t care about that part. I cared that they’d bothered lying about it.Two weeks, they’d said. Business. Like they needed an excuse to leave me out of a trip I’d never wanted to be on anyway. Maybe it was their version of sparing my feelings. Maybe they just didn’t want the staff gossiping about the daughter they conveniently forgot to pack.Either way, the house was mine for two weeks.And Adrian had texted the second he found out.ADRIAN: Pool. My place. Now.So now I stood outside the Emporio gates with my bag over my shoulder, sunscreen already sticky on my arms, waiting for security to buzz me through like I hadn’t been coming here for years.I heard the Mercedes before I saw it.The gates swung open and he came through them too fast, tires crunching gravel, and pulled up right beside me.The window rolled down.Dark sunglasses. Shirtless. Board shorts. Every inch of him sprawled into that driv