Alle Kapitel von Forbidden By Her Sister's Husband : Kapitel 71 – Kapitel 80

The silence in Unit 40B was not empty; it was heavy. It pressed against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows like a physical weight, holding back the humid chaos of the New York night forty floors below.It was 2:17 AM.Aria lay in the center of the king-sized bed, her body rigid under the duvet. She was wide awake. She had been awake since midnight, staring at the ceiling, listening to the settling of the building, the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the thudding of her own pulse in her ears.She was wearing her armor: gray flannel pajama pants, a thick long-sleeved t-shirt, and socks. She was sweating under the heavy down comforter, despite the aggressive air conditioning, but she refused to kick it off. To be exposed felt dangerous. To be vulnerable felt like an invitation.She turned her head on the pillow.Tik. Tik. Tik.The heavy steel watch Damian had given her sat on the nightstand. The luminous hands glowed a sickly green in the dark. Every tick sounded like a footstep.

“Or I’ll make it hurt more than it has to.”But there was no mercy in his eyes, only a feral hunger that made her stomach clench. His mouth hovered just above her navel, his exhales ghosting over the damp cotton in warm, deliberate puffs that made her muscles twitch involuntarily. She hated how her body responded—how her hips jerked not entirely away, how the ache deep inside her pulsed in rhythm with her thundering heart.“Damian, no—God, please, this is wrong,” she gasped, tears spilling hot down her temples, soaking into the pillow. She arched her back not in invitation but in futile escape, trying to curl away from the heat of him. But he followed, relentless, his free hand splaying across her hip to anchor her to the mattress, fingers digging into the soft give of her flesh like brands.He slid lower still, his shoulders wedging between her thighs, forcing them wider until she felt the strain in her muscles, the vulnerability of being spread open for him like an offering she never

The drill sat on the gray rug like a dead insect. Aria stared at it from the edge of the bed. Her hands were raw. The skin on her palms had blistered where she’d gripped the plastic handle too tight, forcing the metal bit into the heavy oak of the door. The industrial deadbolt was in place now. It was a block of brushed steel, thick and ugly, sitting right above the electronic lock that Damian controlled from his phone fifty floors up.He had sent the tools. He had told her to install it. Lock the door, he had said. If I come back down here tonight… I won’t be so merciful.Aria shifted, and a sharp spike of soreness shot through her hips. She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling the duvet tighter. The fabric was rough against her skin, but the cold air of the apartment was worse. The central air was humming, a low, mechanical drone that never stopped, pumping sterile, scentless air into her lungs.She felt used. Not in the way a woman feels used after a bad date, but in the way a tool feels

By 1:00 PM, Aria was back in the basement.The Archives were a tomb. The air was thick with the smell of dust and decaying glue. There were no windows here, only the hum of the industrial lighting and the endless rows of gray metal shelves. It was the only place where she felt she belonged—buried under the weight of other people’s secrets.She found the 1994 Jersey file. It was a thick, yellowed folder held together by a frayed rubber band. She sat at her small metal desk and began to cross-reference the numbers.Her phone buzzed.She jumped, her heart hammering. She grabbed the black device. It was a notification from the Cross Industries internal server. An automated email.From: Executive Office (No-Reply) Subject: Security Protocol UpdateNotice to all B-Level staff: Access to the North Service Corridor is permanently restricted. All employees must enter and exit through the main lobby and log their presence with the security desk. Failure to comply will result in immediate termina

The air in the B3 sub-basement didn’t move.It sat heavy and stagnant, smelling of silverfish, rotting adhesive, and the dry, alkaline sting of paper that hadn’t been touched in three decades. The August heat had a way of seeping through the concrete, even fifty feet underground, turning the stagnant air into a thick, airless soup. Aria sat at her desk, the back of her light cotton blouse clinging to her skin. The single desk fan she’d found in a storage closet was doing nothing but pushing the warm, dusty air in a slow, rhythmic circle.She reached up to wipe a bead of sweat from her temple, her fingers leaving a gray smudge of dust on her forehead. The 1982 audit reports for the Cross-Vance merger were finally organized, a mountain of yellowed paper that smelled of old glue and decay. Every time she turned a page, the dry paper rasped against her fingertips, a sound that seemed to echo in the cavernous silence of the archives.She felt a tremor in her hands. It wasn’t just the fatigu