《The House Beneath the Blood Moon》全部章節：第 41 章 - 第 50 章

​SAMANTHA POV​Walking back into a tech environment felt like slipping into a familiar language I hadn’t spoken in months. But this time, I wasn't just a fluent speaker; I was the one who wrote the dictionary.​LC Corp was a temple of glass and quiet tension. Screens everywhere—alive with data, code, and intent. It didn’t feel like Ethan’s company anymore. It felt like a machine that had forgotten who built its engine.​Lucien stayed half a step behind me as we entered the main development floor. He looked like a king pretending to be a CEO, a predator in pinstripes. It was unsettlingly effective—and, if I was being honest with myself, devastatingly hot.​“This floor houses application development,” I said, my voice projecting a confidence that made a few developers look up. I felt Lucien’s presence at my back—a steady, radiating heat. “Security layers, predictive systems. Think of it as the nervous system of the company. Though, looking at the latency on those monitors, I’d say the c

Samantha POV ​The hotel door closed behind us with a sound too soft for how hard my chest was caving in. ​I didn’t cry immediately. That came later. At first, I just stood there, keys still in my hand, staring at the carpet like it had personally betrayed me. My parents’ voices were still ringing in my ears—sharp, precise, practiced. Like surgeons who knew exactly where to cut so it would hurt the longest. ​Ungrateful bitch. If we hadn’t taken you in, you’d be nothing. You owe your sister this. We can make you disappear. ​And the worst one—the one that kept replaying on a loop like a corrupted file: You were never really ours anyway. ​I dropped the keys. They hit the floor with a dull clatter that finally cracked something open inside me. ​“Oh,” I whispered. “That’s why.” ​Lucien didn’t speak. He didn’t rush me. He just stepped closer—slow, deliberate, like approaching a skittish animal that might bolt if startled. ​“Samantha,” he said softly. ​That was it. I folded.

Samantha POV Truth doesn’t scream. It doesn’t beg to be believed. Truth waits—quiet, precise, patient—until the lie collapses under its own weight. At two in the morning, the hotel suite was silent except for the heavy, rhythmic beat of "Eye of the Tiger" thumping through my earbuds. I sat on the floor, surrounded by a sea of paper, the lyrics about the will to survive grounding me. My mind raced through five years of betrayal. For the first time in my life, I wasn't retreating into the shadows to protect my sister or placate my parents. I was standing my ground. I finally pulled the earbuds out as Lucien moved into the light. Truth was now spread across the table in medical files, lab reports, and timestamps. Data. Numbers. My body reduced to evidence. Lucien stood behind me, arms crossed, silent. When a vampire king goes this still, it isn’t calm—it’s control. He was an ancient force, a sovereign who had slept through centuries, now trying to navigate a world of digital foot

Samantha POV Seven minutes. That was all it took to dismantle a life. I didn’t pack. I decompiled. The suitcase lay open on the hotel bed like a clean workspace, waiting for decisions to be made. I stood over it and purged every remnant of the girl I used to be. Pastel sweaters—deprecated. Soft cardigans—unsecured dependencies. I kicked them aside, a discarded pile of obsolete libraries. Code written to please users who never deserved admin rights. Black silk slip dress. Minimal. Clean lines. No emotional overhead. Approved. The leather jacket followed. Heavy. Reinforced. It smelled of animal hide and midnight rebellion. I ran my fingers over the seams once, then folded it with care. Kept. I zipped the bag shut. The metallic shriek sliced through the room like a commit pushed to production without rollback. Final. Irreversible. Closed systems always rot. A shadow stretched across the floor—long, predatory, inevitable. Lucien. I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to. The room

Samantha POV Silence isn’t peace. It’s the echo left behind when the blast is over. It’s the moment your ears are still ringing and your lungs burn, while the world hesitates—deciding whether you’re a survivor or just debris waiting to settle. I slid down the front of the console until my spine hit the stone floor. The impact was dull, grounding. My hands were shaking—not the delicate tremor of fear, but the violent aftershock of a system that had run far past safe limits and hadn’t crashed. Yet. I stared at my fingers. They smelled faintly of ozone and glass. I’d erased people. No blade. No blood on my knuckles. Just a keystroke. And the worst part—the part I didn’t know how to forgive yet—was how natural it had felt. Efficient. Clean. Like clearing corrupted cache from a system that refused to heal on its own. Lucien stood a few meters away, still as a drawn line. Blood streaked his jaw—dark, viscous, not his. He didn’t turn. It was as if he knew that if he looked at me to