《Unwanted Bride》全部章節：第 21 章 - 第 25 章

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Morning After the FireThe sun didn't rise over the Potomac with a sense of peace; it rose with a harsh, judgmental glare that exposed every crack in the marble and every drop of blood in the grass.I sat on the bumper of Sarah’s car, a thermal blanket draped over my obsidian-shattered dress. My father—Julian—was asleep in the backseat, his hand still twitching in his sleep as if he were trying to ward off ghosts. Damien stood a few yards away, talking to a man in a dark suit who didn't look like a fed. He looked like an asset."You're thinking about the phone call," Damien said, walking toward me. He didn't look like a billionaire anymore. He looked like a man who had been through a war and realized he liked the smell of smoke."The Architect didn't sound defeated, Damien," I said, looking at my hands. The cuts from the obsidian were starting to throb. "She sounded like she was giving me a graduation speech."Damien sat beside me, the weight of his body a grou

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Cayman ConnectionThe photo on the screen felt like a physical blow to the stomach. The real Howard Harrington was alive. Not the mercenary with the fake wrist scar, and not the coward who had let me rot in the attic—but the man my mother had actually loved. And he was standing beside the sister who had just tried to incinerate me."She didn't save him," I whispered, my fingers trembling as I zoomed in on the grainy image. "She hijacked him."Damien leaned over my shoulder, his warmth a sharp contrast to the cold calculation in his eyes. "Vivienne didn't blow up the tower just to destroy the evidence, Celeste. She did it to create a distraction large enough to move a high-value asset out of the country. She didn't want the empire. She wanted the man who holds the keys to the Vane Estate’s offshore vaults.""But why would he be with her?" I asked, looking at Howard’s face. He looked older, gaunt, but there was a fierce protectiveness in the way he stood near V

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: The Island of Lost SoulsThe roar of the speedboat faded into the rhythmic thrash of the Caribbean Sea, leaving the villa in a suffocating silence. Damien stayed by the shattered window, his silhouette dark against the moonlight like a gargoyle."She’s heading for the North Sound," he said, lowering his scope. "There’s a private marina in the mangroves. If she reaches the Architect’s transport, she vanishes into the radar shadows of the reef."I helped Howard to a chair, my hands shaking. He looked at me, and the hollow fog in his eyes finally lifted. He reached out, his thumb brushing a smudge of ash from my cheek."I let them take you," he whispered. "I spent twenty years convincing myself you were a dream I had during the war.""I wasn't a dream, Dad," I said, leaning my forehead against his knee. "I was the girl who remembered your voice every time the attic got too cold.""We don't have time for the past," Damien interrupted. He wasn't being cruel; he was bei