Billionaire by Day, Protector by Night의 모든 챕터: 챕터 1 - 챕터 10

The blood on Elena Moretti's hands wasn't hers.She pressed harder against the sixteen-year-old boy's shoulder, her fingers slick and trembling as she tried to stem the bleeding. The community center's fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting shadows that danced across the cracked linoleum floor. Around her, chaos reigned. Teenagers shouted, parents cried, and somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed their approach."Stay with me, Miguel," Elena whispered, her voice steady despite the terror clawing at her chest. "Look at me. Keep your eyes open."Miguel's brown eyes, so much like her brother's had been, struggled to focus. "Miss Elena, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—""Shh. Don't talk. Just breathe." She glanced up at her assistant, Sarah, who stood frozen near the door. "Where the hell is the ambulance?""Three minutes out," Sarah managed, her face pale.Three minutes. An eternity when you were watching a child bleed out on the floor of the place that was supposed to keep him saf

Elena never should have taken the shortcut through Morrison Alley.She knew better. Everyone in the neighborhood knew better. Morrison Alley was where deals went down, where the desperate sold pieces of their souls for temporary relief, where the night swallowed screams whole. But it was nearly midnight, and she'd stayed late at the center finishing the grant application, and the alley shaved ten minutes off her walk home.Ten minutes that might cost her everything.The girl's whimper reached Elena's ears first, high and terrified, cutting through the humid night air. Elena's footsteps faltered. Every survival instinct screamed at her to keep walking, to mind her business, to remember that heroes in this neighborhood ended up as cautionary tales.But the whimper came again, followed by a man's rough laughter.Elena's hand tightened around her keys, the makeshift weapon jutting between her fingers as she edged toward the sound. The alley opened into a wider space behind an abandoned wa

Elena woke to the sound of her phone vibrating against the nightstand, a relentless buzzing that dragged her from dreams filled with blood and sirens. She reached for it blindly, her body protesting every movement. Every muscle ached from the tension of yesterday, from kneeling on the hard floor while Miguel bled, from the hours spent scrubbing away evidence of violence that had seeped into the center's floors like it was trying to become permanent.The screen showed seventeen missed calls. Twelve text messages. Three voicemails.All from numbers she didn't recognize.Elena sat up, her heart already racing before her mind fully processed why. The clock read 6:47 AM. Outside her window, Chicago was still wrapped in the grey predawn light that made everything look washed out and tired.She opened the first voicemail."Miss Moretti, this is Amanda Cross from Channel 7 News. We'd love to get your statement about yesterday's incident and discuss the ongoing gang violence in your neighborho

Elena found the photograph at three in the morning.She'd been unable to sleep, her mind replaying the gala like a film stuck in a loop. The way Dante's hand had felt against the small of her back. The intensity in his eyes when he'd looked at her across the dance floor. The strange moment when he'd excused himself abruptly, leaving her standing alone among Chicago's elite like she'd suddenly become invisible.She'd come home restless and angry, angry at herself for caring, for letting him get under her skin. So she'd done what she always did when sleep eluded her: she'd started working. The grant application was due in thirty-six hours, and she still needed to compile the supporting documentation about the center's impact on the community.That's when she'd pulled out the old file boxes from her closet, searching for the newspaper articles about the neighborhood's gang violence statistics from five years ago. And there, wedged between a stack of yellowed clippings about her brother's

Elena's phone rang at two in the morning, shattering the fragile sleep she'd finally managed to find.She fumbled for it in the darkness, her heart already racing with the kind of dread that came from years of emergency calls. Miguel's condition is deteriorating. Another kid hurt. The center on fire. Her mind catalogued disasters in the seconds it took to swipe the screen."Hello?" Her voice was rough with sleep and worry."Miss Moretti. It's Marcus Chen."Elena sat up, suddenly wide awake. "It's two in the morning.""I'm aware. Mr. Salvatore needs to see you. Now.""Are you insane?" She threw back the covers, anger burning through her confusion. "I don't care how much money he has, he can't just summon me in the middle of the night like I'm some kind of employee.""There's been an incident." Marcus's voice remained infuriatingly calm. "Someone broke into your community center an hour ago. Mr. Salvatore's security team intercepted them before they could do significant damage, but he t