Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 81 - Chapitre 90

Julian came back with bags.Lia heard the knock. Three times. Pause. Two times. Like he'd said.She unlocked the door. Let him in. Locked it again immediately."Got food. Medicine. Bandages." He set everything on the small table. "And a burner phone. But we can't use it yet. Not until we're somewhere safer.""Why not? I need to call Caspian. Let him know I'm alive.""Because calls can be traced. Even burners. Especially if they're monitoring his phone. Which they probably are." Julian pulled out a bottle of water. Handed it to her. "Drink. You're dehydrated."Lia wanted to argue. I wanted to grab the phone and call anyway. But he was right. If the Bratva was watching Caspian's phone, one call could lead them straight here.She drank the water. Realized how thirsty she was. Drank the whole bottle."Good. Now eat something." Julian unwrapped a sandwich. Turkey and cheese. Simple. Safe. "Doctor said you need to keep your strength up. For the baby.""I don't feel hungry.""I don't care. E

Dorian walked in looking like he'd seen a ghost."What?" Caspian didn't look up from the map. He'd been staring at it for three hours. Plotting. Planning. Trying to figure out where Kozlov was hiding."I found her."Caspian's head snapped up. "What?""Lia. I found her. She's alive."The world stopped. Everything stopped. "Where? Is she okay? The baby?""Both fine. Some injuries. She was in a hospital upstate. Preterm labor scare. But she's stable now.""Take me to her. Right now.""I can't.""What do you mean you can't?""She's not there anymore. By the time I got the location, she was gone.""Gone where?"Dorian hesitated. "With Julian Ashford."Silence. Cold. Deadly."Say that again.""Julian showed up. Got her out before the Bratva could take her. They're on the run together. Have been for days.""Together.""Yeah.""Lia is with Julian. Her ex-husband. The man who destroyed her. And she's just... with him.""She didn't have a choice, Boss. The guards were dead. Bratva was coming. J

The gunfire was getting closer. Louder. Like a war happening just outside. Julian pulled Lia away from the broken window. Pushed her behind the bed. "Stay down. Don't move." "What's happening?" "Someone's attacking the warehouse. Don't know who. Could be Caspian's people. Could be a rival to Bratva. Either way, we use the chaos to get out." "How? The door's locked. We're trapped." "Not anymore." Julian grabbed a piece of broken glass from the window. Big shard. Sharp. "When they come to check on us, I take them down. Get their keys. We run." "You're hurt. You can barely stand." "I'll manage. I've survived worse." Footsteps outside. Running. Yelling in Russian. Panicked. Scared. The door burst open. Two guards. Young. Distracted by whatever was happening outside. Julian moved. Fast. Slammed the glass into the first guard's throat. Blood everywhere. The man dropped. The second guard reached for his gun. Julian tackled him. They fought. Brutal. Ugly. Desperate. Lia watched. Fr

Caspian parked in the hospital garage. Sat in the dark for a minute. Trying to breathe. Trying to think.Twenty-four hours. That's all he had. Before the detective came for him. Before everything fell apart.But first, Lia. He had to see her. I had to make sure she was okay.He got out of the car. His side was still bleeding through the bandage. Not bad. But enough to leave a trail. Enough to get him caught.He needed to clean up. Couldn't walk into Lia's room covered in blood and evidence.The emergency room bathroom was empty. He locked the door. Looked at himself in the mirror.Worse than he thought. Blood on his shirt. His hands. His face. Splattered across his neck where he'd missed it before.Kozlov's blood. Mixed with his own.He stripped off his shirt. Threw it in the trash. Washed his hands. His face. His neck. The water is running pink then red then pink again.The gunshot wound was still seeping. He pressed paper towels against it. Applied pressure. I waited for it to slow

Sophia sat on the edge of the chair like she might run at any second. Her hands were shaking. The blonde hair that had looked so polished when she walked in now seemed cheap, like a wig that didn't quite fit right. "I'm sorry," she said again. For the fifth time maybe. Lia had stopped counting. "Just tell me everything," Lia said. She was sitting on the hospital bed, one hand on her belly. The baby was moving restlessly. Like she could sense her mother's stress. Sophia took a breath. I looked away. "My name is actually Sophie. Not Sophia. Just... Sophie. I work as an actress. Background stuff mostly. Theater, some commercials. But I'm broke. Always broke." She laughed bitterly. "I have a gambling problem. Online poker. I lost money I didn't have." "Who hired you?" "I don't know his name. That was the weird part. Everything was done through a lawyer. He called me three weeks ago. Said someone wanted me to come to this hospital. Pretend to be a woman named Sophia. Claim I was pregna