All Chapters of Cursed To Love You: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

52 Chapters

The Escalation

Reid arrived at nine in the evening with his laptop and the particular expression of someone who had been digging through financial records for the entire day.Zachary opened the door before he could knock."You found something," Zachary said."Multiple somethings." Reid set his laptop on the kitchen table. Isla was already there, her own research spread across the surface — printed documents, notes scrawled in the margins, a map of connections she'd been building for a week without telling either of them how deep she was going.They sat. The three of them around the kitchen table like it was a war council instead of a kitchen table in an apartment where someone was supposed to be resting."Tell us," Isla said.She pulled up a spreadsheet. Color-coded. Organized. The kind of work someone did when they couldn't sleep and had nowhere else to put their fear."Meridian Health is connected to three other medical research foundations," she started. "All registered within the same six-month

Wren

Reid brought her on a Friday evening without asking permission first.He simply arrived with Wren beside him and something in his expression that said this was non-negotiable, that he had made a decision and was following through on it regardless of what anyone thought about it.Isla opened the door and saw them standing there together and understood immediately that something had shifted between these two people who had history and distance and four years of not being in the same room."I invited Wren to dinner," Reid said. Simple. Direct. No apology in it.Wren smiled like she'd been invited to dozens of dinners and this was just another one, but her hand was steady on her bag strap and there was something careful in the way she was holding her shoulders."Thank you for having me," Wren said to Isla.The six of them at the table — Zachary, Isla, Reid, Wren, Caden, and Odette — was the first time they'd all been in the same room together. It should have felt like too many people. Ins

The Card

Isla sat with the card for one day.Just one. She was learning that sitting with information before acting on it was different from hiding it. She kept the card in her pocket. She didn't mention it to Zachary that first night even though he'd asked her to come to the kitchen, even though she'd texted him to stay awake. Instead she'd shown him the card, watched his expression shift, and then she'd said: "We need to know what this means before we tell Reid."He'd nodded. Understanding that this was bigger than just showing someone a business card. This was about what the card represented.The next morning she called Caden."I need you to do something quietly," she said."How quiet?""Don't tell Reid. Not yet."Caden asked no questions. He just said: "Send me what you have."She did.By evening he had answers.Wren didn't know. That was the first thing Caden established with absolute certainty. She had been hired by a legitimate compliance firm to do compliance work on a series of f

Reid and Wren

Reid went to her apartment because some conversations couldn't happen over the phone and some people deserved to hear difficult things in person, with the option to walk away or stay or do whatever felt necessary in the moment.She answered the door in jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back, and the particular expression of someone who wasn't expecting visitors but wasn't entirely surprised either. She'd known this was coming. Four years of knowing Reid meant understanding the timing of things, understanding when silence was about to break."Hi," she said."Can I come in?" he asked."Of course."Her apartment was exactly how he remembered it — organized, minimal, the spaces carefully chosen like she'd thought about every object before allowing it into her home. She'd always been like that. Deliberate about what she let stay.She made tea without asking if he wanted it, which meant she was nervous, which meant she already understood that this wasn't a social visit.They sat at he

The Morning After

Reid didn't come back that night.Zachary and Isla waited until eleven and then went to bed, both of them understanding that some conversations took time and some people needed space to figure out what they were feeling before they could explain it to anyone else. They lay in the dark not talking about it, which was its own kind of conversation, and in the morning Reid texted."She has documents. I'll explain everything. Come to her place."The address followed. A time. Nothing else.The four of them sat at Wren's kitchen table going through three years of compliance filings. Papers spread across the surface, documents organized in stacks that told a story if you knew how to read them. Wren had organized them methodically, the way someone organizes evidence, and she walked them through each one while Reid watched her work and Zachary listened and Isla took notes because her mind worked better when her hands were moving.What emerged was a pattern so clear it almost looked deliberat

The Meeting

They met Dorian at a private members club that didn't have a sign outside and probably didn't have a public phone number. Neutral ground, his choice, which meant it wasn't neutral at all. It meant every advantage belonged to him because he'd selected the location and the timing and the rules of engagement.Zachary and Isla walked in together. Reid was outside in the car. Caden was positioned somewhere nearby, close enough to move if something went wrong, far enough away that his presence wasn't obvious. Nobody was far. But Dorian didn't need to know that.He was already seated at a table in the back of the dining room, a private section cordoned off by heavy curtains and the particular discretion that came with enough money to ensure people forgot you existed the moment you left the room. He looked exactly like he always looked — the charming version, the warm smile, the perfect timing of his greeting as they approached, the suit that said I've already won."Zachary. And you br

The Price

They went home without speaking.Not because there was nothing to say but because there was too much and the words hadn't been invented yet for what they were both thinking. Isla paced through the apartment like movement could help her process what Dorian had just told them, like walking from room to room could somehow rearrange the problem into something manageable. Zachary sat very still on the couch, which was worse than pacing because stillness meant his mind was working on something, turning it over, looking for angles that didn't exist.Reid came over immediately when Zachary called.He didn't ask questions. He just arrived and listened while Zachary laid out the problem plainly, without dressing it up or trying to make it sound better than it was.Expose Dorian and lose the treatment. Don't expose Dorian and he owns them permanently. There is no clean option.Reid was quiet for a long time after Zachary finished explaining."There has to be another way," Reid said finally.

The Plan

The next two weeks were the most focused.Everyone had a role and everyone moved with the precision of people who understood what was at stake. Reid handled the legal strategy, sitting at his desk with documents spread across every surface, building the case for patent contestation and fraud documentation that would hold up in court and in front of regulatory boards. He moved through depositions and filings with the particular intensity of a man who had been waiting years to take down someone he'd been forced to trust.Wren provided the compliance records that proved Meridian Health's fraudulent operation. She organized them chronologically, annotated them with her own professional observations, and prepared statements that would stand up to scrutiny because they were honest and detailed and came from someone with unquestionable expertise.Caden quietly approached two independent medical research institutions about potentially hosting the trial under legitimate independent funding.

The Fury

The fury was quiet.That was the most dangerous kind — the kind that didn't announce itself, didn't break things, didn't raise its voice. Isla had learned this about herself after Connor. That her worst anger was the kind that sat down and made coffee and thought clearly while everything underneath it was burning.She was up at six. She made coffee. She sat at the kitchen table with her phone face down beside her and she thought through everything with the particular coldness of someone who had already decided that panic was not an option and neither was falling apart.By the time Zachary came out of the bedroom she had already made three decisions.He saw her face and knew immediately. He didn't say good morning. He just looked at her the way he looked at things he was already reading before anyone explained them to him."You saw it," he said."Last night," she said. "I've been sitting with it."She slid her phone across the table. He picked it up. She watched his face as he read

The Trust

The coffee shop was her choice. Brooklyn, public, a corner table where she could see the door and the street simultaneously, where nobody could approach without her seeing them first. Her terms. Her timing. Her decision.Connor was already there when she arrived.He looked different from the last time she'd seen him. Something had settled in him, some of the restless charm that used to fill every room he walked into was quieter now, like he'd finally stopped performing and was just existing instead. He was thinner. His eyes were steadier. He stood when he saw her and didn't try to hug her, which she appreciated more than she could say."Thank you for coming," he said."I need what you have," she said. "That's why I'm here."They sat. She didn't take off her coat. He noticed and didn't comment."The Dublin company," she started."Ashworth and Cole's subsidiary," he said. "I know which one you mean." He put both hands flat on the table. "I was lower level when I worked there. I wasn'

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