The Billionaire Husband Who Tried to Kill Me 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 21 - 챕터 30

POV: SophiaThe roses Marcus sent were already dying. They sat in a vase on the hotel suite's windowsill, petals curling at the edges, the water below them gone slightly cloudy. He had sent them four days ago with a card that said *soon, my love* in his handwriting. I had read those two words so many times the paper had softened at the fold.Soon. That was all I had been getting lately. Soon, Sophia. Be patient, Sophia. The timing isn't right, Sophia.I stood at the bathroom mirror and finished my makeup with the precision of someone who had learned very early that appearance was armor. Foundation, contour, a precise line of liner. I looked perfect. I always looked perfect. It was the one thing I had never had to work hard at, and lately it was the only thing I felt certain of.My phone had not rung this morning. Marcus used to call every morning when I was in Paris. Before I came back, before all of this. He would call just to hear my voice, he said. Just to start his day right. That

POV: DavidThe case files had taken over my dining table completely. There was no longer any surface visible under the papers, the printed transcripts, the photographs, the timeline Zara had drawn up on three sheets taped together. Two laptops, four highlighters, an empty coffee pot, and the remains of Chinese takeout containers pushed to one side to make room for more documents.It was past eleven. The city outside had gone quiet in the way it only did after midnight, that specific stillness where even the traffic sounds soften. The lamp on the table threw a warm circle of light over everything and outside that circle the apartment was dark.Olivia had her hair pulled up, a pen tucked behind her ear, her feet folded under her on the chair in a way that made her look younger. She was reading through the transcript of the board meeting recording, running her finger under each line slowly, the way people do when they are reading something they need to understand completely rather than q

POV: MarcusI found out about Lena on a Tuesday morning. Leo placed the intelligence report on my desk without a word, the way he always delivered things he knew would require a reaction I would not want witnessed. He set it down, stepped back, and waited by the door with his hands clasped, looking at a point on the wall slightly above my head.I read the first paragraph twice.David Chen had submitted a formal information request to Croatian maritime authorities regarding a boating incident from four years ago. The request cited a named vessel, a named charter company, and a named victim.Lena Vasquez. I set the paper down slowly."Who else has seen this?" I asked."Only me," Leo said. "The contact in the maritime liaison office flagged it directly to our line as agreed.""Good." I straightened the paper against the desk, aligning it with the edge. A small, mechanical action that gave my hands something to do while my mind moved quickly through the implications. "That will be all, Le

POV: OliviaNobody spoke for a moment after Zara said it. David was the first to move. He pulled a chair from against the wall and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his full attention on her. I stayed where I was, standing near the window, because sitting felt impossible right now."Senator Pryce," I said.Zara nodded. "Gerald Pryce. Four term senator, judiciary committee, clean public record, the kind of politician that other politicians point to when they need an example of respectability." She opened her folder and turned it toward us on the desk. "For the past six years, he has been running campaign contributions through a series of shell companies, cleaning the money, and parking it in legitimate business investments. One of those investments is Marcus Collins's company."I looked at the document. Financial flowcharts, company names I did not recognize, dates."Marcus's company is the washing machine," Zara continued. "Money goes in dirty through campaign co

POV: VictoriaI had not slept properly in eleven days. I knew the exact number because I had been counting, the way you count things when your mind needs something small and manageable to hold onto while everything larger falls apart around it. Eleven nights of lying in the dark with the ceiling above me and the silence pressing down like something physical, heavy and suffocating.The hotel room was nice. Marcus was still paying for it, which meant he still considered me an asset rather than a problem. For now. But I had heard what Sophia said to him last week, standing in the corridor outside his office while I waited to be let in for a meeting that got cancelled without explanation.Her voice through the door, smooth and deliberate, the voice of a woman making a careful argument. "Victoria is a loose end, Marcus. She knows too much and she's too emotional to be reliable. You saw how she looked at the board meeting. She's cracking."A pause. His voice, too low for me to make out the