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All Chapters of The Surgeon’s Revenge Deal: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

167 Chapters

Chapter 121

GwenInstinct took over before fear could.The hand closed around my wrist and I let it pull me half a step closer instead of fighting the direction, using his own momentum against him the way I'd been taught, years ago, in a life I didn't talk about anymore. My free hand found his forearm and twisted. Hard. Something in his grip gave way with a grunt of surprise.He hadn't expected that move.I drove my elbow back into his throat before he could recover, and when he doubled forward, gasping, I grabbed a fistful of his jacket and used his own weight to slam him face-first into the side of the car. The door swung wider on the impact. He crumpled half in, half out of the back seat, stunned.I didn't stop there.Whoever had sent him needed to understand something, and the message worked better delivered clearly. I hauled him the rest of the way out onto the sidewalk, drove my knee into his ribs once, twice, until his breathing turned to a wet, broken wheeze, until every ounce of fight ha

Chapter 122

"Marcus? Baby, what's wrong?"There was a brief pause on the other end, then a woman's voice, brisk and professional, cut in instead of the small voice I'd expected."Ms. Cooley? This is Mrs. Alden calling from Marcus's school. I'm sorry to call in the middle of the day."My grip tightened on the wheel. "Is he okay? Is Marcus okay?""He's fine, he's fine," she said quickly, hearing the edge in my voice. "Nothing happened to him, I promise. I'm calling because a man came by the front office about twenty minutes ago, asking to pick him up early. Said he was a family friend. Our policy is anyone not on the approved pickup list doesn't get anywhere near a student, so we turned him away, but he was insistent. Made the front desk uncomfortable enough that I thought you should know right away."The cold that had settled in my stomach a minute ago turned to ice."What did he look like?""Mid-thirties, dark coat, didn't give a name when asked. He left once security was called, and didn't cause

Chapter 123

AlexMy eyes stayed on their backs as I watched them leave. I had expected her to be cold. But what I had not expected was how easily it came to me to care for the boy.If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that we were somewhat related.I listened intently to his ramblings about his mum, first because, thanks be to God, this was a way to get to know her better. And second because seeing the poor boy sitting alone was an image that stung my heart deeply for some weird reason. The only child I had such attachments for was my sister’s son. And he was not in school today. I came because I had business with the school's principal. But that could wait.I had gone and sat with him. Watching him laugh and yap, brought ease to my tensed heart and I could feel the tightened feeling in my chest loosening. “My mum had never been married but she wears a ring. She says it’s to chase away predators.”My brows raised at the words. The ring was a faux. That I was long aware of, but I thoug

Chapter 124

Gwen“Someone is digging into your past.”The message arrived just after lunch.A short, careful note from the private contact I paid to keep quiet tabs on certain names and certain searches. Someone had been pulling old records. Hospital files from years ago. Name-change petitions. Quiet inquiries into a woman who no longer existed on paper the way she once had. The trail was still thin, but it was moving in my direction.I sat at the kitchen table with the phone face-down beside my cooling coffee and stared at the wall.Raymond or Alex?Those were the only two people who had both the means and the reason. Raymond had never stopped circling the edges of my life. Alex had the resources, the stubbornness, and, if my instincts were right, the growing suspicion that Janessa Cooley and the woman he once knew might be the same person. Either way, the clock had started ticking louder.I needed to leave the city.Soon. Before the searches turned into faces and the faces turned into questions

Chapter 125

GwenThe wine came before the wedding binder did, which Rosa insisted was the correct order of operations for what she called "emotional fortification.""You're going to need it," she said, kicking off her heels the moment we were inside her suite, "because I have exactly eleven days left and a to-do list that currently has forty-three items on it, four of which are in a language I don't speak, because apparently the calligrapher only responds to emails in French.""You don't speak French?""I speak menu French. Wine list French. Not 'please redo the entire place card font because my mother thinks Copperplate looks pedestrian' French."I laughed, actually laughed, the kind that came from somewhere lower in my chest than it had in weeks, and dropped onto the velvet chaise by the window while she pulled out a binder thick enough to double as a doorstop."Alright, Chief Bridesmaid." She dropped it into my lap with a flourish. "Your reign begins now."I opened it to find color-coded tabs

Chapter 126

GwenThe venue looked like something built for a different century. All white stone and cascading wisteria, a château just outside the city that Marcus's family had apparently rented in its entirety for the weekend, staff included. I stood at the top of the aisle in pale blush silk, bouquet trembling faintly in my grip, and tried not to gape openly at the sheer volume of wealth arranged in neat rows before me.I'd grown used to money over the years. But this was different, this was old money and new money sitting shoulder to shoulder in the same gilded room, diplomats and heirs and at least two faces I recognized from magazine spreads, all gathered to watch two people say vows in front of a wall of orchids flown in overnight.Marcus Han was, in the plainest terms Rosa had explained to me, a chaebol. Korean-American, third generation, heir to a conglomerate involving shipping and semiconductors that I'd stopped trying to fully untangle somewhere around the second bottle of wine two n

Chapter 127

Gwen The words landed like a blow.I finally caught you.For a second I couldn’t breathe. The corridor, the distant music, the scent of wisteria drifting in from the gardens, everything narrowed to the space between us and the look on his face. Triumph. Relief. Something darker underneath that made my stomach drop.I shoved him.Both hands flat against his chest, hard enough that it should have forced him back a step. It didn’t. He barely moved. The wall of his body stayed exactly where it was, solid and immovable, and the contact only made the years between us collapse faster. I could feel the heat of him through the fabric of his suit. I could smell the faint trace of the cologne he used to wear. My palms stayed pressed against him for one stunned second too long before I yanked them away like I’d been burned.“You’re mistaken,” I said. My voice came out sharper than I intended. “I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got the wrong person.”Alex didn’t step back. He only tilte

Chapter 128

GwenI don't know how long I sat there on the bathroom floor, silk pooled around me, back pressed against the cold tile wall, before I finally forced myself to move.Get up, Gwen. Rosa needs you.I splashed cold water on my wrists, pressed a damp paper towel beneath my eyes until the redness faded enough to pass for windburn, and practiced my face in the mirror until it looked like a woman who hadn't just been cornered by a ghost from her old life. By the time I unlocked the door, I almost believed it myself.I found Rosa near the head table, champagne in hand, glowing so brightly under the string lights that for a second I forgot everything else existed."There you are." She caught my arm the moment she saw me, relief written plain across her face. "I was starting to send out a search party. You missed the toasts.""I'm so sorry." I squeezed her hand, guilt curling sharp in my stomach. This was her day. She didn't deserve my chaos bleeding into it. "I wasn't feeling well for a bit.

Chapter 129

AlexI stood in the empty corridor long after she walked away and tried to make the pieces fit.It was her.I knew it the way I knew my own name. The shape of her face. The way her shoulders locked when she was cornered. The exact pitch of her voice when she was lying. Five years had not changed those things. Time had only sharpened them.And still she had looked me in the eye and said she was not Gwen.The denial should have been enough to plant doubt. Any rational man would have stepped back and considered the possibility of a resemblance, a coincidence, a trick of memory after too many months of searching. I had no photograph that matched her current face. No document. No mutual friend who could confirm it. All I had was the violent certainty in my own chest and the way my hands had wanted to reach for her even while she was pushing me away.I walked back toward the reception without really seeing the halls.The party had moved into the main ballroom. Lights low. Music soft enough

Chapter 130

SeraphinaI followed him in tense silence as he led me away under the watchful and curious eyes of the spectators. I would have done something crazy like kicking him in the balls if no one was watching.He didn’t speak. Just kept walking with that same controlled stride, shoulders set, jaw tight, like the hallway itself belonged to him. The music and laughter from the ballroom faded behind us. Guests’ glances slid off our backs. I kept my expression neutral, the polite almost-smile of a woman who had simply agreed to a private conversation and nothing more. Inside, irritation prickled hot under my skin.We turned a corner. Then another. The carpet muffled our steps. Sconces threw warm light against cream walls, but the farther we went the quieter it became. Fewer doors. Fewer people. My heels clicked sharply as we crossed onto stone near a side terrace entrance that no one seemed to be using.That was when he stopped.Before I could ask what the hell this was about, his hands closed a

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