جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 74

Lauren’s POV The clock read 2:47 a.m.I sat hunched over Julian's laptop in the dark corner of his study, the glow of the screen the only light and my pulse so loud in my ears I was convinced it could wake him. The bedroom was forty feet away. He was sleeping—or at least pretending to. With Julian, I could never be sure.My fingers moved carefully and deliberately. One wrong keystroke and the whole system would flag. I'd spent three nights learning the pattern of his encryption, watching over his shoulder during those fake "come sit with me while I work" moments that he thought were about control and that I was weaponizing for survival. Tonight, it was finally paying off.The first layer cracked open.I exhaled so quietly it barely moved the air.NEREID. There it was—the account name sitting in the directory like it had been waiting for me. Offshore. Encrypted. Protected by at least two more authentication walls I hadn't gotten to yet. But I was in the first portal. That was someth

Lauren’s POVSilas called me at 1:13 a.m.Not my regular phone. The hidden one buried inside the lining of my old poker jacket—the one I’d shoved into the back of Serena’s closet like pretending it didn’t exist would somehow erase the mess my life had become.The vibration nearly stopped my fucking heart.Julian was asleep beside me. Or at least I thought he was.I slid carefully from the bed, my naked skin cold against the marble floor, and grabbed the jacket before slipping into the bathroom. The second the door clicked shut, I answered.“What?” I whispered harshly.Silas exhaled once. “You need to hear this now.”The tension in his voice made my stomach tighten. Silas was controlled even when bullets were flying. If he sounded like this, something was wrong.I locked the bathroom door. “What happened?”“I confirmed it,” he said quietly. “Vivian Moreau’s shell companies overlap with Dante’s old offshore channels.”Cold spread through my chest.“What?”“She’s been moving money throug