《No Escape from the Billionaire’s Contract》全部章節：第 41 章 - 第 50 章

"The ones you just took through the glass." "I am simply out for a morning walk, Kaelen." She pointed a manicured finger toward the winding stone pathway that cut through the trees. "This path belongs entirely to the resort. I have every right to walk it." "Delete them, Elodia." Her smile widened even further, her eyes flashing with malice. "You know, I was incredibly surprised when I heard the front desk gave you the single-room cabin. I simply couldn't believe it." She shifted her stance, peering past his broad shoulders into the interior of the room. Her eyes settled heavily on Zariel, who was still sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. "Very romantic." Zariel stood up, grabbing the second robe from the chair. She pulled it tightly around her shoulders, tying the knot as she stepped forward to stand near Kaelen at the open door. Elodia's gaze moved slowly over her, analyzing every detail of her appearance. "Sleep well, Zariel?" "Perfectly," Zariel replied, her voice clippin

"Head of my security division." He pressed the phone to his ear without looking up. "He handles problems that cannot wait for daylight." "Does he know it's four in the morning?" "He has never once asked me what time it is." Kaelen said it without a trace of humor, like he was stating a fact off a quarterly report. The call connected on the second ring. Zariel could hear a low, gravelly voice answer on the other end, sharp and instantly alert despite the hour, like he hadn't actually been asleep at all. "Mr. Sterling." "Merlin," Kaelen said. "I need a location trace on a private citizen. Civilian. Marcus Evermore." Zariel's stomach dropped at the sound of Marcus's full name coming out of Kaelen's mouth, flat and clinical, like he was already a target on a spreadsheet. "He's meeting someone tomorrow at noon," Kaelen continued. "A lawyer. I need the meeting location before he arrives." A pause. Zariel watched his jaw move, listening to whatever Reyes said back. "No," Kaelen said.

Kaelen opened the door before the third knock finished landing. Zariel braced herself behind him, half expecting Merlin, half expecting something far worse. What she got instead was a heavyset silhouette stepping fully into the porch light, silver hair gleaming, a polished black cane striking the wooden boards with a single, deliberate thud. "Uncle Harrison," Kaelen said. Not a question. A confirmation of something he had already calculated the moment the gravel crunched. "Nephew." Harrison Mercer's gravelly voice filled the doorway before the rest of him did. He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, his pinstripe suit somehow perfectly pressed despite the hour, his cane tapping the floor twice in quick succession, like punctuation at the end of a sentence he hadn't finished saying yet. "I do apologize for the timing. The board does not." "It is four in the morning," Zariel said, pulling her robe tighter around her waist. Harrison's sharp gaze swept over her, head to b

"I am waiting," Harrison said. The cane stayed pointed at the empty closet rail, steady as a verdict already written. "Section nine, paragraph four," Kaelen said, before Zariel could pull together a single word. "Forty-eight hours' written notice before anyone searches private quarters. You are standing in a doorway, Uncle Harrison. You have not crossed the threshold. Keep it that way." "This is not a search." Harrison's voice didn't rise, but something underneath it tightened. "It is a question between family." "Family does not photograph a closet at four in the morning." "Neither does an honest man hide one." Zariel stepped forward before the two of them could turn the doorway into a courtroom. She kept her chin up and her voice light, the same tone she used to talk nervous brides-to-be off a ledge during a fake engagement shoot. "You want the truth, Harrison? Fine. After what happened with that bedroom photo this morning, you think I'm leaving a closet full of recognizable, d

The sun had barely cleared the tree line when the low growl of tires returned, gravel crunching steady and unhurried along the resort's private drive. Kaelen checked his watch first, the same instinct he always reached for. "He is not due for thirty minutes," he said. "Thirty minutes early isn't a delay, it's a strategy." Zariel was already on her feet, smoothing down the front of her robe like that might somehow fix everything else that wasn't fixed yet. "He wants to catch us before we've had time to perform." "Then we will not perform. We will simply exist." "That's the scariest sentence you've said all night." Zariel moved to the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to see the long stretch of road curling past the pines. The morning light caught the frost still clinging to the grass, turning the whole clearing pale and still, like the world itself was holding its breath along with her. A clean black sedan rolled to a stop directly in front of the cabin, its engine cut