Semua Bab THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE: Bab 51 - Bab 60

Aria’s POV We didn’t sleep. Dmitri worked through the night pulling every thread the black sedan left behind, and by morning he had almost nothing to show for it. “It switched plates twice within the first hour,” he said, dark circles cut deep beneath his eyes. “Then it disappeared into a parking structure with no working cameras. I’ve got six possible exit points and no way to know which one they used.” “So we’ve lost her,” I said. “We’ve lost the trail,” Romanov corrected. “That’s not the same thing.” He didn’t look like he believed the distinction any more than I did. I sat across from him at the security desk, watching Dmitri cycle through the same six exit points for the third time, hoping repetition might reveal something none of us had caught the first two passes. “What about the parking structure’s owner?” I asked. “Someone leases that space. Someone has to have maintenance records, even if the cameras themselves are dead.” Dmitri glanced up, a flicker of approval

Aria’s POV The house looked smaller than the word “hollow” had made it sound in my head. However, the name made sense the moment we stepped closer—windows dark and empty, the door hanging slightly off its hinges, the whole structure carrying the particular silence of a place that had been abandoned rather than simply left. Romanov moved ahead of me, his hand resting near the weapon he kept close at all times, though nothing about the place suggested anyone had disturbed it in years. “Careful,” he said. “If they knew about this place, they might have been here already.” “Or they don’t know,” I said. “If they did, they’d already have whatever’s inside.” “Unless they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for either,” Romanov said. “Just that it exists somewhere connected to your family.” The door creaked open under his hand, and the smell that greeted us was dust and old wood and something faintly like mildew, decades of neglect compressed into a single breath. Inside, the hous

Aria’s POV “Six hours,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “They moved her before the messenger even reached us.” Romanov called Dmitri immediately, the phone on speaker between us. “Tell me everything.” “Either the thermal signature wasn’t Elena, or she’d already been moved hours before we pulled satellite coverage,” Dmitri said, his voice tight with the particular frustration of a man realizing he’d been chasing a decoy. “Either way, that building’s cold now. Whoever’s left inside isn’t restrained.” “Then the trade offer,” Romanov said slowly, “was never about exchanging her at midnight. It was about keeping us focused on a location she’d already left.” “That would explain why they didn’t seem worried about us finding the factory,” Dmitri said. “They wanted us looking there. It bought them time to move her somewhere we haven’t thought to check.” My chest tightened with something between fear and fury. “So the entire negotiation in the woods was a distraction too.” “M

Aria’s POV The relief didn’t last past the front gate. Romanov was already on the phone before the car fully stopped, his voice sharp with the same controlled urgency he’d carried into the warehouse. “I want everyone who knew we moved the timeline early brought into the study,” he said. “Now. No exceptions.” Elena stirred beside me, wincing as she straightened, some of the exhaustion burning off at the tone in his voice. “You’re doing this tonight.” “I’m doing this the moment we’re inside,” Romanov said. “Whoever warned them isn’t getting a full night’s sleep to prepare an excuse.” We moved into the house together, Dmitri already pulling up the access logs on his tablet before we’d even reached the study, cross-referencing who had known about the shifted timeline and when. “Five people,” Dmitri said, laying it out on the desk the moment we were all inside. “Myself. Romanov. Aria. The two guards who helped coordinate the extraction team.” “The guards didn’t know until an hour

Aria’s POV Marta’s hands stayed folded in her lap, steady despite everything, as she began to speak. “The man who recruited me called himself Reyes,” she said. “I doubt that’s his real name. Everyone in this network seems to borrow names the way other people borrow coats—useful for the season, discarded the moment they stop fitting.” “What did he ask you to do?” Romanov asked. “At first, almost nothing,” Marta said. “Report on schedules. Who came and went. Small things that felt harmless enough to justify taking his money without feeling like I’d betrayed anyone. That’s how they do it. They never ask for the whole betrayal at once. They ask for pieces, small enough that you can tell yourself you haven’t really done anything wrong.” “And later?” I asked. “Later, the requests grew,” Marta said. “Which rooms you used most. Which staff members seemed loyal enough to trust with sensitive tasks. When security rotations changed. By the time I understood how much I’d already given them