Todos os capítulos de THE BILLIONAIRE'S HIDDEN MISSION : Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Elara didn’t realize she’d stopped breathing until her vision blurred around the edges.The folder in her hands felt heavier than paper should ever feel.ELARA: CLASSIFIED.Her name printed like a warning label.She didn’t open it. She couldn’t. Not yet.Her fingers tightened around the file as footsteps approached from behind.“Elara,” Valentina said sharply, “step away from that drawer.”Too late.Valentina’s eyes had already landed on the open cabinet, the scattered documents, the glowing screen displaying Damon’s encrypted codes.And the suspicion on her face was icy enough to slice through bone.“What exactly are you doing in this room?” Valentina moved closer, smooth and slow, like someone approaching a ticking bomb. “This isn’t for you.”Elara straightened. “Maybe if Damon had treated me like a wife instead of a ghost, I wouldn’t need to find answers in locked rooms.”“That’s not an answer.”“No, Valentina. It’s the truth.”Before Valentina could respond, Kai stepped into the r

The lights flickered again as Elara followed Kai down the narrow hallway, Valentina trailing behind them with stiff, guarded steps. The distant thud of boots hadn’t faded; if anything, the intruders were moving with more purpose now, less searching, more pursuing.Kai didn’t rush. That unsettled her most.Who walks like that when men with weapons are inside the house?He moved as if he already knew every corner, every blind spot, every weak point of the Moretti mansion. His calmness grated on her nerves, not because she wanted panic, but because she didn’t want him to be right about anything.When they reached the far end of the corridor, he stopped abruptly. Elara nearly collided with his back.“Stay behind me,” he said quietly.The way he said it, steady, sure, made her muscles tighten. She didn’t want to obey him. She didn’t even know him. But the conviction in his voice tugged at the part of her that had been starved of protection for too long.She forced her jaw to unclench. “I d

For a moment, Elara couldn’t move.The words Kai had murmured were still hanging in the air, sharp and chilling, like the cold breath of a door left open in winter.Target acquired.Not protected.Not escorted.Not rescued.Acquired.Kai slipped the unmarked device back into his jacket as if nothing had happened. When he turned toward her, the shadows in the narrow hallway caught the angles of his face, and she couldn’t read a single thing in his expression.He lifted a hand, not touching her, just gesturing.“Inside. Now.”Elara stepped back on instinct. “Who were you talking to?”“Not here,” he said quietly.That answer wasn’t good enough, and he knew it, but his eyes flicked past her shoulder, listening for something she couldn’t hear. She didn’t know if he was being cautious or hiding something, and that uncertainty made her skin crawl.Another faint sound rolled through the house.A scraping.A floorboard shifting.Slow. Deliberate.Not Kai. Not Valentina. Not her.Her pulse le

For a moment, no one spoke.Not Kai.Not Elara.Not even the hum of the dim room seemed willing to interrupt the tension stretching between them.Kai’s eyes stayed on the folder she held to her chest. They were unreadable again, but not empty. There was something simmering underneath, a tightness, a restraint she didn’t understand yet.“Elara,” he said quietly, “hand it over.”Her fingers tightened around the file. “Why? So you can hide more things from me?”Kai exhaled slowly, the kind of breath people take when they’re trying not to snap. He stepped toward her, not aggressively, just enough that she caught the faint scent of smoke on his clothes from the gunfire outside.“I’m not the threat here,” he said. “Put it down.”“You were reporting on me,” she whispered.His jaw flexed, and for the first time, a flicker of something like guilt crossed his face. But he didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it either. He only reached gently for the folder, and this time, she let him take it becau

Kai didn’t answer the device.He stood there, still, rigid, every muscle pulled tight, while the words report her weaknesses hovered in the air like poison.Elara felt something inside her tilt. She couldn’t tell if it was fear, betrayal, or the shock of hearing a piece of Kai she’d never known existed. Agent Valez. That wasn’t a nickname. That wasn’t an accident. It was his real identity, spoken by someone who clearly owned it.Valentina was the first to find her voice. “Elara,” she whispered sharply, “step away from him.”But Elara didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She was studying Kai like he was a puzzle she suddenly realized she’d been assembling upside down.His thumb hovered over the device. A long second passed… then he pressed the screen and slipped it silently back into his jacket.He didn’t report anything.He didn’t speak a single word.For reasons she didn’t understand yet, that mattered.Kai turned to her. His expression had changed, not softer, not colder, but something in be