All Chapters of BETWEEN SISTERS AND SINS: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

~MAYA~ The words echoed in the silence of the bedroom, heavy and suffocating. Ayra's words echoed inside my head like poison. I didn't know what was true anymore. But every memory of Room 404 suddenly felt tainted. I pulled back from Julian’s touch, my bare feet stumbling against the plush carpet. The warm, protective shield he had wrapped around me at the hospital crumbled into dust. He hadn't found me by a stroke of beautiful, fated luck. Had he hunted me all along? Had Room 404 really been nothing more than another one of his carefully executed plans? Or was Ayra poisoning my mind the way she always had? "You monster," I whispered, my voice shaking as I backed away until the edge of the mattress hit the back of my knees. "You knew who I was that night. You knew I wasn't Ayra. You let me believe it was an accident. You let me carry this child thinking..." "Thinking what?" Julian interrupted, his voice a low, commanding rumble as he stalked toward me, his long strides cutt

~MAYA~ The rhythmic electronic purr of the private lift opening in the foyer sounded like a death knell. My heart hammered violently against my ribs as I looked from the glowing security monitor back to the executive desk. The 0404-GALA folder lay wide open. Panic flooded my system. I scrambled forward, my hands shaking so violently I could barely grab the papers. I quickly slammed everything to place. The automatic lock on the bedroom door hissed open. Julian stepped into the room. The aura he had carried in the underground garage still clung to his broad frame like a shadow. He stopped in the threshold, his dark eyes instantly locking onto mine. "You're out of bed," he murmured, his deep voice carrying a gravelly vibration that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "I... I heard the commotion on the security feed," I lied, my voice cracking slightly as I stepped away from the desk, trying to position my body naturally in the center of the room. I tucked my trembling hand

~MAYA~ "Julian, wait! Please!" I choked out, my fingers trembling so violently that the plastic drive rattled against the metal casing of the laptop. "It's not what it looks like! She forced her way in! She threatened— "Step away from the terminal, Maya," Julian interrupted. He didn't look at my mother, who had instantly shrunk back against the marble pillar, her face drained of color as she stared at the guns pointed into the room. Julian’s eyes remained locked entirely on mine. "Drop the drive. Now." "Julian, she's lying!" Evelyn suddenly shrieked, her survival instincts kicking into a frenzy. She threw her hands in the air, taking a staggered step backward toward the windows. "She’s the one who called me! She told me she hated you! She said she wanted to drain your accounts so we could take Williams and leave the country! I only came here to stop her!" The weight of her betrayal made my stomach violently churn. My own mother. She had handed me the drive, threatened to frame

~MAYA~ Julian froze. The calm expression on his face shattered instantly, his dark eyes narrowing into slits as he looked at Mark. "Mark," Julian barked, his voice dropping into a low register. "Trace the biometric logs at the patriarch's estate. Now." Mark's fingers flew across his tablet. A second later, his face drained of all color, his eyes darting toward me with a look of terror. "Sir..." Mark whispered, his voice trembling. "The security gates at the old patriarch's mansion were just opened using a master bypass key. But it wasn't Ayra's key. The gates were opened using Williams Lin's medical security credentials." My heart completely stopped beating. Williams. My brain-injured brother who was supposed to be under high-security lockdown in a specialized medical facility. My phone violently vibrated in my blazer pocket. I snatched it out, my eyes widening in horror as an unknown number flashed a live video stream onto my screen. The video feed showed the interior of

~MAYA~ I slid my bare feet off the bed, my heart instantly restarting its panicked rhythm. I padded softly across the cold marble, my eyes wide as I approached the desk. The biometric drawer I had unlocked earlier with Julian’s signet ring was completely pulled open, its lock shattered and smoking with a faint smell of burnt wires. The 0404-GALA folder was gone. And lying right in the center of the leather blotter, directly beneath the pulsing red light of a high-frequency tracking beacon, was a fresh, hand-written medical report from Saint Jude’s Hospital—dated exactly one hour ago. My trembling fingers reached out, picking up the paper. My eyes scanned the bold black text at the top, and the breath completely died in my throat. It was a forensic toxicology screening run on the blood sample Julian had drawn from me at the hospital yesterday. And stamped right across my name in undeniable, bleeding black ink were the words: PATIENT IDENTITY ALERT Archived biometric profi