Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 51 - Chapitre 60

Scarlett's POVWe exited Madison's guest room like thieves in the night, me first, Cade following after checking the hallway twice. The house was dark, most lights extinguished for the evening, the kind of heavy silence that came after too much drama and not enough resolution.My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I was certain Cade could hear it. Every shadow looked like a person. Every creak of the old house settling sounded like footsteps approaching.We moved down the hallway, past the room Lee had been given, the study where James conducted his business, the master suite where my mother and her new husband slept in blissful ignorance.Madison's actual bedroom was at the opposite end of the house from the guest room where she currently lay. Probably part of James's plan, separating the players on his chessboard, making it harder for alliances to form.Cade tried the door handle. Locked.Of course, it was locked. Madison wouldn't leave her blackmail material in an unsecured roo

Scarlett's POVThe house was awfully quiet.Not the peaceful kind of quiet that came with early mornings and fresh coffee. This was the oppressive quiet of people avoiding each other, of words left unsaid festering in the silence, of secrets multiplying in dark corners.I'd barely slept. How could I, after Lee had caught us? After she'd stood in that doorway for what felt like an eternity, her expression cycling through shock, understanding, and finally something that might have been resignation before she'd simply closed the door and walked away without a word.Cade and I had scrambled to get dressed, whispering frantic questions neither of us could answer. What would Lee do? Would she tell James? Tell Rachel? Use it as leverage for something?But hours had passed and nothing had happened. The house had remained quiet. Lee had apparently gone to her room and stayed there.Now morning light streamed through my bedroom window, harsh and unforgiving, illuminating the dark circles under

Scarlett’s POV Lee burst out laughing. “You should see your face…..hahaha!”“Well, you got me there for a sec!”"James asked me to come help clean up loose ends from Silvio’s situation." Her voice was matter-of-fact, professional. "There are still some financial trails to cover, some people who might ask questions. He needs someone with my particular skill set to make sure everything stays buried.""And you do whatever James Blackwood tells you to?" I couldn't keep the bitterness from my voice."I do what I'm paid to do." She didn't sound defensive, just honest. "James pays very well. And the work is interesting. Beats a desk job.""Doesn't it bother you? The violence? The crime? The way they just killed Silvio like he was nothing?"Lee was quiet for a long moment, staring out at the garden. "You want to know the truth? Silvio Romano deserved worse than he got. What he did to you, to those other women, that wasn't human. That was monstrous. So no, it doesn't bother me that he's dead.

Scarlett’s POV"Father." The single word carried a warning."Son.""We agreed." Cade moved away from the wall, his posture changing, losing the carefully maintained stillness and replacing it with something more agitated, more urgent. "We agreed to keep her separate from the business. From any of it. That was the condition I put in place when I agreed to remain involved after Florence. She stays out.""Circumstances have changed." James's voice remained even, but something in it had hardened. "She is carrying the heir to a very dangerous man's legacy. Silvio Romano had connections that extended well beyond his personal operation. When word reaches those connections that he is gone, and it will reach them, they will begin asking questions. Those questions will eventually lead to Florence. And Florence will eventually lead here." He paused, letting that settle. "I am not prepared to lose my wife because we failed to neutralise the threat that arrived with your choices in Italy."The sil

Scarlett’s POVThe dress arrived at two-seventeen in the afternoon.I know the exact time because I was sitting at the window in my bedroom watching the driveway, not intentionally, not with any particular purpose, just existing in that hollow suspended state that had become my default setting since the morning's meeting. The delivery van rolled up to the gate, exchanged words with whoever James had manning the security feed, and was waved through. A man in a plain grey uniform carried a garment bag to the front door with the careful reverence of someone who understood that what was inside it cost more than his weekly salary.I heard Cade's voice downstairs accepting the delivery. Heard the door close. Heard his footsteps on the stairs, measured and deliberate, the particular rhythm of a man working to keep himself calm.He knocked once and opened the door without waiting, which was characteristic of him and something I had stopped objecting to because the alternative was worse; the a