Home / Romance / OWNED IN THE DARK / Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

All Chapters of OWNED IN THE DARK: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

210 Chapters

CHAPTER 161: EXPLOSION

MATHEW The first thing I became aware of was the smell of burning rubber, melted metal, gasoline and smoke.It coated the back of my throat and settled heavily in my lungs every time I tried to breathe.For a few seconds, I couldn't figure out where I was.My ears were ringing so violently that the world sounded underwater. Everything around me was muffled and distant, like I was listening through several feet of concrete.Then the pain arrived.A brutal, white-hot agony exploded through my left shoulder, dragging a groan from my chest before I could stop it.I opened my eyes.The world tilted.Gray gravel stretched beneath me.A strip of scorched lawn.Dark smoke climbing into the afternoon sky and twenty feet away, what remained of Ciara's Mercedes or what used to be her Mercedes.The armored SUV was now a twisted wreck of blackened steel and shattered glass. Flames licked through the mangled frame while thick smoke poured upward, staining the sky.For a moment I simply stared.Try

CHAPTER 162: FINAL WARNING

CIARAThe smell of the mansion’s sub-level storage corridor always hit me the same way after a breach. It was a dense mixture of old bricks, cold iron pipes, and the sharp, chemical sting of the localized signal jammers Luke had integrated into the concrete foundations. Upstairs, the estate was finally quiet, the charred debris from the Mercedes explosion cleared from the driveway, and Mathew was under a strict medical baseline review by Carlista for his concussion.I walked down the dimlit passage, my utility boots making a series of sharp, mechanical clicks against the stone floor. I had discarded my slate-gray blazer, standing in just a black tank top and my tactical trousers, my hands bare and my skin still humming with that freezing, unhinged focus that always took the wheel when someone stepped inside our fence.I stopped in front of the heavy steel door to the auxiliary server vault, a room that should have been empty except for decommissioned baseline hardware.The latch was c

CHAPTER 163: RECOVERY COMFORT

MATHEW The metric-grade steel of the restraint cuffs clicked with a heavy, insulting finality against the iron frame of the medical bed.I strained against the metal, the muscles in my forearms bunching into thick cords as I tried to rip the anchors straight out of the reinforced headboard. The frame groaned, but the structure didn't yield an inch. It was reinforced with the same industrial-grade concrete pouring we used for the subterranean holding cells."Carlista!" I roared, my voice a rough, gravelly rumble that rattled the glass panes of the master suite windows. "Unlatch the security loop before I break your jaw!"My sister didn't even look up from her tablet. She was sitting in the leather armchair by the window, her silver-cropped hair catching the morning sun, completely unfazed by the fact that her six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound brother was currently trying to demolish the room's infrastructure. She was dressed in her standard tactical trousers and a dark tank t

CHAPTER 164: JAMES CRIES WOLF

CIARAThe pale light of a Manhattan dawn cut through the gaps in the motorized blinds, casting long, geometric slate-gray bars across the wrinkled white linens of the master bed.The storm from the previous days had left the valley entirely washed out, the morning air smelling faintly of wet earth, crisp pine, and the damp asphalt where the debris of the Mercedes explosion had been cleared by Louis’s teams. Inside the master suite, the ambient temperature was locked into a steady, freezing vibration, a stark contrast to the absolute furnace of the skin pressed against my back.I lay perfectly still on my side, my six-foot frame curved into the massive, protective bulk of the man behind me.Mathew’s left arm; the muscle thick, heavy, and hot with a vital baseline heat was anchored securely around my waist, his raw, bare hand splaying across my lower stomach with a heavy, possessive density that kept me completely pinned to his mass. His breathing was a slow, deep, and gravelly rumble a

CHAPTER 165: UNEXPECTED CLAUSE

MATHEW The board meeting had already dragged on for nearly two hours.By that point, everyone around the massive mahogany conference table looked exhausted.The air inside Diamond LLC executive boardroom was cool enough to make the glass walls feel cold to the touch. Financial reports glowed across multiple screens while projections, asset transfers, and liquidation schedules scrolled endlessly across the main monitor.I sat at the head of the table, half-listening as another executive explained the final phase of dismantling several offshore accounts that had once belonged to my father's network.Louis stood near the presentation screen, reviewing numbers on his tablet while the board members quietly worked through reports. Nobody spoke unless they had something useful to add.The room operated like a machine.The boardroom doors suddenly slammed open.Several executives jumped.One woman nearly dropped her tablet."You can't keep locking me out!"The shrill voice echoed through the

CHAPTER 166: POWERFUL LOYALTY

CIARAMary's kitchen looked like something out of a home design magazine at first glance.Fresh rosemary sat in a ceramic pot by the window. An espresso machine hummed softly on the counter. Sunlight filtered through the bay windows overlooking a quiet Brooklyn street lined with neat trees and identical brownstones.I sat on one of the stools at the zinc kitchen island, cradling a mug of espresso between my hands. The coffee was strong enough to strip paint, and the scent mixed with rosemary and polished wood. Outside, a woman walked her dog. A cyclist coasted past. The neighborhood looked peaceful.Inside the house, however, the atmosphere carried the same tension as a military command center.Mary sat across from me at what appeared to be a decorative kitchen cabinet. It wasn't.The doors had been removed, revealing three monitors stacked side by side, each filled with streams of encrypted data scrolling faster than most people could read. Reflections of green and amber code danced

CHAPTER 167: FAKE KIDNAPPING

MATHEW The smell of burning aviation fuel, damp tarmac, and the sharp, chemical tang of industrial de-icer always settled into the back of my throat like a baseline threat.I stood in the shadow of Private Hangar 4 at JFK International, my six-foot-four frame absolute under a heavy black tactical coat that brushed the tops of my utility boots. The rain from the previous midnight had reduced to a low, greasy fog that rolled off the runways, painting the rows of parked Gulfstreams in blurry, shifting halos of yellow and white security light. The temperature out on the asphalt was locked into a freezing vibration, but the internal furnace of my body was running hot, my jaw clamped shut so tight the muscle beneath my ear was actively twitching.Louis stood three paces behind me, his gray eyes tracking the global maritime data feeds on his handheld terminal while his other hand remained casually pocketed near the grip of his suppressed sidearm."The flight plan for Zurich is clearing its

CHAPTER 168: CATYA'S DEATH

CIARA I sat in the back of the armored convoy truck, leaning against the reinforced leather seat as the vehicle rumbled through the wet streets of Brooklyn. Harbor fog rolled across the windows, turning the outside world into little more than gray shadows and flashing lights.The city felt distant.For the first time in days, everything felt strangely quiet.Curled against my chest was a sleeping baby.His small body was warm beneath the blanket wrapped around him, his breathing slow and steady against my ribs.After everything that had happened, after the bloodshed, betrayals, explosions, and endless attempts to tear apart what we'd built, it was almost surreal how peaceful he looked.The operation to find him had taken most of the night.When Mathew returned from the airport, Collins and the rest of the team spent hours digging through fragmented intelligence reports and old network connections. What they eventually uncovered was worse than anyone expected.The remnants of Alexande

CHAPTER 169: FUNERAL

MATHEW The earth in the private Harvour burial plot was frozen solid, resisting the shovels until the guard units used localized thermal cutters to slice a six-foot perimeter into the clay.I stood at the edge of the open trench, my six-foot-four bulk anchored against a freezing, brutal wind that swept off the Hudson, my dark tactical wool coat buttoned tight to my throat to shield the cracked ribs beneath. The sky above was a flat, unedited slate of iron gray, mirroring the total static of the landscape. There were no civilian mourners here. There were no public obituaries printed in the morning wire services. You don’t publish the termination script of an old-world fixer like Catya; you simply close her and bury her keys beneath three feet of reinforced concrete.Ciara stood right beside my shoulder, her long frame draped in a dark silk trench coat, her face a mask of dead, freezing calm as her dark eyes tracked the slow lowering of the steel casket. Carlista was two paces back,

CHAPTER 170: HEIR

CIARA The soft clink of silverware and porcelain drifted through Le Petit Oranger, but beneath the polished atmosphere, the lunch felt less like a meal and more like a negotiation waiting to explode.Rain streaked the tall windows overlooking Park Avenue, turning the city outside into a blur of gray and silver. The restaurant was quiet. Most people would have called it exclusive. I knew better.The dining room had been cleared hours ago.Security teams occupied every entrance, every hallway, every neighboring rooftop. Louis had personally overseen the sweep before I arrived.I sat in a private corner booth, dressed in jeans and a casual top watching the man across from me with careful patience.Charles Harvour looked exactly like the kind of man who survived wars nobody else even knew were happening.Age had curved his shoulders slightly, but it hadn't softened him.His silver hair was neatly combed back. His suit was immaculate. His pale blue eyes remained sharp enough to cut throug

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