All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Broken Angel… and His Darkest Desire: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The photograph arrived in a manila envelope with no return address, slipped under the door of Lucien's office at the Harbormaster's building like a threat wrapped in innocence. He found it at dawn, when the world was still draped in that peculiar blue light that preceded sunrise, the kind of light that made everything look like it was underwater.Inside: a picture of Maya. Laughing. Her head thrown back, hair catching the sunlight, standing on the deck of the Tidewater Inn with a coffee mug in her hands. The photo had been taken yesterday—he recognized the flannel shirt she'd borrowed from him, the one she kept forgetting to give back. But it wasn't the image itself that made his blood run cold. It was the red circle drawn around her throat, and the single word scrawled across the bottom in handwriting he recognized from a hundred threatening letters over the years: VULNERABLE.Lucien's hands didn't shake—he'd trained himself years ago not to show weakness, not even when alone—but his

Maya knew he was there before she saw him.It was the sudden silence that gave him away—the way the afternoon chatter in the Tidewater Inn's dining room died like someone had cut the power. She looked up from the reservation book, her pen freezing mid-stroke, and felt her entire world narrow to a pinpoint. Marcus stood in the doorway, backlit by the late October sun, wearing the charcoal suit she'd always loved and the smile that had once made her feel like the only woman in the world.Now it just made her skin crawl."Hello, Maya." His voice was velvet over steel, familiar and terrible. "You're a hard woman to find."Her legs locked. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but she'd learned something in the past six months at the Tidewater Inn—running only worked if you had somewhere to go. And this place, with its creaking floors and salt-worn walls, had become the first home she'd had in a decade. She wouldn't let him take that from her too."You need to leave." Her voice came out s

The text message arrived at 2:47 AM, jolting Maya awake with a sick sense of déjà vu she couldn't quite place.I know what you did.No name. No number—just "Unknown" glowing in the darkness of her bedroom at the Tidewater Inn. Maya's heart slammed against her ribs as she sat up, the sheets tangled around her legs like restraints. For a breathless moment, she was back in that Brooklyn apartment, back to being the woman who jumped at shadows and apologized for breathing.But she wasn't that woman anymore. She'd spent five months in Moonlight Cove rebuilding herself, solving her grandmother's murder, and falling dangerously, irrevocably in love with Ethan Cross—the handyman with storm-gray eyes who'd taught her that not all men wielded their strength as a weapon.So why did this message make her feel like prey again?Her phone buzzed with another text. The lighthouse. 3 AM. Come alone, or everyone learns the truth.Maya's thumb hovered over Ethan's contact. He was asleep in his cottage d

The storm hit Moonlight Cove like a fist, and Maya stood at the window of the Tidewater Inn watching the ocean rage as if it could somehow wash away everything she'd learned in the past six months. Behind her, the inn was silent—guests evacuated hours ago, doors locked, windows shuttered. She should have left too. Driven inland with everyone else. But she'd spent too long running, and something about staying felt like the first real choice she'd made in years.Even if it was a stupid one.The front door burst open, wind howling through the entryway with enough force to rattle the chandelier. Maya spun around as a figure stepped through, rain-soaked and furious.Nathaniel Cross looked like he'd walked through hell to get to her."Are you out of your goddamn mind?" His voice cut through the storm's roar, rough with something that sounded like fear wrapped in anger. Water dripped from his dark hair, plastered his shirt to his chest. Those storm-gray eyes—the ones that had seen through ev

Maya's hands were still shaking when she walked into the town hall meeting, and it had nothing to do with the cold October rain that had soaked through her jacket. The entire population of Moonlight Cove—all three hundred and forty-seven people, give or take—had crammed into the community center, and every single one of them turned to look at her when she pushed through the door.She'd spent five months running the Tidewater Inn. Five months falling in love with this impossible town and its stubborn, salt-weathered people. Five months learning that home wasn't a place you were born into but one you chose, one that chose you back. And now Marcus Chen, the developer who'd been circling Moonlight Cove like a shark scenting blood in the water, sat at the front table with a smile that promised to devour everything she'd built."Ah, Ms. Reeves," Marcus said, his voice carrying that particular brand of false warmth that made her skin crawl. It was the same tone he used to use right before th