Todos os capítulos de The Abandoned Bride: Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

The soft hum of Damien’s office filled the air — a space as cold and sharp as the man himself. Sunlight filtered weakly through tall glass windows, glinting off the surface of his untouched coffee. He sat behind his desk, reviewing a file, but his mind wasn’t really in it.For days, he had been restless. No matter how hard he tried, the image of Elena’s terrified eyes on the night of her arrest haunted him. He told himself she deserved what she got… but something inside him refused to stay quiet.The door burst open.“Stephan?” Damien’s brows furrowed in surprise.Stephan didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He strode in with stormy determination, his usually calm eyes burning with anger. “We need to talk,” he said, his voice cold and steady.Damien leaned back, his tone indifferent. “About what?”“Elena.”The name alone seemed to freeze the air. Damien’s hand stilled mid-motion, the faintest flicker of discomfort crossing his face.Stephan didn’t wait for an invitation — he dropped int

As the weeks crawled by, Elena’s nightmare deepened into something almost inhuman. Almost every night — a group of rough-looking female inmates would corner her in the shadows of the dimly lit cell block. Their laughter echoed like ghosts, cruel and hollow, before the first punch landed.She had no strength to fight back. Her body was frail, and the baby growing inside her made her cautious with every movement. When they came for her, she would curl into herself, clutching her belly with trembling arms, whispering silent prayers that at least this time, they wouldn’t touch her stomach. Somehow, they never did. As if fate had left her one fragile mercy — to protect the tiny heartbeat inside her.She reported the attacks more than once, but each time, the guards only smirked or shrugged. “You probably provoked them,” one had said, walking away while Elena stood there, bruised and bleeding. The message was clear: Someone wanted her and her baby’s life.On those endless, terrifying nights

Days turned into nights, and Damien’s world grew quieter, heavier — the kind of silence that pressed against the ribs like a slow suffocation.Graham’s report finally arrived, but instead of answers, it brought only frustration.The surveillance footage from Club Mirabel was gone. Not corrupted. Not damaged. Erased.Every drive, every backup — wiped clean.The police files, supposedly archived for the murder investigation, were “lost during system transfer.” The statements that once existed from the club’s employees were all mysteriously redacted.Someone had gone to great lengths to bury the truth.Damien stood by his office window, the city skyline casting reflections across his face, his expression unreadable. He gripped the report so tightly that the papers creased beneath his fingers.“Nothing?” he muttered under his breath.“Nothing,” Graham had said over the phone. “Whoever covered this up had money, influence… and knew exactly what to erase.”Money. Influence. Precision.Three

The days bled into one another, marked only by the faint light that filtered through the grimy bars of Elena’s cell. Her body had begun to heal, but her heart — her heart remained shattered.Every night, she clutched her arms to her chest, reliving the same nightmare: her baby’s cry echoing in the dark, then fading into silence.She held on to one fragile hope — Stephan.He had promised to help. He had promised to find her child.But the days stretched into weeks, and no one came.******Meanwhile, outside the prison walls, Stephan’s frustration reached a breaking point.He sat in his car, parked outside the courthouse, staring blankly at the stack of files spread across the passenger seat. Dozens of phone calls. Endless inquiries. Every hospital he’d visited had turned up nothing.No record of a premature baby that matched Elena’s timeline. No anonymous birth. No medical staff who could recall treating an inmate that night.It was as if the baby — and the birth itself — had been eras

Across town, Elena sat in the small apartment Stephan had rented for her after her release. The space was modest — pale curtains fluttered with the evening breeze, an old sofa sagged in the corner, and the faint scent of disinfectant still clung to her clothes from the hospital where she’d last been examined. The walls were bare, yet every shadow seemed to echo the ghosts of the past three years.She sat by the window, staring blankly into the rain-streaked night. Droplets traced slow paths down the glass, just as her thoughts trailed endlessly back to that night — the screams, the agony, and the chilling voice that hissed, “Mr. Damien said your child must pay for your sins.”Her trembling hand moved instinctively to her abdomen, to the place where life once bloomed. That hollow ache never left her. Sometimes she swore she still felt the faint flutter of a kick — a cruel trick of her body, reminding her of what had been stolen.On countless nights, she woke up drenched in sweat, her h