All Chapters of His Arranged Protection: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

66 Chapters

THE ADDRESS

~~LENA~~ I paused at the doorway of the recovery room, drawn by Bianca's voice. She stood beside the bed with her arms folded across her chest, glaring down at Yuki. “You think you can just sit there like some invalid while the rest of us clean up your mess?” she snapped at Yuki. He sat on the narrow bed, his bandaged hand resting carefully on his lap. His face was pale. “I asked you a simple question,” she continued, stepping closer. “Where is the updated perimeter log? You didn’t even look up. Too good to acknowledge me now?” Yuki’s jaw tightened, but he kept his tone steady. “Ma’am, I’m still on the pain meds. The log is on the tablet beside you—” “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me like I’m some fragile guest.” Bianca snatched the tablet. “Useless. All of you are becoming useless.” Anger burned through my chest. I pushed the door open fully and stepped inside. “Can’t you see he’s injured? That’s why he isn’t doing anything, he needs to rest.” Bianca turned back with a sneer on her lips.

THREE DAYS

LENA'S POV: He was avoiding me. I knew it by nine in the morning. I had come downstairs early, earlier than usual, dressed and deliberate about it. I'd even eaten breakfast properly instead of picking at it, which was its own kind of preparation. I was ready. I had the photograph in my pocket and the question I'd asked him last night still sitting hot in my chest, and I was ready to finish what we'd started. The guard outside the operations room had been polite about it. Professional. Apologetic, even, in the careful way people are when they've been told exactly what to say. “Mr. Santoro is currently unavailable,” Miss Lena. I had stood there for a moment, long enough to make it clear I wasn't simply going to turn around and disappear, and then I had turned around and disappeared. Because making a scene in a corridor wasn't going to get me anywhere and I knew it. I went back upstairs and sat on the window seat and watched the rear courtyard below. There were more vehicles tha

STAY CLOSE

~~LENA~~My eyelids felt too heavy to lift properly. I blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the world around me. The surface beneath me was cold and hard. Concrete, maybe? But not my bed. Not the mansion. Dim light came from above, casting long shadows that didn’t match any room I knew. Where am I?I pushed myself into a sitting position, my muscles aching. My mouth was dry, and my tongue swollen. For a moment, everything felt unclear. Then the memories came rushing back.The dark sedan pulling over. Three men stepping out and walking straight toward me. A cloth pressing over my face.My breathing hitched. The room felt dark. It pulled me back to that night with my stepmother — the basement, her grip tight on my arm as I begged and cried, promising I’d behave if she wouldn’t lock me down there in the dark. The fear of being left alone in it came back.I hated the dark.“No…” I shook my head, trying to push the fear back. “Let me out! Someone... please, let me out of here!”I scra

AFTER THE KISS

Everything they said was still loud in my head. But this was Niccolò. Whatever he was or still hiding — he had come for me tonight. People don't do that for someone they're just using. Do they? The kiss happened before I could think. It was messy, like my body reacted before my mind caught up. For a moment, he was just there… the only thing I could focus on. Then reality snapped back, and I immediately regretted it. I felt the stares. Matteo and the guards frozen in the doorway, eyes wide with shock. Niccolò’s body had gone completely stiff under my hands, like he couldn’t process what I’d just done. My brain finally caught up. What the hell did I just do? I jerked back so fast the chair almost tipped over. “Oh God,” I whispered, heat rushing to my face. “Lena?” Niccolò’s voice came out rough. He was still crou

A SECRET KEPT

~~LENA~~ The room was silent except for the steady ticking of the clock on my bedside table. It was already late, and I should have been asleep by now, but every time I tried to close my eyes, my mind dragged me back to the same problem, the device. It represented danger, and a secret that I wasn't sure I was ready to share. The sensible thing would have been to hand it over to Niccolò immediately. I mean I could walk downstairs, knock on his office door, and tell him everything that had happened. I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath. "No," I whispered. The sound of my own voice felt strange in the empty room. When I opened my eyes again, the device was still resting in my hand, and so were all the questions that came with it. I knew it was dangerous. I wasn't naïve enough to pretend otherwise. However, danger did not automatically make something worthless. Information had value, and that was something everyone in this house understood. The people who had taken

THE MORNING AFTER

Morning arrived much faster than I expected. The alarm on my desk shattered the silence of my room, making me flinch before I reached out and switched it off. The sudden quiet that followed felt almost painful. For several long seconds, I stayed exactly where I was, with my face buried in my pillow and my eyes firmly closed. I didn't want to move. I had barely slept, and my body made sure I knew it. My neck ached, shoulders felt stiff and my legs hurt from everything that had happened the previous day. Slowly, I pushed myself upright and immediately regretted it. A groan escaped before I could stop it. "Fantastic," I muttered. I stretched carefully, hoping it would help. Instead, it only reminded me how exhausted I still felt. At that moment, another six hours of sleep sounded perfect. Ten hours sounded even better. Unfortunately, life rarely cared about what I wanted. In seconds, there was a knock at my door. I froze as a second knock followed a moment later. "Come in," I ca

NOT YET

~~LENA~~ Niccolò was already walking toward the dining table. His dark shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms, exposing the tattoos that disappeared beneath the fabric. His expression remained as unreadable as ever, but something felt different about him this morning. Whatever the reason, I became painfully aware of his presence the closer he got. Without saying a word, he reached for the chair opposite mine and pulled it out. The movement was calm and effortless, the kind of thing that looked ordinary until he did it. Then he lowered himself into the seat as though nothing unusual had happened between us. I swallowed and forced myself to speak. "Good morning." The greeting came out less confident than I intended. He lifted his eyes to meet mine. "Morning." That was all. He simply nodded once before reaching for his breakfast and beginning to eat as though yesterday had been perfectly normal. I stared at him for a moment before looking down at my own plate. Okay. Maybe th

THREE MESSAGES

~~LENA~~ Three days had passed. And to my surprise, absolutely nothing had happened. I had spent the first day expecting a disaster to occur. By the second day, I had convinced myself that someone would eventually corner me in a hallway, demand the device back, or reveal that they somehow knew I had kept it. And the third day, I no longer knew what to think. There were no messages, threats, mysterious instructions and no signs that anyone even remembered I existed. The people behind the device had simply vanished. At times, I found myself wondering if I had imagined the entire thing. The silence bothered me more than I wanted to admit. Silence meant waiting. And waiting usually meant something unpleasant was coming. Niccolò had been equally absent. Not physically. He was still in the house every night, but he had barely been around otherwise. Whatever business occupied him seemed important. Over the past few days, the mansion had been unusually busy. Black-suited men came and w

AN UNEXPECTED CALL

~~LENA~~ By the time I reached the gym, I had almost convinced myself that Niccolò somehow knew about the device. It was ridiculous, I know. Completely irrational. And yet, no matter how many times I reminded myself that it was impossible, my heart refused to calm down. I pushed open the gym door and stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the sound of metal settling back into place. Niccolò had apparently just finished a set of bench presses. He sat upright on the bench, with one hand gripping the bar above him as he caught his breath. Sweat covered his skin, darkening the waistband of his training pants and making the tattoos across his chest and arms stand out even more. His dark hair was damp and pushed back from his forehead, and for a brief moment, I simply stood there staring. I hated that I stared and even more that I apparently wasn't very subtle about it. He grabbed the towel beside him and draped it around his neck before looking directly at me. "Seen enough?

NEW CRIMES

~NICCOLÒ~~ I sat alone in the operations room, with a cup of black coffee growing cold beside me as I studied the forensic reports spread across the table. For the third time in the last hour, I reread Kai's autopsy findings and none of it felt right. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed softly while surveillance monitors on the far wall displayed live feeds from different sections of the estate. Under normal circumstances, I would have divided my attention between the reports and the security feeds. Today, however, every ounce of my concentration remained fixed on the papers in front of me. Kai had been young, disciplined, and exceptionally well-trained. The discovery of the false tooth containing poison had already raised numerous questions, but the toxicology report had complicated matters even further. His blood contained traces of substances commonly associated with long-term conditioning programs. The scars covering his body were old and deliberate. Some were clearly

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