Blood on the blade

The morning light cut through the curtains like a blade, and Serena hadn’t slept a fucking second. She sat on the edge of the bed with her back straight and her hands loose in her lap, the unknown number’s last message still looping in her head. All of it sat in her chest like wet concrete. She could stop.She could burn the photos on her phone, forget the shipping logs, forget the letter E and Salvatore’s personal code and the fourteenth and the east warehouse. She could smile at breakfast, keep her head down, let Damien’s quiet threats and Vanessa’s careful eyes keep her breathing until the higher authority swept through and left nothing but empty rooms and clean bloodstains. Or she could keep digging until the house swallowed her whole. Her phone stayed under the mattress. The knife stayed in the drawer. She dressed in dark jeans and a soft black sweater that covered the new bruise on her arm, covered the old one on her throat, covered everything that mattered. Makeup did the r

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The ex

The service road stretched out in front of her, the security lamp throwing a weak yellow pool that barely reached the tree line. Serena’s boots made almost no sound on the packed dirt. The kitchen knife sat heavy against her ankle, the handle pressing into the soft skin just above her boot every time she took a step. Her heart was still slamming from the risk of leaving the house at all, but the second she saw the figure step out of the shadows, everything inside her locked up tight. Julian. Three years. Three fucking years since she’d last seen that face, and still her body knew him before her brain caught up. Same lean frame under the worn work jacket. Same dark hair a little too long, curling at the nape like he never bothered with a proper cut. Same hands shoved in his pockets, dirt under the nails the way it always used to be when he’d been working outside all day. And that smile the one that used to make her stomach flip and her temper spike in the same breath. “Hey, Seren

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Jealousy and the fallout

The service door clicked shut behind her. Serena leaned back against the cool wood for half a second, heart still thrashing against her ribs like it wanted out, then forced her legs to move. She didn’t look back. The ghost of Julian’s arms was still warm around her waist, the solid thump of his heart still under her palms, and every step away from that felt like tearing something open. Outside, Damien remained motionless on the edge of the service road. Julian hadn’t moved either. The two men faced each other across ten feet of packed dirt and weak yellow light from the security lamp. Damien’s eyes tracked every detail with that same cataloguing he’d used on the bruises earlier: the dirt under the new gardener’s nails, the way his shoulders sat under the worn work jacket, the faint stillness of a man who had just had his hands on something that didn’t belong to him. The image of Serena leaning into that chest, shoulders dropping for the first time in months, kept replaying behin

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Semua Bab Contracted sin: Bab 31 - Bab 33

Blood on the blade

The ex

Jealousy and the fallout