Semua Bab My Precocious Triplets Brought me a Husband For Christmas : Bab 41 - Bab 50

The clerk never raised his eyes when he first requested his passport. “Name?” she said as she was already typing on the keyboard. Martins took it from her cautiously. Slowly. As if holding it otherwise might break it. “If you say it right, it might be like hanging on to something concrete.” She scowled at the monitor. “Do you have an ID number?” “No,” he said, “It was… lost. In the accident.” That earned him a glance. Brief. Assessing. Not unkind, but practiced in disbelief. “Then we need the secondary documentation,” she said. “Birth record. Citizenship file. Visa entry. Are all of these things related” “I don’t have those either.” Her lips tightened, not with fury but with finality. “Then I fear there is absolutely nothing I can do.” The sentence carried weight and there was nothing she could do with that. Martins lingered a second too long, as if expecting some other word to come between them. It didn’t. The clerk turned to the next person in line. The interaction was over. Wi

The bass struck him first.Not sound...force of blow.It thumped through the floor beneath him and up his legs, spreading through his chest and rising in the rhythm of a second heartbeat. The club was already cooked when Martin came through the door already sweating, already weary. Light splintered across bodies in harsh hues, blue, red, some otherworldly purple that could have been bruising. Smoke bled into the low-pressure system, synthetic and saccharine, weaving around skin and fabric like an unrelenting companion.He paused a little in the doorway, allowing the door to close behind him.For a moment he ogled leaving.Not that he was out of place, he’d learned how to be anywhere but that places like this melted things They blurred edges.They invited errors.But loneliness was a different animal tonight.So he moved forward.The crowd consumed him almost immediately. Shoulders brushed, hands brushed, voices tampered with one another unapologetically. Laughter cascaded unpredictabl

"Where are you?”The light on his phone kept glowing while the phone was vibrating and begging him to pick it up.Martins was positioned just outside the metro exit, the cool night pressing against his skin, florescent light spilling onto the pavement. The club was several streets behind him now, Catalina already gone, vanished into the city with the ease of someone who never feared being followed.He stared at the screen.It must be urgent. Luis never texted like that.Not without context.Not without punctuation.Martins typed back, thought better of it and then paused.He deleted it.And typed again. Then he sent itThree dots appeared almost immediately."You never run late."Martins slid the phone into his pocket and started walking. The restaurant reeked of garlic, oil and heat, homey, and reassuring. A place that made him aware that he lived in the present, not just the past. Plates clattered. Someone laughed near the bar. In the rear, a delivery door slammed shut.With his ar

“You’re not entitled to drain me and call it procedure."Catalina spoke in anger and ended the call before the man on the line could say anything. As she hung up the phone, her hand was steady, but whatever it was behind her eyes that had been holding her back still lingered hidden. She looked out the hotel window, at a city that sparkled as if it had nothing to hide, and slowly breathed through her nose.Legal fees came in disguised as paperwork. Neutral. Polite. Brutal.She walked across the room bare feet on the carpet and the sound of her footsteps were dampened by the carpet, then she grabbed the folder she’d left on the desk the night before. Arbitration notices. Retainer confirmations. Silent reminders, that reputation, once questioned, became expensive to defend.Catalina did not panic.The reckoning she calculated.The consultancy had survived worse, borderline allegations, hostile clients, situations that demanded she disappear just long enough for the noise to die down. But

Martins had no plans to go through the article.It was a mistake, the kind that stems from impatience and not interest. The restaurant had closed for the night, rain beating on the windows like a second crowd, when his phone buzzed with a notification he almost didn’t see.More or less.He wiped his hands on a piece of cloth, took it, and scowled at the headline teaser shining on the screen of his phone.“Leading Forensic Executive Peter Hale In New York Innovation Summit with Legal Consultant Stephanie Hale.”Martins froze.Forgotten, the towel fell from his fingers and to the ground.“Stephanie,” he muttered, the name sticking on his tongue as if he was trying to clear it from his throat. “My Stephanie.”He stood still for a moment, the hum of the refrigerator loud in the silence, his breath shallow and uneven.He hadn’t seen her name written like that in years, all neat and tidy, public and not afraid. He tapped the notification with his finger.The page was taking a long time to