Semua Bab His Dead Wife: No Longer the Surrogate Bride: Bab 91 - Bab 100

It wasn’t the cameras as they had been clean.Dominic remembered that he checked them twice himself, then had them checked again by a man who didn’t know whose orders he was following.There were no glitches nor loops. Corrupted feeds are absent as well. The system had been pristine as always, the way Luca demanded it to be ever since.It wasn’t the guards since none had spoken.Dominic had been watching and studying their patterns for days, waiting for the smallest deviation. A pause too long, a gaze held too steady, a breath caught where it shouldn’t be. He saw nothing as they moved like pieces on a board, predictable, obedient, hollow.It wasn’t even the house that whispered secrets to him every hour of every day.The Valtieri estate was alive in a way no one admitted out loud. Walls remembered, which corridors echoed. Doors learned habits.Dominic had grown up hearing its language and learning which silences mattered.This one did.Because the fracture came from no other than Alth

Dominic woke before the house did.It was a habit carved into bone since the death of his father. Long before he’d learned how to love and long before he’d learned how to lose.The Valtieri estate never truly sleep. It just changed shifts, exchanged eyes, and recalibrated. However, Dominic was able to observe as he grew older that there’s a moment before dawn when even the walls seemed to pause, uncertain of themselves.He lay still with Althea warm and real against his side, her breath a soft rhythm at his chest.For a moment, he let himself stay.It was dangerous, this stillness. Dangerous to remember what it felt like to be a man and not a weapon, a husband and not an heir, a lover and not a liability. His fingers lightly trace the line of her spine, slow and absentminded, grounding himself in the fact that she was here. That she had chosen to stay, again, after everything.She stirred slightly, murmuring his name like it was a thought she hadn’t meant to release.“Go back to sleep

Dominic learned about it from Enzo.He noticed Enzo’s subtle tightening of jaw when he arrived early in the evening from his office. There were no whispers or speculations. Enzo was waiting for him by the west wing corridor, arms folded, posture rigid in a way that meant something had already gone wrong.“He summoned her.” Enzo said quietly. “Aurelio.”Dominic stopped walking and the air shifted sharply and coldly.“When?!”It was a question but became more of a statement.“Two hours ago.” Enzo responded. “Alone in the library.”Dominic didn’t speak, working his jaw once, as if he were biting down on something bitter. Then, after a few minutes, he became controlled and lethal in his calm.“Are they at the chambers?” Dominic asked tightly. “Tell them I’m coming.”Enzo hesitated. “Dominic—”“If Aurelio f8cking laid a hand on her,” Dominic continued, voice flat as he stormed inside and down to the chambers, “this ends today.”The Valtieri chambers were never meant for confrontation but f

The next morning, Aurelio summoned Althea again, this time after Dominic had already left for the office in just an hour.The summon came with impeccable timing and calculated politeness. A knock delivered by a servant who would not meet her eyes. A message that was phrased as a courtesy, framed like a request, weighted like an order.Aurelio requests your company for tea.Althea accepted the invitation without hesitation.She prepared herself carefully inside the room she shared with Dominic. Not with panic but with intention.She chose a simple dress, clean lines, a muted tone that suggested restraint rather than submission. Minimal jewelry, a pair of pearl earrings, a watch she wore not for fashion but for control. Time mattered as she had always instilled in her. She pulled her hair back with clinical neatness, the kind she used in operating rooms and difficult consultations.She looked like what Aurelio needed her to be in his narrative.Calm, compliant, unthreatening.She chose

Althea arrived at the Valtieri estate after dawn.The car that picked her up rolled through the gates as the sky shifted from gray to pale gold, the light catching on stone and iron without warmth. Morning should have felt like relief but exhaustion is clearly overtaking her body.The operation Luca had ordered had stretched far beyond its projected window. It was complex, invasive, demanding a level of precision that left no room for error.Althea had been on her feet for hours, hands steady, mind sharp, body pushed well past what it should have endured so soon after her last recovery. If AURELIA had been present, it would take half the time off. However, the system had stayed within the Devereaux complex.Enzo had been there the entire time, guarding her as Dominic had instructed.Standing guard at the door, back straight, eyes never leaving the hallway beyond the operating room. He hadn’t spoken unless spoken to and did not move unless necessary. A constant, silent assurance that n