Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 101 - Chapitre 110

**ADRIAN’S POV**The whiskey burned going down, but not enough.I poured another glass, my third in the past hour, and stared at my laptop screen. The headline mocked me from every financial news site:“ETHEREAL Enters Real Estate Market with $200M Development - Direct Challenge to Moore Enterprises”My phone kept buzzing. Michael from accounting. Patricia from operations. Board members demanding emergency meetings. Investors asking pointed questions about our strategy.I ignored all of it.Instead, I refreshed the page, watched the stock ticker. Moore Enterprises down another six percent since Serena’s announcement three hours ago.She was destroying me. Systematically. Deliberately. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.I drained my glass, poured another.The office door opened. Vivian stood there, arms crossed, looking at me with barely concealed disgust.“Are you seriously drinking? Right now? When your company is falling apart?”“Our company,” I corrected, words slurring s

**ETHAN’S POV**The whole bus ride home from school, I’d been rehearsing what I was going to say to Dad.Kids had been talking all day. Showing me screenshots of Vivian’s posts. Asking if it was true that my mom was trying to steal my dad. Laughing about the memes. Making jokes about my “crazy stepmom.”It was humiliating.But more than that, it was wrong. All wrong.I know the truth now. Vivian was the one who’d broken up my parents’ marriage. She was the one who’d lied. And now she was online making my real mom look like the villain when everyone with half a brain could see Vivian was the problem.I had to tell Dad. He had to know what she was doing.Mrs. Juan dropped me off at home, and I went straight to Dad’s office. The door was closed, but I could hear him on the phone, his voice tired and stressed.I waited until he hung up, then knocked.“Come in.”He sat at his desk, looking exhausted. Papers everywhere. His tie loose. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the past week.“He

Dinner was silent and uncomfortable.Dad sat at one end of the table, barely touching his food. Vivian sat at the other end, her face tight and angry. She’d deleted her posts this afternoon, but I could tell she was furious about it.Emma kept glancing between all of us like she was watching a bomb about to explode. Sophia was too young to understand the tension, just happily eating her chicken nuggets.Grandma Margaret hadn’t come down for dinner. She’d been locked in her room all day. I’d heard her on the phone earlier, her voice sharp and angry, but I couldn’t make out the words.“Ethan, eat your vegetables,” Vivian said, and her voice was cold.I looked at my plate, at the broccoli I hadn’t touched. “I’m not hungry.”“I don’t care. Eat.”“You’re not my mother. You can’t tell me what to do.”The words came out before I could stop them.Vivian’s fork clattered against her plate. Dad closed his eyes, like he’d been expecting this.“Adrian, are you going to let him speak to me like th

I waited until everyone was asleep. It was past midnight when I finally heard Vivian’s door close, and heard Dad’s heavy footsteps stop moving around downstairs. The house settled into that deep quiet that only comes when everyone’s finally gone to bed. I’d been lying in my bed fully dressed for two hours, my backpack packed and hidden under my covers. Waiting. Planning. Trying not to think about what I was about to do. Running away. I’d never done anything like this before. Never broken the rules this badly. Never deliberately disobeyed in a way that couldn’t be undone. But I couldn’t stay here anymore. Not after what I’d heard in those recordings. Not after knowing what they’d done to my mother. What they’d done to me. I pulled out my backpack. Inside: a change of clothes, my phone and charger, the flash drive with the recordings, my wallet with the birthday money I’d saved, and a photo of Serena from her birthday party. The one where she was smiling at me like I was the most i

**SERENA’S POV**I woke up with a crick in my neck from sleeping in the chair beside Ethan’s makeshift bed.The early morning sun streamed through my office windows, casting golden light across his sleeping face. He looked so young. So vulnerable. Nothing like the brave, angry boy who’d walked three miles in the middle of the night to find me.My son.Sleeping in my office because he’d felt he had no other choice.I stood quietly, stretched, checked my phone. Seven missed calls from Adrian since last night. Three from Vivian. Two from Margaret. And a string of increasingly desperate texts.*Please let me talk to him.**I need to know he’s okay.**Serena, please. He’s all I have.*I ignored them all and went to make coffee.By the time I returned, Ethan was awake, sitting up, looking disoriented.“Morning,” I said softly. “How did you sleep?”“Better than I have in weeks.” He rubbed his eyes. “Is this real? Did I really run away last night?”“You really did.” I handed him a bottle of w