All Chapters of Encore with the Devil: Chapter 141 - Chapter 150

I don’t knock.It’s still early enough that the hall is dim, afternoon light slanting through the high windows, dust motes drifting like lazy snow. I can hear Sofie somewhere down the corridor, her high voice narrating a game to Bianca, the distant clatter of wooden blocks.My hand is on Kael’s doorknob before I can think too hard about it.I push it open.His room is half shadow, and curtains are drawn to a slit. The television is on mute, flickering images painting his face in cold flashes. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, shirt sleeves rolled to the forearms, hands hanging limp. A faint square of gauze shows under the open collar where the bullet grazed him; the bruise at his temple has gone yellow at the edges.He looks up sharply when the door moves.For a second, habit tightens everything about him—shoulders, jaw, eyes scanning behind me for a threat.Then he sees it’s me, alone.All that coiled readiness doesn’t leave; it just…changes direction.“Eliana

That night, the house is unusually quiet.Bianca has taken Sofie for a sleepover in the east wing—“girls’ movie night,” complete with popcorn and glittery blankets. Jace is buried in a security audit somewhere. Ava has retreated to her quarters with a book and a mug of something that smells medicinal.For once, there’s no meeting.No war council.No screens glowing with maps and grainy photos.Just…night.And us.We end up in his room again, not because he pulls me there, but because I follow him.He hesitates in the doorway, glancing back like he half‑expects me to veer off toward the guest room.I don’t.I slide past him, toes curling in the plush rug, and sit on the edge of his bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world.It feels anything but natural.It feels like a decision.He closes the door behind us, softer than I’ve ever heard it shut.“Eliana,” he starts.“Don’t,” I say, holding up a hand. “If you ask me one more time if I’m sure, I’m going to start charging you by t

The next week feels less like a pivot and more like a controlled demolition.Emails fly.Phone calls stack.Jace mutters about “paperwork being more dangerous than bullets” as he hauls boxes out of an upstairs office that hasn’t seen daylight since before I moved in.By the fourth day, the big table in Kael’s conference room is buried under files.Old ledgers.Property lists.Shell company maps scribbled on legal pads.In the middle of the chaos is one neat folder with my name on it.That’s the only one I reach for.Ava is there, sleeves rolled up, glasses perched low on her nose as she reviews notes with a woman I haven’t met yet—short, sharp‑eyed, in a navy blazer and soft sneakers, exuding the kind of contained competence I’ve only ever seen in ER nurses and very good stage managers.“Eliana,” Ava says, waving me in. “This is Sana. Corporate lawyer. Former idealist. Currently being dragged back into the light against her will.”Sana offers her hand.“Big fan,” she says. “Of your mu

The paperwork multiplies.So do the meetings.If this were the old days, this much legalese would have meant someone was suing me, or I’d “breached” something by daring to say no.Now, the contracts with my name at the top don’t feel like traps.They feel like tools.Sana moves through it all like a surgeon—precise, unsentimental, weirdly gentle with the worst of the damage.We spent a morning in the conference room with her laptop plugged into the big screen, the word “DRAFT” stamped across two different sets of documents.“Okay,” she says, pointer in hand like a professor. “Foundation first.”She clicks.The header reads:> **THE LULLABY FUND** > A 501(c)(3) OrganizationUnderneath: a dense thicket of clauses that she’s already walked me through once but insists on explaining again.“Board structure,” she says. “You, nominally, as founder. But we’ll make sure it can’t be hijacked if some future administration decides to sell out. Staggered terms. Conflict‑of‑interest policies. Cle

Mila lives.Barely.Not because the man at her door suddenly discovered a conscience.Because Mila’s mother kept the front door locked, called the police, and followed every instruction Sana had given her.Because Jace arrived before the situation could become something worse.Because, for once, someone listened when a nineteen‑year‑old girl said, “I’m scared.”The man who came to her house never admitted he worked for Victor.He didn’t have to.His phone records, his company connections, and one very nervous email from a former employee told us enough.Victor hadn’t just heard about Mila.He’d sent someone to retrieve her.The next forty‑eight hours are worse.Not because of guns.Because of headlines.Because of whispers that spread faster than bullets ever could.—It starts with a blind item.A gossip site I used to read on lunch breaks posts a coy little paragraph about a “formerly beloved single‑mom songstress” who is “torpedoing a promising young artist’s career by encouraging