Semua Bab THE BIDDING ROOM: Bab 21 - Bab 30

The door closed behind her without a sound.Evelyn leaned against the wall outside Lucien’s room, her chest rising too fast, fingers trembling as if they still held the weight of him. The hallway felt colder than it had before, emptier – as though something vital had been left behind.She pressed her palm to her heart. Her heart would not stop beating. You saved his life, she told herself. That was all. That was enough to explain this, but the memory betrayed her. The memory of the blood, the gunshot, the fear – they didn’t scare her. What scared her was the way Lucien had looked at her when she pressed her hands to his wound – not as a mafia king, not as a monster, not even as a man in control, but as someone who had never been chosen. She closed her eyes. The memory of the moment they just shared, his hands all over her body, the sounds that had emanated from within her. She didn’t know she was capable of such.She had always believed Lucien was incapable of gentleness. He ruled by

Lucien knew something was wrong the moment the house went quiet in the wrong way. It wasn’t panic that alerted him. It was absence. Evelyn’s absence.Her room was untouched. Her guards unconscious, restrained with professional precision. No alarms triggered.That was the insult.Lucien stood in the center of the security room, perfectly still, as the truth settled into his bones. She had gone looking for Matteo. Someone had been waiting, it was a trap.Damien swore under his breath. “This wasn’t random. They wanted her to leave the house.”Lucien’s voice was calm — too calm. “They knew I’d pull away.”“Yes.”“They counted on it.”Lucien closed his eyes once.He saw her standing in his room, hands steady as she saved his life. Saw the way she’d looked at him afterward, not pleading, not fearful just searching. He had withdrawn to protect her. Instead, he had made her reachable.“Lock the city down,” Lucien said softly.Damien hesitated. “Sir, that will…”“Start a war,” Lucien finish

Night settled over the estate like a held breath. Evelyn stood at the edge of the hidden passage, palm pressed to the cool stone, listening to the house live around her — guards shifting, doors murmuring open and shut, the distant hum of people beneath the floors. Lucien’s world never slept. It waited. She closed the panel softly and returned to her bed, mind racing. The passage wasn’t an escape route. Not really. It was too narrow, too watched. But it was proof — proof that Lucien built contingency into everything. Proof that survival here depended on knowing when to move and when to remain perfectly still. A shadow passed her door. Footsteps paused. She didn’t pretend to sleep this time. “Lucien,” she said quietly. The door opened. He stood there, expression carved from restraint, gaze sweeping the room before settling on her. “You should be resting.” “I’ve rested enough,” she replied. “We need to talk.” A beat. Then he entered and closed the door behind him, the click of the

Lucien didn’t answer her right away. He moved instead, slow, deliberate — crossing the room until he stood in front of her., not crowded and he wasn’t retreating. Just close enough that the choice between distance and contact felt razor-thin. “You don’t understand what that means,” he said. Evelyn lifted her chin. “Then explain it to me.” His gaze searched her face, as if looking for a crack where fear might still live. He didn’t find one. What he found unsettled him far more. “When I stop trying to keep you clean,” he said quietly, “you stop being collateral. You become a participant.” Her pulse jumped — not away from him, but toward him. “I already am.” Lucien’s mouth curved, not a smile, not quite — but something dangerously close. “That’s the problem.” He turned away, pacing once, twice. The room seemed to contract with every step, as if it were listening too. “They want spectacle,” he continued. “A public fracture. Something that proves I can be made to choose emotion ov

The knock came at 3:17 a.m, not sharp, not urgent and polite.Lucien was already awake. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He reached for the wall panel instead, thumb brushing the biometric seal that armed half the room in silence. Only then did he speak.“Enter.”The door opened, not Damien. It wasn’t a guard.The woman who stepped inside moved with the quiet confidence of someone who had never been questioned in this house — because she had built half of it.Maribel. Head of internal intelligence. Ghost architect.A woman Lucien trusted because she had never lied to him. Until now.“We have a breach,” she said calmly.Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “Where.”“Not the perimeter,” Maribel replied. “The past.”Lucien said nothing.She placed a thin folder on his desk. It wasn’t marked. It didn’t need to be.“This arrived through a dead channel,” she continued. “Yakuza origin. Authenticated. Old blood.”Lucien opened it and the world shifted.Inside was a single photograph.A group of children sta