Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 50

Lina’s POV The space I asked for didn’t feel peaceful. It felt empty. Hollow. Like all the air had been sucked out of the house.For three days, we lived like polite strangers haunting the same place. I stayed in the sunroom. He stayed locked in the office. We ate at the same table, but the only real sound was the clink of cutlery against plates — sharp and final, like a judge’s gavel. He was giving me exactly what I said I needed.And somehow, that hurt more than if he had fought me.Everything within me has completely gone numb. I just want to leave, leave this place.By the fourth night, the quiet finally broke.I was standing in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water I didn’t even want, when the terrace door shut with a heavy thud that made me flinch. Carlino stepped inside, carrying the scent of his cologne. His coat was damp. His eyes looked darker than usual, heavy with a kind of exhaustion he would never admit to.“The space isn’t working,” he said. No hello. No softness. Just

Lina’s POV I woke up with my hand already on my stomach. I snatched it away like I’d touched a hot stove. “Stop,” I muttered to myself, staring at the ceiling. “You’re being dramatic.” Morning light spilled through the curtains, soft and harmless, like the world I was trapped in wasn’t built on secrets and bullets. For a moment, I just lay there, listening to the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen downstairs. Normal sounds. Normal morning. But my body didn’t feel normal. The nausea from yesterday hasn’t returned in full force, but a faint, rolling unease lingered low in my belly. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood carefully, testing my balance like I didn’t fully trust the ground. “You’re fine,” I told my reflection in the mirror. I looked pale, tired, eyes too big in my face. “Stress,” I added. “That’s all.” I said it with confidence. I didn’t believe it

Lina’s POVI didn’t sleep. Not properly. Because every time I drifted off, I saw it again, those two red lines. Clear. Unapologetic. Impossible to misread.By morning, the house was already alive. Phones rang too often. Footsteps moved too quickly to be casual. Doors opened and shut with intention, not routine. The air felt tight, like something had shifted overnight, again.Something was wrong.I stood by the window, one hand resting against the cool glass. The other hovered near my stomach before I forced it back to my side.Don’t start.The gates outside were busier than usual. More guards. More vehicles pulling in and out.The empire was moving.And I was standing here carrying something fragile right in the middle of it.The bedroom door opened without a knock.Carlino stepped inside, jacket already on. His face looked carved from stone. He hadn’t slept either. It was easily noticeable.“Get dressed,” he said.No greeting. No explanation.“For what?”“You’re coming with me.”I tu

Lina’s POVCarlino didn’t announce it. He didn’t gather in the room. He didn’t say I’m moving. He just moved.I knew the moment it began because the air changed. The house shifted into a different rhythm—security rotating faster, phones ringing on encrypted lines, men arriving who didn’t normally enter through the front gates.And Carlino stopped sleeping.By the third night, he wasn’t coming to bed at all.I found him in the private study just past midnight. The lights were low. The screens in front of him glowed with spreadsheets, satellite images, shipping routes.“You started,” I said.He didn’t look surprised to see me. “You should be asleep.”“That’s not an answer,” I said slightly agitated.His fingers paused over the keyboard. “Yes.”No dramatic speech. No warning shot. Just yes.I stepped further into the room. “What did you hit?”“One of his freight corridors.”My stomach tightened, not from nausea this time, but from understanding. “Illegal?”“Legally gray,” he corrected. “

Lina’s POV I used to think danger only came with noise. Gunshots. Raised voices. Shattered glass. Sirens in the distance. The metallic scent of blood in the air. I thought danger announced itself. I thought it warned you before coming.But no, I was wrong.Danger can be quiet as well.It can sit across from you at breakfast and ask if you slept well. It can pour your coffee. It can butter your toast. It can brush its thumb over your cheek and tell you everything is under control.It can kiss your forehead and tell you you’re safe. It can circle outside the gates and never once show its face.The problem isn’t knowing it’s there. The problem is realizing it’s everywhere. I noticed it slowly. Not in explosions, in adjustments.The way the guards changed shifts more frequently. The way two of them now stood near the east corridor at all times, pretending to study their phones while their eyes tracked movement.The way doors that used to remain unlocked were suddenly sealed after dusk. T