Todos los capítulos de His Arranged Protection: Capítulo 121 - Capítulo 130

LENA“Why is there a photograph of Niccolò in this file?”Marcus didn’t answer right away. He stood near the window with his arms crossed, staring at nothing in particular. The silence stretched long.I stepped closer.“Don’t do that. Don’t go quiet on me now. That picture was tucked into the last section of my mother’s case file. I want to know why.”He exhaled through his nose, still not looking at me.“Marcus.”Finally he turned.“I continued the investigation for a few months after Clara died,” he said. “Protocol required me to list anyone with a clear connection to the Santoro family as a person of interest. Niccolò was one of them. I followed that line because I had to.”“And?”“I never found anything solid that connected him directly to her death. No orders or confirmed presence at the scene. After a while I abandoned that angle and moved on.” He held my gaze. “That was it.”

NICCOLOLena finished speaking and the room fell quiet.I looked at her for a long moment. Her hair was still damp from the shower. The bruises around her wrists stood out dark on her skin. She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands folded tightly in her lap, waiting.My eyes moved to the file and the scattered papers between us.Only a few hours earlier I had been standing in the entrance hall with no idea where she was. Her driver’s voice had been shaking over the phone. No one could tell me what had happened. For the first time in a long time I had felt something close to real fear. I had stepped away from so much of the life I used to live because I wanted her safe. Because the thought of her getting pulled back into that world made something in my chest tighten until it hurt. If she only understood how far I would go to keep her protected. How far gone I already was when it came to her.I finally spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”She looked up.“You should have said so

LENAI couldn’t stop staring at the photograph.The image was sharp. Niccolò’s hand rested on my waist, a small smile on my face, the wet sponge still clutched in my other hand. It had been taken only minutes earlier, while we were cleaning and laughing as though the world outside the window didn’t exist.Niccolò gently took the picture from my hands“They want us to know we’re being watched,” he said. His voice was calm, but there was something harder underneath it.“Do you think they were inside the foundation while we were cleaning?”“It’s possible.” He looked at me carefully. “But don’t jump ahead of what we know.”He was already pulling out his phone. He called Matteo and gave short, precise instructions. When he hung up, he turned back to me. “We should go home.”I shook my head. “I don’t want whoever this is to scare me away from my own foundation.”“Being brave doesn’t mean pretending you’re not afraid.” His eyes held mine. “We’re leaving.”I wanted to argue. The stubborn par

LENA I followed Niccolò out of the room and down a short corridor into a smaller space that smelled of concrete and cigarette smoke. Matteo was waiting with a laptop open on a metal table and several printed pages spread out beside it. He looked up when we entered, expression as cold as ever. “I went through everything he gave us,” Matteo said without waiting. “The names, delivery routes and payment methods. There’s a very obvious pattern.” He turned the laptop so we could see the screen. A list of aliases filled the page, each one linked to a different city and cover story. But the pattern underneath was the same. “It’s intentional,” Matteo continued. “Whoever’s behind this has been using the same framework for a while. This man was just one of the hands they hired. I’m certain he’s our connection.” A cold feeling slid down my spine. The idea that someone had been this organised while leaving notes on my desk and photographing us through a window made the air …. “The financi

If Victoria knew anything, I needed to hear it from someone who had been close to her.By the next morning, we had an appointment with one of the few people who had ever managed her money.The woman sitting across from us looked like she had been expecting this conversation for a long time. She now ran a successful fashion agency, all glass walls, clean lines, and assistants moving quietly in the background. It was the kind of place that made the past seem far away, until someone walked in and brought it all back. She folded her hands on the desk and met our eyes without flinching. “Whatever you’re here for,” she said, “I had no part in it.” I studied her for a moment. “Do you know why we’re here?” “I knew it would be connected to my old life the moment I saw your names on the appointment list.” Her voice stayed even. “I was the financial manager for all of Victoria’s funds. I’m the most obvious person to