All Chapters of The Billionaires 10th Bride: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Valerie's POVSilas didn’t move right away.He just stood there in the dim corridor, his presence cutting through the silence like something deliberate had been placed there on purpose. The mansion behind him stayed still, lights soft, shadows stretched across the polished floor. Even the air felt controlled, like it had been trained to stay quiet.I held my position near the glass wall, my hand still hovering slightly above the railing I had reached for earlier. The distance between us wasn’t far, but it felt heavier than metres. It felt like a decision had already been made before either of us spoke.My chest tightened.Not fear alone.Something closer to being caught inside my own thoughts.I had been careless.That was the first clear idea that formed. Not guilt. Not panic. Just awareness. I had stepped outside my room at night in a house built on rules I barely understood, and Silas had noticed immediately. That alone told me more than anything else about him.He always knew.Or

Valerie's POVThe silence that followed felt heavier than the confrontation itself.I didn't turn around immediately.I already knew Silas was standing behind me. The change in the atmosphere was impossible to miss. It was the same sensation I had experienced several times since arriving at the mansion—a tightening of the air, a subtle shift that made every instinct inside me become alert.Across from me, Marcellus appeared completely relaxed.That bothered me.If Silas was as powerful and feared as everyone implied, why wasn't Marcellus intimidated by him?Why did he look amused?The question settled in my thoughts and refused to leave.For a few moments, neither man moved.The corridor remained frozen around us.The soft lights along the walls cast pale shadows across the floor, stretching behind them like dark reflections.Then Marcellus smiled.A slow smile.The kind that suggested he knew something other people didn't."She's curious," he said.His voice remained calm.Almost con

Valerie's POVFor several seconds, I simply stood there.The photograph remained in my hands, yet my mind refused to accept what my eyes were seeing.The room around me seemed to fade into the background.The shelves.The desk.The dusty curtains.Everything blurred beneath the weight of a single impossible fact.The girl in the picture was me.Not someone who resembled me.Not a distant relative.Me.The certainty settled deeper the longer I stared.The shape of my face was younger, rounder, untouched by time, but there was no mistaking it.I knew that child.I remembered being her.Yet I had no memory of the photograph itself.No memory of the place where it had been taken.No memory of the woman standing beside me.That realization disturbed me more than the image itself.A photograph could exist.Photographs were evidence.But memories should exist too.Shouldn't they?My fingers tightened around the frame.I lowered myself slowly into the chair behind the desk.The old wood creak

Valerie's POVThe photograph didn’t leave my hands.Even after I started the car.Even after I drove out of the parking garage.Even after the city lights blurred past my windshield.Sarah’s face stayed fixed in my mind like a stain that refused to fade.I had told myself before that betrayal came in layers.I just hadn’t expected another layer to belong to her.The road ahead was smooth, but my thoughts weren’t.They kept breaking apart and rebuilding themselves around one single question.Why was Sarah meeting an executive tied to Ethan’s company?Not a casual meeting.Not a coincidence.The warehouse setting made that impossible.Warehouses meant storage.Movement.Money flow.Hidden systems.My grip tightened on the steering wheel.I should have gone home.That would have been the logical choice.Silas’s mansion waited like a locked cage, silent and controlled.But the idea of going back there with this knowledge sitting inside me felt wrong.Too many secrets already lived in that

Valerie's POVThe red light didn’t fade.It pulsed instead.Slow. Controlled. Almost patient.Like the room had time.I didn’t.The archive space that had felt clinical only minutes ago now felt sealed in a different way. Not just physically locked. Mentally contained. The glass walls reflected the warning glow back at us in fractured layers, turning everything into repeating versions of the same moment.Sarah stood a few steps away from me, still near the workstation.She wasn’t moving.That bothered me more than the lockdown itself.People normally reacted to confinement.Even trained people.But Sarah looked like she was waiting for something to finish loading.My eyes shifted to the door.The glass panel had fully sealed now. No handle. No visible seam. Just a continuous wall separating us from the rest of the building.I stepped closer.My reflection met me there.Pale. Controlled. Tired.Not the version of myself I used to recognize.Behind me, Sarah finally spoke.“This isn’t a