Lahat ng Kabanata ng SOLD TO THE RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE KING: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 16

I don't remember climbing the stairs. I remember the note falling from my hand, forgotten, fluttering to the floor of Armani's empty office like something already dead. I remember the alarm, red and screaming, painting the hallway in pulses of light. I remember Talia's face when I reached the third floor, white, wrecked, her hands shaking as she pointed toward Noah's open door.The moon-shaped night-light was still glowing, soft and yellow, casting gentle light over three empty beds.The window was open. The screen had been cut, a neat, deliberate slice, the kind made by someone who'd done this before. On the sill sat a single crayon drawing, the one Leo had made weeks ago, the one Talia had brought to the gala, the one that read *WE LOVE YOU MOMMY* in careful four-year-old letters.Someone had drawn a line through it in black marker.I didn't scream. I wanted to. I opened my mouth and nothing came out at all, like the sound had been ripped straight out of my chest along with everythi

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Voice on the Line"Hello, Brittany," Xander said. "Let's talk about how much you're willing to give up to get them back."For one second the room tilted so hard I thought the floor had opened. Houston's study, the dark mahogany desk, the whiskey he had never touched, the man standing a foot from me with his hands curled into fists at his sides. All of it slid sideways, and the only fixed point left in the world was that calm, pleasant voice in my ear."Where are my children?" I said. My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, someone small and far away."Safe. Warm. Perfectly comfortable." A soft, regretful sigh. "I'm not a monster, Brittany, whatever Houston has told you. Nobody is going to touch a hair on their heads, as long as everyone is sensible. And I do hope you'll be sensible. You were always the sensible one.""Let me hear them.""I'm afraid that isn't part of the arrangement.""Then there is no arrangement." I had no idea where the steel ca

We found the note exactly where I had dropped it.That was the cruelest part. It was lying on the floor of Armani's empty office, face up, as if nobody had thought it mattered, as if whoever had cleared the room had been so certain of what was coming that they hadn't bothered to hide the proof. Finish it. No mistakes. Pamela's handwriting, slanting and elegant, underlined twice.Houston stood over it for a very long time."My mother," he said at last."I'm sorry." I meant it. I was surprised by how much. "Houston, I'm so sorry.""Don't." He bent, picked up the paper, and folded it once with great care, the way you fold something you are going to carry into a fire. "Don't apologize to me for her."Pamela was waiting in the drawing room, straight-backed in a gilt chair, a cup of tea going cold on the table at her elbow. She had put on pearls. Even now, she had put on pearls. When Houston set the folded note down on the tray in front of her, she looked at it for a moment as if it were an