All Chapters of MARKED BY THE ALPHA CEO: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

53 Chapters

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Aeron’s point of viewI should not be thinking about her. Not when half the city is already dissecting a single blurred photograph like it’s evidence of a scandal that never existed.And yet, I keep seeing her the way she sat in my car. Perfectly still. Too careful. As if any wrong movement would shatter something invisible around her. The memory clings to me in a way strategy never does.I flick through the images on my phone again. The angle is clean. The framing flawless. The story obvious.CEO with an unknown girl. A quiet entry into a black Ferrari. But the camera never caught what mattered.It didn’t catch how she held her breath when I opened the door for her. It didn’t catch the faint tremor in her fingers when she brushed the leather seat.It didn’t catch how her scent lingered in the air even after she closed the door—soft, warm, unsettlingly human in a world that had trained me to notice only threats.I lock the screen while annoyed at the photographer, at all the attention

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Aeron's point of viewThe elevator doors closed behind me with a muted thud, cutting me off from the rest of the building—and from every illusion of privacy I still pretended to own. I didn’t need the message on my phone to remind me why I was here. The elders are waiting. They always were. When I stepped into the conference room, darkness swallowed me first. Then the table appeared. Long. Cold. Surgical. Faces emerged one by one in the low light—people who had watched me grow into power and now measured every move I made like a defect in a flawless system. And at the head of the table, perfectly still, perfectly composed, sat my mother.I didn’t sit. I never did.“Aeron,” one of the elders said quietly. “We’ll be direct. Your recent… behavior has raised concerns.”I lifted my gaze lazily. “My behavior usually does.”A few jaws tightened. My mother’s didn’t.“You’ve drawn unnecessary attention to a junior employee,” she said. No warmth. No softness. Just precision. “Public proximity.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Elara's point of viewI sat on the edge of my bed long after the room went dark, my phone lying face-down beside me like it could suddenly expose me again if I dared to look at it. The contract was still fresh in my mind, the weight of my signature, the way my hand had hesitated for half a second before I let the pen touch the paper. I had signed too fast. I knew that now. I had signed because I was scared, because Murphy had already proved she could destroy me with one careless click, because Aeron Blackwood had stood in front of me with that calm, impossible certainty and told me he would handle it. I pressed my palms to my temples and let out a shaky breath, whispering to the ceiling that I should have thought more, that I should have asked more questions, that I should have protected myself instead of stepping straight into someone else’s world and trusting it would not swallow me whole. But fear makes you brave in the wrong ways. Fear makes you say yes when you don’t even know wh

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Elara's point of view By the time I returned to my desk after Margaret’s quiet reassurance, I already knew it would not fix what had broken today. Relief was fragile. It faded the moment I opened my mouth to ask for help and watched people flinch away from me like I carried something contagious. A simple question turned into a polite excuse, and a polite excuse turned into a pattern. Sorry, I’m busy. I have a deadline. Maybe ask someone else. The words blurred together until all I could hear underneath them was the same message repeated again and again. You are alone. The pressure settled deep in my chest, tight and relentless, and for the first time since everything started, I was truly afraid that I would lose my place here. Not my job, but my identity. The girl who earned her space with effort and long nights was being quietly replaced by a rumor.When I needed him today, he was not here.I finally broke and asked Margaret where the CEO was, hating how small my voice sounded when

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Elara's point of view I picked up the call and pressed the phone to my ear.“Come down. Please. I have to take you somewhere.”His voice was low. Unhurried. As if it were perfectly normal to summon someone at this hour of the night.I glanced at Emily’s sleeping figure across the room and whispered,“At this hour? You do not sound very serious.”“Yes. At this hour.”The line went dead before I could say another word.I stared at my phone for a long second, my heart thudding against my ribs.This was madness.I lay back against the pillow and closed my eyes, torn between two equally terrifying choices. If I went, Emily would panic when she woke up and found me gone. If I stayed, Aaron would not let this go. He never did.With a quiet sigh, I slid out of bed.I pulled a scrap of paper from my bag and scribbled a quick note.Had to step out for a bit. I’m safe. I’ll explain when I’m back.I placed it carefully beside my phone so she would see it the moment she woke up.Then I picked up

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Aeron's point of viewThe meeting with the elders ended exactly the way I expected it to. Heavy accusations wrapped in polite words, thinly veiled warnings disguised as concern, and eyes that watched me like I was a problem they were eager to solve. I did not bother responding to most of it. Silence unsettles men who believe they hold power. It forces them to imagine what you are thinking, and imagination is far crueler than reality.I was halfway down the corridor when my mother grabbed my wrist.Her grip was firm, sharp, familiar. Ciara Blackwood did not pull me like a worried parent would. She dragged me the way she dragged assets into place, the way she seized control before things slipped out of her hands. She pushed open the door of an empty room and shut it behind us, sealing the tension inside.She did not shout immediately. That alone told me she was furious.“You are spiraling,” she said finally, her voice low and precise. “And you are doing it publicly.”I turned to face he

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Elara's point of view The chime of my phone shattered the thin layer of sleep I had wrapped around myself, and for a few seconds I only stared at the glowing screen, annoyed and disoriented, until the word invitation burned into my eyes and forced my mind to wake up. A wedding invitation.I frowned, rubbed my eyes, and opened it properly, convinced that this was just another promotional message, another useless notification that had slipped through my filters. But the moment the card loaded, my breath caught painfully in my throat. Kit and Murphy.For a second, my brain refused to process the words. I read the names again. And again. My fingers trembled so badly that the phone almost slipped out of my hand.Kit… and Murphy. They were getting married.A sharp, broken sound escaped my mouth before I could stop it. I didn’t even realize I had gasped so loudly until the mattress beside me shifted and Emily sat up abruptly.“Elara? What happened?”My lips moved, but no sound came out. I s

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Aeron's point of view My mind refused to slow down.Elara’s face kept slipping into the spaces between my thoughts, soft and stubborn, like she had learned the shape of my silence and made herself comfortable there. My mother’s voice followed right after that. Then Lucian’s knowing stare. Day after day, their shadows pressed closer around the same truth I was trying very hard not to look at.So I went to the gym. Not because I enjoyed it. Because pain was easier to control than obsession.The private training floor was empty when I entered. Steel, mirrors and quiet discipline. I wrapped my palms, slid my phone into the locker and walked straight to the squat rack. The bar settled against my shoulders, heavy and cold. I pushed through a set of deep squats, thighs burning, breath tearing through my chest. Then the bench press. Plates clanked on both sides as I lowered the bar slowly, deliberately, forcing my focus into the stretch of muscle and the rhythm of my breathing. After that, c

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Elara's point of view Aaron’s voice cut cleanly through the low murmur of the boardroom.“Elara. You may begin.”For a split second, I forgot how to breathe. Not because I had not prepared for this, but because the timing was so sudden and so perfectly surgical that it felt intentional. I lifted my eyes instinctively, and the first face I saw was his. Calm. Controlled. Unreadable. As if he had not just dropped my name into a room filled with people who could decide the direction of my entire career with a raised eyebrow. I straightened my spine, curled my fingers around the remote in my hand, and quietly reminded myself that I had handled worse rooms than this. I had walked into client meetings with half-built decks and impossible deadlines before. I could walk through this too. My gaze slid, without permission, to the woman seated two chairs away from him. The resemblance was unmistakable. The same sculpted sharpness in the jawline. The same unnervingly still posture. The same eyes,

CHAPTER THIRTY

Elara's point of view I swallowed hard the moment the words slipped out of my mouth. “Kit and Murphy… they are getting married.”For a second, I thought he would react. But Aeron only lifted his eyes from the file on the tablet in his hand, his expression unreadable, distant, controlled in a way that made my chest tighten.“And this is important right now?” he asked calmly. “We are in the middle of an internal discussion.”The words landed on my skin like cold rain. I stood there, frozen, my fingers curling slowly into my palm. I knew I should not expect sympathy. Still, it hurt. More than I wanted to admit.“I… understand,” I said quietly. I forced my head to nod before my eyes could betray me. “I just wanted to inform you that I received the invitation. It came from an unknown number. That is all.”My voice sounded steady. Inside, something folded in on itself. Before he could reply, the door behind us opened softly. The temperature in the room shifted. I did not need to turn aroun

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