Her mother's lover のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

Scarlett’s POVThe brass key felt heavier every time I touched it. Its teeth were carved with a symbol of a coiled serpent biting its tail. The same mark that had appeared in the margins of my father’s journal.Damien watched me from the driver’s seat as rain slid down the windshield. The storm outside was the kind that turned cities into ghosts, streetlights blurred, windows shuddered. I traced the serpent mark with my thumb.“This isn’t just a key,” I said quietly. “It’s a message.”Damien’s jaw tightened. “Your father left it for a reason. And whatever it opens… it’s what Kade’s been after all along.”We drove in silence for miles, following the coordinates we’d pieced together from the journal and the old ledger Reilly had decrypted. Every mile brought us closer to the heart of a secret that had taken my father, twisted my mother, and nearly destroyed me.The road narrowed into gravel, then dirt. The world went dark except for the headlights cutting through fog. When we finally st

Scarlett’s POVKade staggered, pain flashing across his face. Damien appeared through the smoke, gun raised, eyes burning.“Step away from her,” he growled.Kade’s lips curved into a faint, bloody smile. “Always the hero.”He stumbled back, vanishing once more into the mist. The sound of his retreating footsteps echoed, then faded into silence.I fell to my knees beside Maria, shaking. Damien dropped beside me, checking her pulse, then met my eyes. The look said everything she was gone.For a long moment, the only sound was the wind over the water. Then I whispered, “She said there’s a letter. At the house. For me.”Damien’s voice was low. “Then that’s where we’ll go next.”I looked at my mother’s still form, the serpent folder still clutched in her hand, and felt something inside me fracture grief, fury, relief, I couldn’t tell.The fog rolled over the pier, swallowing the world in gray.And as Damien helped me up, I realized the fight might be over… but the war inside me had only

SCARLETT Damien.He was half-buried under debris, his body motionless, blood streaking across his forehead. For one dizzy heartbeat, I froze. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to leave him to let the flames finish what his lies had started.But my body didn’t listen.“Damien!” I stumbled toward him, coughing as heat scorched the air around me. I shoved away the shattered beam pinning his leg and pressed my shaking hands to his chest. “Don’t you dare die on me now.”His eyes fluttered open. For a second, I saw the man I hated and loved all at once, the one who had broken me, saved me, and ruined everything in between.“Scarlett…” His voice was rough, barely a whisper. “You shouldn’t have come back.”I choked out a bitter laugh. “You’re bleeding out in a burning building, and that’s what you say to me?”He tried to smile, failed, and winced instead. “Sounds like me.”“Idiot,” I muttered, looping his arm around my shoulders. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”Every step was a war

Scarlett’s POVThe river was still roaring behind me when I finally stopped running. My lungs burned, my throat ached, and my vision swam from tears that refused to stop.The forest swallowed me whole wet leaves clinging to my jeans, branches tearing at my skin like the world itself wanted me to bleed. Maybe it did. Maybe I deserved it.Because everything I thought I knew was true, every promise had been built on lies.My mother. My father. Damien.Especially Damien.I stumbled into a clearing, my knees giving out as I sank into the mud. The rain had started again, soft and cold, falling in quiet sheets. I stared up at the gray sky, my chest heaving, whispering the same question over and over until it became meaningless.“Why?”Why me? Why him? Why this?I didn’t even know who I was anymore. The name Scarlett felt like a stranger’s something borrowed from a life that didn’t belong to me.The sound of footsteps snapped me back to reality.I froze, reaching for the pistol at my hip, but

Scarlett’s POVThe next morning, I didn’t recognize my own reflection.My eyes were swollen, my lips cracked, and my face pale like I’d been drained of everything human. The woman staring back at me wasn’t the same Scarlett who used to smile at Damien across late-night dinners or fight beside him in alleyways thick with smoke.That Scarlett had believed in him.This one was hollowed out by the truth.Loren.The name still rang through my head like a curse.I splashed cold water on my face, but it didn’t help. Nothing did. Because the man I’d fallen for, the man who’d saved me, touched me, lied to me wasn’t even real.I slammed my palms against the sink, my chest heaving. I wanted to scream, to break something, but what good would it do? He’d already broken the only thing that mattered me.A sharp knock echoed through the door.I stiffened, every muscle tensing. “Who is it?”“It’s Eli,” came the quiet voice of one of my informants. “You said to let you know if he made contact again.”M