Library

Maghanap

Home / Romance / IN LOVE WITH HIS ENEMY / Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

Lahat ng Kabanata ng IN LOVE WITH HIS ENEMY: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

78 Kabanata

CHAPTER 41

Eliza's POVThe inner circle met in a room that had no windows.I'd been led there by Mira, through corridors that twisted and turned, past guards who watched with blank faces and hands that never strayed far from their weapons. The door was steel, heavy, designed to keep things in as much as out.Mira paused before opening it."Remember," she whispered. "They'll test you. Push you. Try to find the cracks. Don't give them anything.""I won't."She nodded. Pushed open the door.The room beyond was circular, lit from above, with a massive table at its center. Twelve chairs surrounded it. Eleven were filled.The twelfth was for me.I felt their eyes the moment I entered—eleven pairs of them, assessing, weighing, judging. These were the faces behind the names Adam had uncovered. A senator. A media mogul. A tech billionaire. A general. People whose decisions shaped the lives of millions, meeting in secr

CHAPTER 42

Eliza's POVThe gun was cold in my hands.Heavy. Real. Loaded with the weight of everything that had brought me to this moment.I looked at Adam—on his knees, arms held by guards, eyes fixed on mine. In them, I saw no fear. No accusation. Just love. Steady and complete and utterly undeserved.I'm sorry, I wanted to say. I'm sorry I brought you here. I'm sorry I thought I could do this alone. I'm sorry for every moment I'll never get to have with you.But I couldn't say any of that. Not with Silas watching.So instead, I raised the gun.---Silas circled us like a predator enjoying the kill."This is the moment, Eliza. The one that defines everything. You can be your father—stubborn, righteous, dead. Or you can be something more." He stopped beside me. "Pull the trigger, and you're free. You're one of us. You have power, protection, a future. Refuse, and—" He shrugged. "Well. You know what happens."

CHAPTER 43

Eliza's POVThe safe house was a concrete box buried in the middle of nowhere.Farmland stretched in every direction, flat and empty, nothing but cornfields and silence. The building itself had been a bunker once, Reyes explained—Cold War era, repurposed by the task force for situations exactly like this. Situations where people needed to disappear.I sat on a cot in the corner, a blanket around my shoulders, watching Adam pace. He'd been moving since we arrived, unable to sit still, the adrenaline still burning through his system. Reyes was on the phone in the next room, voice low and urgent.The baby kicked. A small flutter, like butterfly wings.I pressed my hand to my stomach. "I know," I whispered. "I'm scared too."---Reyes emerged an hour later. Her face was grim."We have a problem.""Just one?" Adam's voice was sharp."Silas is furious. That's an understatement. He's mobilized ev

CHAPTER 44

Eliza's POVThe bunker was quiet.After days of running, hiding, planning—the silence felt wrong. Like the calm before something terrible.I sat on the cot, staring at the wall. Adam was asleep beside me, exhaustion finally winning. Reyes had gone to meet with her team, leaving us alone with our thoughts and the weight of everything that had happened.The baby kicked. A small reminder that life continued, even in the dark.My phone buzzed. A message from Reyes.Coming back. Have news. Wait for me.I waited.---Reyes arrived an hour later. Her face was strange—not grim, exactly. Something else. Something I couldn't read."I need to show you something."She pulled out a tablet. Opened a file. Turned it toward me."What is this?""Files Chloe hid. The real ones. We've been going through them." She paused. "There's something about your mother."My heart sto

CHAPTER 45

Eliza's POVThe trials lasted six months.Six months of courtrooms and testimony, of facing the people who'd destroyed my family, of reliving every painful detail for juries and judges and cameras. Six months of watching Silas Vane sit in his chair, expressionless, as witness after witness laid bare the evil he'd orchestrated.Adam was there for every moment. Every hearing, every verdict, every sleepless night afterward. He never wavered. Never complained. Just held my hand and reminded me that this was the price of justice.The first to fall was the senator. Evidence of bribery, corruption, conspiracy. She cried on the stand, begged for mercy, got twenty years.The media mogul went next. Her empire crumbled faster than anyone expected. Former employees came forward, journalists she'd buried, careers she'd destroyed. She'll be old when she gets out, if she gets out at all.The tech billionaire tried to flee. They caught him

CHAPTER 46

Eliza's POVThe house in Pasadena had been empty for months.After everything—the trials, the testimony, the long war—I'd stayed away. Too many memories. Too much weight. But now, with the baby due any day, something pulled me back.Adam offered to come. I told him no. This was something I needed to do alone.The key still worked. The door still creaked. Inside, dust covered everything, soft and gray like fallen snow.I walked through the rooms slowly, touching things. The kitchen where my mother taught me to bake. The living room where my father read me stories. The stairs I'd run down on Christmas mornings.In my father's study, I stopped.The room looked the same as it always had. Bookshelves lining the walls. His desk in the corner. The leather chair where he'd sat a thousand times, reading, thinking, being my dad.I sat in that chair now. Ran my hands over the worn armrests."Hi, Daddy," I whi

CHAPTER 47

Eliza's POVThe pain started at 3 a.m.I'd been expecting it for weeks—the books, the classes, the horror stories from other mothers. But nothing prepares you for the real thing. The way your body becomes a battlefield. The way every muscle clenches and screams and demands things you can't control.Adam woke the second I gasped."What? What is it?""I think—" Another wave crashed over me. I gripped the sheets, rode it out. "I think it's time."He was on his feet before I finished the sentence. Grabbing the bag we'd packed weeks ago. Pulling on clothes. Calling the doctor. Moving with the same controlled intensity I'd seen him use in boardrooms and battlefields.But his hands were shaking."You're scared," I said between contractions."Terrified." He knelt beside the bed, took my face in his hands. "But I'm here. Right here. Every second.""Promise?""Always."Another wave

CHAPTER 48

Eliza's POVSix months later, I stood in my father's office for the first time since finding his letters.The building was the same. The view was the same. The desk where he'd spent so many hours still sat in its corner, worn and familiar and full of memory.But everything else had changed.Sterling Global had grown under my leadership. Stronger than it had been in years. We'd expanded into new markets, built partnerships my father could only have dreamed of. The aerospace division Adam had acquired was thriving separately, a friendly competitor now rather than a rival.The board had thrown me a party last week. Celebrating success, they said. Celebrating survival.I'd smiled, thanked them, gone home to Adam and Clara.That was the real celebration.---Clara squirmed in my arms, reaching for the shiny things on my father's desk. A paperweight. A pen. The small bronze statue he'd kept since I was a

CHAPTER 49

Eliza's POVPeace was strange at first.For years, my life had been defined by fight—by enemies to defeat, battles to win, walls to tear down. After Clara was born, after the trials ended, after Silas was locked away, I thought I'd feel relief. Freedom.Instead, I felt... unsettled. Like I'd forgotten how to stand still.Adam noticed. Of course he noticed. He noticed everything."You're waiting for something," he said one night, after Clara was asleep."I don't know what.""Yes, you do."I looked at him. He was right. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the message, the threat, the shadow to reappear."Silas is in prison," I said. "The Collective is gone. There's nothing left to fight.""And yet.""And yet."He pulled me close. "It takes time. To trust peace. To believe it's real.""How do you know?""Because I've been there. After my father...

CHAPTER 50

Eliza's POVSleep didn't come that night.I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the small sounds of the house. Adam's breathing beside me, slow and steady. Clara's occasional coos from the nursery monitor. The settling of old wood and the whisper of wind against the windows.Normal sounds. Safe sounds.But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.It wasn't logical. Silas was back in custody. Reyes had called personally to confirm—maximum security, no visitors, no chance of escape. The Collective was finished. The war was over.And yet.I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Adam. Pulled on a robe and padded to the nursery.Clara slept peacefully, her tiny face relaxed, her fists opened in surrender to dreams. I stood over her crib, watching the rise and fall of her chest, and tried to let her peace settle me.It didn't work.---Adam's POVI

PREV

...

NEXT

I-scan ang code para mabasa sa App

DMCA.com Protection Status