All Chapters of Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride: Chapter 251 - Chapter 260

The podium was a firing squad.Liam stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Aurora in the atrium of the AVA headquarters. The space, usually a cathedral of light and design, had been converted into a press pen. Security barricades held back a wall of reporters. Beyond the glass facade, the protesters were a blurred mass of angry placards and shouting mouths, their chants penetrating the double-paned windows like a low, rhythmic throb.PROFIT. OVER. PEOPLE.Liam gripped the edges of the podium. His knuckles were white. He scanned the room, his mind working in overdrive, calculating vectors of attack.He saw the Wall Street Journal reporter who had broken the leak. He saw the New York Post photographer who had caught Ethan crying. He saw the sharks circling, smelling the blood in the water.Beside him, Aurora stood perfectly still. She was wearing the charcoal dress from yesterday—her armor. But Liam could see the tremor in her hands, hidden behind the podium. He could see the way her skin look

The envelope was heavy, stiff, and innocuous.Liam sat at the desk in his study, the room dark except for the pool of amber light from the vintage brass lamp. The rest of the penthouse was silent, the kind of deep, expensive quiet that usually brought him peace. Tonight, it felt suffocating.He turned the envelope over. There was no return address from a law firm, no corporate logo he recognized. Just a simple, embossed return stamp: GENOME-LINK ANCESTRY.Liam frowned. He reached for the silver letter opener—a gift from the board years ago—and sliced the paper.Genome-Link.The memory surfaced slowly, fighting through layers of more important data. Five years ago. A charity gala at the Met. A tech startup booth offering "VIP Genetic Mapping" as a novelty experience for the donors. He and Aurora had done it as a joke, swabbing their cheeks between glasses of champagne, laughing about finding out if they were related to royalty. He had never logged in to check the results. He had forgot

South Boston. 8:15 PM.The apartment on E Street smelled of stale coffee and drafting graphite. It was a third-floor walk-up, the kind with radiators that clanked like dying engines and floors that sloped toward the street.Marcus Sterling sat at his drafting table, a Luxo lamp casting a harsh circle of light onto the blueprints for a brownstone renovation in Dorchester.He wasn't working. He was staring at his phone.It sat on the scarred wood of the desk, screen dark, silent. But it felt radioactive.He had received the email from Genome-Link three days ago. Match Detected. He hadn't needed to open it to know who it was. He had known for twenty years. Since he was fifteen, finding a shoebox of letters his mother had hidden under her bed—letters from a man named Henry with a return address in Manhattan.Marcus picked up his charcoal pencil. He tried to focus on the load-bearing wall of the kitchen addition.Line. Angle. Support.His phone lit up.Unknown Number. Area Code 212. New Yo

Pain didn't have a sound, but if it did, this pain would be a scream.It woke Aurora at 2:14 AM. Not a flutter. Not a cramp. A contraction. A vice grip tightening around her lower back and squeezing forward, turning her uterus into a fist of stone.She gasped, sitting up in the dark.Then she felt the dampness.Warm. Sticky. Wrong."Liam," she whispered. The word came out as a croak.Beside her, Liam shifted. He was deep asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes. He had been working eighteen-hour days again, trying to manage the fallout from the leaks while keeping the unions at bay."Liam!" She reached out and grabbed his shoulder, digging her nails in.He woke instantly. No grogginess. He went from zero to combat readiness in a heartbeat—a reflex honed by months of siege."What?" He sat up, scanning the room for intruders. "What is it?""Something's wrong," Aurora said. Her voice broke. "The baby."Liam turned on the bedside lamp. The light flooded the room, harsh and yellow. He looked a

The "command center" Liam had built was a cruel joke.Aurora lay against the mountain of hypoallergenic pillows, staring at the sleek table next to the bed. The water pitcher was full. The books were stacked by color. The iPad was charged to 100%.It was 10:15 AM. On a Tuesday.Usually, at this time, she would be reviewing site photos for the Tokyo facade. She would be arguing with contractors about the tensile strength of glass. She would be alive.Now, she was a statue.She picked up her phone. Dr. Evans had banned stress, not technology, but Liam had looked at her with such pained eyes this morning when he left that she had promised not to check email.Just the news, she told herself. Just to see if the world is still turning.She unlocked the screen.A push notification was waiting. It wasn't from the Wall Street Journal or the Times. It was from a gossip app she had downloaded months ago to track the paparazzi swarms and had forgotten to delete.BREAKING: CROSS AFFAIR EXPOSED.Au