บททั้งหมดของ The daughter she thought was gone!: บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 70

Time slowed.Dominic’s heart pounded in his ears—not in fear, but in fury and memory and something darker.Something older.Jack watched him carefully.Dominic wasn’t just bracing for a fight.He was bracing for a past he never wanted Amara to see.Barren took another step forward.“You want to know what the difference is between us, Hale?” he asked, voice low. “It’s not skill. It’s not intelligence. It’s not power.”He leaned in.“It’s loyalty.”Dominic’s breath caught in his throat.Barren smiled tightly. “You betrayed me. Long before she came into the picture.”Jack froze, eyes darting between them.Dominic’s jaw clenched. “That’s not what happened.”“Oh?” Barren asked. “Then tell him. Tell her. Tell everyone how you built your empire on the grave of our partnership.”Jack whispered, “Dominic… what is he talking about?”Dominic didn’t look at him.His eyes never left Barren’s.“Don’t do this,” Dominic warned.Barren scoffed. “Truth hurts more than bullets.”Dominic stepped forward,

They didn’t go to the station right away.First, they went to the only place that could turn a leak into a flood with context—Rhea Sato’s office. It wasn’t much of an office. A second-floor walk-up above a print shop, with a rescue plant in the corner and a wall of clipboards like a map of someone’s stubbornness.Rhea was smaller than Amara expected and sharper. She looked at Dominic like a problem she still wasn’t sure she wanted to solve and at Amara like the proof of the problem’s consequence.“You must hate me,” Rhea said without preamble.Amara shook her head. “I hate men who steal children and the ones who leverage fear. You didn’t do either.”Rhea’s mouth tipped. “You’re going to be irritatingly hard to dislike.”She gestured at the chairs. Jack stood.“No time,” Dominic said. “We needed to look you in the eye.”Rhea pulled a folder from a drawer and handed it to Amara. “Barren called me last night. Told me he had a ‘package’ about Dominic. Said if I didn’t run it, he’d find so

The south docks of Silverwood looked abandoned in daylight.At night, they looked haunted.Fog curled between old cargo containers.Wood planks groaned beneath shifting tides.The moon cast a silver sheen over rusted cranes like bones jutting from the earth.Dominic stepped into the open.Unarmed.On purpose.He wanted Barren to see a man, not a fortress.“Didn’t think you’d show,” Barren called from the shadows.Dominic’s voice cut through the fog.“You wanted daylight,” he said. “This is as close as you’re going to get.”Barren stepped into view—or half of him anyway. One eye shadowed, one glinting like a hunter’s.“You brought company?” Barren asked.Dominic didn’t flinch. “I came alone.”A slow, pleased smile.“You’re learning.”Dominic kept walking.Barren mirrored the movement.Fog curled between them like serpents.“You know what I admire about you?” Barren said. “You always think you’re in control of the board. Even when you’re the one being cornered.”“I stopped playing your

Amara’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.She had tried pacing. She had tried sitting. She had tried breathing.Nothing worked.Every instinct screamed that she needed to go.Needed to reach Dominic.Needed to stop whatever was about to happen.She stood at the window overlooking the drive, heart pounding.She couldn’t see him.Couldn’t hear him.Couldn’t feel him.And that terrified her more than anything.Elara slept upstairs, blissfully unaware, cradled between layers of security and soft blankets. Amara left the door cracked and two guards stationed outside it.Jack’s assistant—a tall, quiet man named Rafe—approached her.“Ms. Linton? Is everything—”“No,” she whispered. “No, it’s not.”Rafe hesitated. “Jack said Dominic would update once the area was secure.”Amara turned. Her voice shook with something fierce and primal.“He’s out there with a man who tried to kill him. With a woman who tried to kill my daughter. And I’m supposed to wait?”Rafe opened his mouth, but Amara held up a h

Dominic sagged into her arms, breath shallow, his shirt soaked where Barren’s knife had grazed him deeper than he’d admitted.“Dominic!” Amara cried, lowering him to the dock. “Stay with me—stay—”“I’m fine,” he rasped. Trying to reassure her.He was absolutely not fine.Rafe called for medical. The guards formed a protective circle. Lights flashed. Sirens wailed. The world blurred in motion.But Dominic only looked at her. Everything else around them disappeared. “I told you… not to come,” he whispered, trying to smirk.“And I told you I don’t listen,” she snapped, tears streaming.He laughed—just barely.Then hissed in pain.“Oh God,” she whispered, hands trembling as she pressed pressure to the wound. “You idiot—why do you always take the hit—”“Because it’s you,” he said softly. “Because it’s her. Because… I don’t know how not to.” His love for them evident.Her heart cracked open.“Stop talking,” she whispered. “You’re losing blood.”“Then listen,” he said, gripping her wrist we