Semua Bab THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE: Bab 41 - Bab 50

Aria’s POV Dmitri set the message down on the table. None of us reached for it right away. The package had arrived that morning, wrapped in plain brown paper with no return address. Inside, cushioned by nothing but a single folded card, sat a sleek black phone unlike anything else in the house. Romanov powered it on with the careful precision he brought to everything dangerous. It had no lock screen or passcode. The moment the screen lit up, a single message was already waiting, timestamped for the exact second he would have opened it. We’d like to meet the current Mrs. Sleigh. In person. Somewhere of our choosing. This isn’t a request. “They know when I opened it,” Romanov said, turning the phone over in his hands. “Which means they’re watching this house closely enough to time a message down to the minute.” “Or they simply guessed you’d open a mystery package the moment it arrived,” Elena said. “Either way, they want a reaction, not just an answer.” “What happe

Aria’s POV The private club occupied the top floor of a building with no sign on the street, no name on the elevator panel, nothing to mark it as anything other than another anonymous address in a city full of them. Romanov’s hand found the small of my back as the elevator climbed, steady in a way that had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with the fact that neither of us knew exactly what waited on the other side of those doors. “Whatever happens in there,” he said quietly, “you don’t owe them honesty. You owe them exactly as much as keeps you safe.” “I know.” “I mean it, Aria. If they push you into a corner, you don’t have to fight your way out with the truth. Lie. Deflect. Whatever it takes.” I nodded, my pulse steady despite everything Elena had drilled into me over the past four days. The elevator doors slid open onto a room designed to intimidate through understatement—dark wood, low lighting, a single round table set with two chairs on each side, as t

Aria’s POV Romanov left within minutes to coordinate with Dmitri. Elena and I sat alone in the study, the name Serge Kovalenko still hanging unresolved between us. “You said the driver recognized him from a sketch,” I said. “That’s the first solid thread we’ve had in weeks.” “It’s something,” Elena agreed. “Though I still have contacts from my old life. People who don’t know I’m alive, technically, but who I’ve reached through methods I’m not proud of. That’s how the driver’s name reached me at all.” “Is there more you haven’t told us?” I asked. “About the second folder. About what you actually took from that storage unit before you handed us the rest.” Elena went very still. “Yes,” she admitted finally. “There’s a name I removed before I gave you everything else.” My chest tightened. “Why?” “Because revealing it too early would have exposed someone inside Romanov’s own circle,” Elena said. “Someone he trusts completely.” “Is it Dmitri?” I asked. “No,” Elena said quickl

Aria’s POV Romanov set the tablet down as it had burned him. For a long moment none of us spoke. The photograph still glowed faintly on the screen between us. “Tell me about him,” I said finally. “Your godfather.” Romanov rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t answer right away. When he did, the words came slower than usual. “Yuri. He wasn’t blood, but he might as well have been. He taught me to shoot before my father did. Taught me to read people before my father decided that was a skill worth teaching at all.” He paused, staring at the faded image. “He was there the night of the attack, three years ago. The one that left the scar on my side.” “What happened to him?” Elena asked. “My father told me he died protecting me,” Romanov said. “That he took a bullet meant for me and didn’t survive it. I grieved him the way you grieve someone who died doing something noble. I built half my understanding of loyalty around that story.” “And now he’s alive,” I said quietly, “and sen

Aria’s POV We left the vault before dawn, the ledger and photographs secured in a case Dmitri carried like it might detonate if handled carelessly. None of us spoke much on the drive back to the estate. It was Romanov who finally broke the silence, his eyes fixed on the road, his voice quieter than I’d heard it in days. “Someone inside my father’s world has been protected for thirty years,” he said. “Which means whoever’s running Northbridge now didn’t build this from nothing. They inherited a structure my own father helped fund.” “That doesn’t make you responsible for it,” I said. “I know that,” he said. “It doesn’t make it easier to carry.” We arrived to find Dmitri already pulling up satellite feeds the moment we walked through the door. His exhaustion from the sleepless night before was catching up with him, but his focus stayed sharp. “Sir. Security picked up something while we were gone,” he said. “Someone accessed the estate’s internal facilities system using a kitchen