Todos los capítulos de RECLAIMING MY LIFE FROM THE UNTOUCHABLE CEO : Capítulo 151 - Capítulo 160

POV: Hazel"Your mother knew Katherine long before you were ever born, Hazel, and she made me promise never to tell you why." My aunt Rosalind's voice cracked over the phone the next morning, and for the first time in my life, I heard real fear inside it.I stood in the nursery doorway watching Grace and Theodore argue over a wooden puzzle, my chest tight with everything Rosalind was refusing to say. Julian hovered close, his bandaged arm resting carefully against the doorframe, watching my face for any sign that I needed him to take the phone. I waved him off gently, needing, for once, to hold this conversation myself. Outside the window, the morning was bright and ordinary, sunlight pooling across the nursery rug, birds arguing over something in the hedges, the whole world going on exactly as it always did no matter what was unraveling inside our house."Rosalind, please," I said. "I have buried enough silence in this family. I cannot bury one more secret.""Your mother and Katherin

POV: Hazel"I have rehearsed this call in my head for five years, Hazel, and I still do not know where to begin." Katherine's voice trembled slightly, careful and quiet, like someone speaking through a door they were terrified to fully open.I sat frozen on the edge of the bed, the phone pressed hard against my ear, Julian instantly awake beside me, his hand already reaching for the light. My whole body had gone rigid, every instinct telling me that whatever came next would rearrange something fundamental in my life, the way a single sentence sometimes has the power to redraw the map of everything that came before it. "How did you get this number," I asked, my voice barely steady."Your mother gave it to me years ago," Katherine said. "She told me to only call if I ever believed you were finally strong enough to hear the truth. I have watched from a distance for a long time, Hazel. I saw the gala. I saw you standing on that stage without your crutches."My throat tightened at the thou

POV: Hazel"Read it again, Hazel, because I need to know I am not imagining those exact words on your screen." Julian's voice cracked as he stared down at the phone in my shaking hand."Eleanor is alive," I read aloud again, the words feeling stranger and more impossible each time I spoke them. "Julian, we buried her four years ago. I was standing right beside you at that funeral." I could still remember the weight of the black dress I had worn, the cold press of Julian's hand in mine as the casket was lowered, the particular gray light of that morning that had seemed, at the time, appropriate to the occasion in a way I had not questioned once.Julian took the phone gently, scrolling frantically for any additional information attached to the message, but the sender remained completely blocked, the number itself already showing as disconnected. "This has to be some kind of cruel trick," he said, though his voice betrayed how badly he wanted to believe otherwise."Who would send somethi

POV: Hazel"Whatever happens tonight, Hazel, promise me you will run the instant I tell you to, without asking a single question first." Julian's voice was low and urgent as our car pulled slowly to a stop outside the darkened theater where my career had ended five years earlier."I promise," I said, though my hands were shaking too badly to feel entirely convincing.I stared out the window at the darkened street, trying to steady my breathing the way my old physical therapist had once taught me, counting each inhale, each exhale, as though enough discipline could keep the fear from climbing any higher in my chest. Julian had not let go of my hand since we left the house, his thumb still moving in that same slow, grounding circle against my knuckles, a habit I suspected he was no longer even aware of.The building stood exactly as I remembered it, tall and silent against the midnight sky, its grand doors chained shut years ago after the theater closed permanently following my accident

POV: Hazel"They pulled a body from the wreckage this morning, Hazel, but the fire damage was severe enough that identification will take several more days." Diane's voice was gentle over the phone, careful in the way she always was whenever the news might break something fragile inside me.The smell of smoke still clung faintly to my hair despite the shower I had taken hours earlier, and every time the wind shifted I caught a trace of it again, a small, unwelcome reminder that the previous night had not been some fevered dream. I sat wrapped in a blanket on our back porch, watching Grace and Theodore chase each other across the frost covered grass, blissfully unaware of everything that had happened only hours earlier. Julian sat beside me, his bandaged arm freshly rebandaged, his eyes distant and shadowed with grief he had not yet allowed himself to fully feel. I watched him carefully, wondering how long it would take before he let any of it reach the surface, before the exhaustion i