All Chapters of OWNED AT 18, CLAIMED BY 28: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

POV: LaurabethThe hospital air tasted like old metal and dying flowers. It was quiet in there, the kind of quiet that felt like it was waiting for something bad to happen. My chest felt tight, not just from the baby, but from the weight of the letter tucked under my pillow. It was a messy, tear-stained thing, but it was the only part of me that was still honest.Vinicio was out in the hallway. I could hear him, his voice low and jagged, snapping at his security men like a whip. He was furious. He was terrified. He was the most powerful man I had ever known, and yet, right then, he sounded like he was losing his grip on the only thing that kept his heart beating.I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles until my vision blurred. I had chosen this. I had chosen this life, this danger, this man who would burn the world down just to keep me warm. And now, I was choosing our son. If it came down to a heartbeat—mine or his—I had already made my peace with the ending.The door handle turned.

POV:VinicioThe air at the North Pier was stagnant, thick with the stench of dead fish, brine, and rotting seaweed. My men were ghost-thin shadows among the shipping containers, their silhouettes barely visible under the weak dock lights. Everything was perfectly staged. The news of my son’s birth had been leaked precisely as planned. The trap at the warehouse was laid, baited with the promise of a vulnerable Rossini heir. I was supposed to be the grieving father, the distracted kingpin, easy prey for Teresa’s final play.But as I stood behind a rusted shipping container, eyes fixed on the warehouse door, a sharp vibration cut through my pocket. Not from the pier’s surveillance feeds. This was different.It was from the house.A single ping from the estate’s security system—a silent code-red alarm that bypassed every secondary protocol.My heart stopped. Literally stopped for one agonizing beat.Then the blackout hit.The tablet in my hand flickered. Every feed from the estate went dark in

POV: LaurabethThe world had narrowed down to two things: the white-hot agony in my core and the cold, unyielding reality of the duct tape over my mouth.I was in a shipping container. I knew this because every time the wind howled outside, the metal walls groaned like a dying beast. It was dark, except for the flickering light of a single dying bulb, and the air was thick with the smell of rust and motor oil.My son. I had to think about him. Not the pain. Not the fact that my wrists were rubbed raw from the zip-ties biting into my skin.I felt another contraction, and it was worse than the ones before. It was a tidal wave of pressure that threatened to snap my spine. I arched my back against the hard plastic of the chair, my head hitting the metal wall behind me with a dull thud. A muffled sob broke through my throat, vibrating against the tape.I looked at the tablet resting on a pile of crates across the room. The screen was dim, but I could see Vinicio. He was kneeling on the con

POV: VinicioI didn't hear the silence of the warehouse until I was already inside. It was the kind of silence that screamed. My gun was out, my heart was beating a rhythm of pure, unadulterated terror, and every shadow in that graveyard of corrugated metal looked like a killer waiting to drop me.I'd been driving like a man possessed, dodging every logical instinct to go to the police, to call for backup, to do anything other than charge headlong into the darkness. I hadn't come for a firefight. I had come for a miracle.I rounded the final partition, the heavy steel door of the shipping container hanging off its hinges like a broken jaw. I braced myself for the sight of Marchetti, ready to put a dozen rounds into his chest before he even knew I was there.I stopped dead.Marchetti was on the ground. He wasn't moving. There was a crater in the center of his forehead that told me he wasn't getting up, not that day, not ever. The blood was still wet, pooling into the cracks of the conc

POV: VinicioThe safehouse was a hollowed-out wreck of a cabin somewhere in the northern woods, miles away from the city, miles away from the life that had tried to chew us up and spit us out. The only sound was the rhythmic thrum of the rain against the tin roof and the occasional, soft whimper of Thomas.My son. Thomas.I looked at the name on his birth certificate, a scrap of paper that felt heavier than a tombstone. He was sleeping in a travel crib in the corner, his small chest rising and falling in a steady, perfect rhythm. He didn't know that his father was a ghost. He didn't know that the empire his grandfather had built was currently being dismantled and sold off by a woman who wouldn't have blinked if we had all been turned to ash.I was sitting at the small, scarred wooden table, a burner phone in front of me. I'd made the call. I'd made the arrangements. And I'd made the choice that was going to tear my heart out of my chest.Laurabeth walked over. She was quiet, her movements