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Home / Romance / SEDUCING MY ELDER BROTHER'S BEST FRIEND / Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

Lahat ng Kabanata ng SEDUCING MY ELDER BROTHER'S BEST FRIEND : Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

110 Kabanata

SEVENTY ONE

Jane’s POV Crack. The sound of splintering wood tore through the kitchen corridor, sharp over the howling coastal wind. My back hit the stainless steel of the industrial prep table. My fingers locked around the iron casing of the flashlight until my joints throbbed with a dull ache. Shadows stretched across the diner, fueled by the flashes of lightning bleeding through the salt-encrusted windows. The front door groaned again, the lock yielding under the weight of the men outside. "Break it!" Wayne’s slurred roar was closer now, followed by a heavy cough. "The lock’s giving! She’s cornered!" I didn't blink. I didn't let out a single breath. Moving with the silent caution I had learned over months of hiding from the network, I slid deeper into the shadows of the dry-storage alcove. The iron flashlight was raised, my thumb hovering over the rubber toggle switch. If I turned it on now, the beam would act as a beacon, guiding their ship wrenches straight to my skull. I had to let the

SEVENTY TWO

Jane’s POV Click. The loud sound of a shotgun shell racking into a chamber cut through the pitch-black dining room. It was sharp, cold, and loud enough to pierce through the relentless roar of the wind outside. I didn't lower my hand. The white beam of my flashlight remained locked onto Benjamin whose knees had just given way in the center of the shattered glass shards. My heart knocked against my ribs like a trapped bird. My fingers tightened around the cold iron casing of the flashlight until my joints throbbed with a dull, aching heat. Before I could drop the light to step forward, a shadowed frame pushed right past my shoulder, smelling of stale tobacco and burnt grease. "Step back from my child, city boy," Silas growled. The diner owner stood perfectly centered in the threshold of the kitchen line, his heavy boots grinding the broken glass fragments into the linoleum. His massive arms were locked around the wooden stock of his double-barreled hunting rifle, the black ir

SEVENTY THREE

Benjamin’s POV The rear door of the SUV slammed shut with a pressurized thud, sealing out the relentless roar of the North Carolina storm. I collapsed backward against the leather seat, my left arm clamping rigidly over my side as a white-hot wave of physical agony exploded through my fractured chest. The silk of my shirt was damp, sticking to the medical tape binding my torso, every ragged breath a shallow rattle that vibrated through my jaw line. The splintered bone was grinding under my skin, but the physical torment was nothing compared to the panic rising in my throat as I looked across the cabin. Jane sat pressed against the opposite door panel. Her face was completely bloodless, her small jaw set in a rigid, silent line as she stared down at her jeans, her split knuckles buried deep inside her jacket pockets. She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't raise her eyes to face the emaciated face of the man who had starved himself in a New York medical wing just to breach her coor

SEVENTY FOUR

Leo’s POV The green data lines cascading down my portable monitor were a slaughterhouse of everything I had built. Sarah. Every single memory of our marriage, every late-night code we had compiled together in our New York apartment, and every promise she whispered while the Berlin mainframe blew up—all of it was a lie. She hadn't been a victim of the cleanup cell, as she claimed. She had been the snake inside my own house, counting the days until my baseline default could be sold to the Vance shadow investors for a multi-million-dollar payout. "Put the vehicle in gear and move us out of this sector, Leo," Benjamin growled from the rear seat, his voice flat. He didn't lean forward. He didn't offer a hand or act surprised. He sat in the dark like an executioner reading a sentence. "The Wilmington cells are re-mapping our coordinates. We are out of time." "Shut up!" I roared. As I turned to face him angrily, "You caused all this, Ben. If you had left my sister alone and been th

SEVENTY FIVE

Victoria's POV It was Sarah. She didn't look like a woman mourning her husband's international homicide indictment. She walked to the edge of the obsidian table, her fingers casually opening a sleek, carbon-fiber briefcase, tossing a thin printed ledger onto the wood. It slid across the table, stopping right against my hand. "The Berlin compliance logs are fully decrypted," Sarah said. She had left her husband to rot in the slums six months ago, trading her marital loyalty for a massive offshore injection into a Cayman secondary reserve. I will really love to see the look on Leo's face when he finds out. "The data packets have been routed to match Leo’s precise biometric signatures from the server room. The federal task force already has the files. The moment the clock strikes nine, the domestic terrorism warrant goes live." I picked up the ledger, my eyes scanning the falsified metadata. It was a flawless digital frame-job. It proved that Leo manually initiated the thermite countd

SEVENTY SIX

Jane’s POV The master bathroom was warm, filled with a gentle mist as the steaming water from the porcelain tub cast a soft glow against the marble vanity. Benjamin sat on the edge of the deep porcelain basin, his massive frame hunched over as he stared blankly at the floor tiles. He had managed to stand up from the bed, but the effort had drained the remaining adrenaline from his body. His bare chest was heaving in short, shallow movements, his right hand still firmly bracing his swollen left ribs. He looked completely weaponless, stripped of the unassailable billionaire mask that used to keep the world at a distance. "Let me help you," I whispered into the quiet room. He didn't argue. not like he has the energy to argue anyway. He didn't have the breath to push me away. I stepped into his perimeter, my hands trembling slightly as I took a thick, warm towel from the heated rack and dipped a linen sponge into the water. Moving with slow caution, I sat beside him on the marble

SEVENTY SEVEN

BENJAMIN’S POV The digital chime of a priority network alert cut through the dark bedroom at 4:30 AM, slicing through the silence. I didn't move immediately. Jane was still sleeping against my bare chest, her forehead pressed into the hollow of my shoulder. My right arm was locked like an iron brace around her shoulder, pins and needles numbing my fingertips from holding her weight through the night. Every cell in my body fought to ignore the noise, but the terminal console downstairs in the main corridor was humming on an encrypted emergency routing lane that only three people on earth could access. Slowly, with cautious precision, I slid my arm out from beneath her neck, replacing the heat of my chest with a pillow. She let out a soft, unconscious whimper in her sleep, her fingers curling over the empty silk sheet, but she didn't wake. A sharp spasm of agony flared behind my eyelids as I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. My left hand clamped over my lower ribs

SEVEN EIGHT

Victoria’s POV The backstage holding lounge of the Grand Plaza Hotel was a space of red velvet, polished brass, and the distant, thunderous rumble of the New York media press line gathering outside the double doors. I stood by the full-length mirror, smoothing the lapels of my tailored emerald dress, my eyes drilling into the reflection of the mahogany bar behind me. A heavy crystal tumbler filled with single-malt whiskey sat on the wood. The media schedule was locked, and the anchors were already broadcasting the live countdown to the global market. The Williams-Vance empire was about to be officially reunited in front of the world. The heavy oak doors clicked open, and Benjamin walked inside. He looked immaculate—and entirely unassailable. He was dressed in a dark executive suit that fit perfectly over his broad shoulders, his white silk collar contrasting sharply against his sharp, bloodless jawline. He had shaved his rough beard, leaving his expression cold. He didn't look

SEVENTY NINE

Jane’s POV Twenty_one days inside the Westchester mansion bled into one another like oil separating in cold water. Every morning, before the winter sun could clear the jagged pine trees on the northern perimeter, I woke up with my hand reaching across the silk mattress, searching for a chest that wasn't there. The faint scent of cedar and copper was slowly dissolving from the linen, replaced by a freezing, sterile draft that leaked through the panoramic glass panels. I spent my hours tracking the vacant corridors, my oversized sweater pulled tightly over my stomach, my fingers perpetually buried inside my pockets to clutch the cardboard edge of my composition notebook. I was fighting my own blood every single second. My mind was a chaotic loop of friction, constantly bouncing between the soft heat of his touch against my skin under the bathroom steam and the clinical cruelty of his voice calling me a cheap slut. He will come back, I whispered to the dark cedar walls of the rec

EIGHTY

Jane’s POV The off-grid service elevator groaned as it rose through the core of the Vance Group tower, the mechanical hum vibrating straight through the rubber soles of my sneakers. Manhattan outside the glass shaft was a vertical maze of freezing sleet and neon static, completely indifferent to the panic clawing at my throat. Leo stood beside me, his jaw locked, his right hand buried inside his jacket pocket where his fingers tightly gripped a heavy iron wrench he had pulled from the SUV’s glove compartment. He hadn't spoken since we breached the basement loading bay using Silas’s cash to slide past the night guard. Ding. The metal doors slid open, exposing the private penthouse vestibule. The air up here smelled of expensive citrus, polished marble, and power. It was dead quiet, save for the low, rhythmic patter of the rain hitting the massive glass dome overhead. The double glass doors leading into the main residential suite were partially unlatched, a narrow wedge of w

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