Semua Bab The Debt Collectors Bride: Bab 81 - Bab 90

POV: DualDamien:The smell of smoke is still stuck in my skin. No matter how much I scrubbed my hands, I can still smell the warehouse fire. I can still feel the heat on my face. My blood is humming with a restless, angry energy that won't go away.I’m supposed to be sleeping. I’m supposed to be resting for the next move. But my feet are moving before I even decide where to go. I find myself standing in front of Sera’s door.The hallway is dark. The whole mansion is quiet. I should turn around. I should let her sleep. But the need to see her, to make sure she’s real and safe and away from the fire, is like a weight in my chest.I knocked softly.The door opens almost immediately.Sera is standing there. She’s wearing a soft, oversized shirt, her hair a bit messy from the bed, but her eyes are wide and awake. She doesn't look like someone who was sleeping. She looks like someone who was waiting."Damien," she whispers.I don't say anything. I just step into the room, and she closes th

POV: SeraThe house was quiet.I sat alone in a small study in the west wing. It was a room Damien hardly ever used. Sunlight stretched across the floor in long, pale stripes, and dust floated in the air like nothing was wrong. I had Gideon’s files spread out on the desk again. Not the clean, polished versions Damien showed me, but the messy pieces. Old notebooks. Secret messages. Notes that were never supposed to be seen together.I had stopped crying days ago. Now, I just thought. I moved through the information slowly, like every thought could be a trap.At first, the debt seemed simple. Numbers usually are. There were lists of money sent and received. There were dates that lined up with the months after my mother died. The story I always believed was that Gideon borrowed money from Black Tide to keep us alive, to help us hide, and to buy us time.But as I looked closer, I realized the numbers were just a cover. The real debt wasn't about money. It was about silence. It was about w

POV: DamienI arrived exactly three minutes late.I didn't do it because I was messy or because I miscalculated or got lost. I did it because I knew Silas hated waiting. I wanted him to feel that tiny bit of frustration before he even saw my face.The old transit station looked like a skeleton picked clean by the salt and the wind. Big concrete ribs stood open to the air, and rusted train tracks cut through the cracked stone. The ocean breathed heavily just a few feet away. Silas called this "neutral ground."There is no such thing. Every corner of this place belonged to someone who wanted me dead.I got out of the car alone.I didn't show any weapons. I didn't bring a line of guards. I didn't have an army backing me up. It was just me, my boots hitting the concrete with a loud thud that echoed through the empty space. I could feel a hundred sets of eyes on me… hiding on rooftops, behind broken windows, and tucked into shadows. I heard the tiny hum of cameras. I saw drones flying so h

POV: Damien Marrow stopped walking before we ran out of ground. He planted his feet and refused to take another step toward the low, rusted warehouse. He looked like a man staring at his own grave. I knew that look, it was the kind of fear that came from a memory. “I’m not going inside,” he said, his voice flat. “Anywhere but inside.” I didn't argue. I knew Silas used places like this to break people. I started to move toward the door alone, but then I stopped. My skin prickled. There was a shadow moving near the side of the building. Someone was already here. I drew my weapon, my heart turning to ice. If Silas had men here, I’d burn this whole block down to get out. I rounded the corner, ready to fire… and then I froze. It was Sera. She was standing in the shadows, her phone in her hand, her eyes wide and sharp. She looked like she had been documenting the tire tracks and the locks. She looked like a soldier. “Sera?” I breathed her name, the fear for her life nearly choking

POV: Third PersonSilas didn’t need a phone call or a frantic report to know that things had gone sideways.He felt it in the heavy, awkward silence that filled the room. He saw it in the way his guards wouldn’t look him in the eye, shifting their weight like kids waiting for a parent to find a broken window. In his world, the "Black Tide" world, everything ran like a high-end watch. When a second hand skipped, or a gear ground to a halt, it wasn't a glitch. It was a disaster.Silas stood in his command center. Blue light from dozens of monitors washed over his pale face. The air was thick with the smell of static and the faint, bitter scent of burnt wires.“Play the video again,” Silas said. His voice was terrifyingly calm.Nobody moved. The air in the room seemed to freeze.He turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto the young man sitting at the main computer. “I said,” Silas repeated, dropping his voice to a whisper that carried more weight than a scream, “play it again.”The