Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 121 - Chapitre 130

I stood immediately, my whole body braced for whatever she was about to say. "Ava?"She crossed the waiting room slowly, and then, without a word, pulled me into a hug so tight it nearly knocked the breath out of me, her shoulders shaking."It's early stage," she said finally, her voice muffled against my shoulder. "Thyroid cancer. But they caught it early, Jasmine. The doctor said the prognosis is excellent with treatment. Surgery to remove it, possibly some follow-up radiation, but she used the word 'very treatable' about four times just to make sure I understood."Relief crashed through the whole waiting room at once, Theo sinking into a chair with his head in his hands, Eleanor's hand pressed to her chest, Diana already crying openly."You're going to be okay," I said, still holding her tight. "Ava, you're actually going to be okay.""I know." She pulled back, wiping her eyes, something disbelieving and grateful moving across her face. "I kept bracing for the worst possible versio

"Jasmine." Rosalind's voice was shaking badly. "You need to come now. Eleanor collapsed in the garden. The ambulance is on its way, but Jasmine…" Her voice broke entirely. "I don't think this is like the last time.""We're coming," I said, already grabbing my keys, Noah reading the terror on my face and moving instantly toward the door. "Rosalind, is she breathing?""Yes, but barely. She's not responsive. Please hurry."We drove faster than we probably should have, the whole world blurring past the windows, my mind cycling through every possible outcome, none of them bearable. Charlotte and Theodore were already at the estate, and my stomach clenched at the thought of my own children witnessing whatever we were about to find.We arrived just as the ambulance was loading Eleanor onto a stretcher, her small frame impossibly fragile against the equipment surrounding her, Rosalind sobbing beside the gravel drive, Charlotte and Theodore clutching each other's hands nearby, both children pa

Sunday arrived warm and bright, the whole family gathering at Diana and Marcus's place, the particular chaos of small children, Charlotte, Theodore, Lily, and Oliver, now all ranging between six and eleven, filling the house with noise while the adults settled into the living room, everyone visibly curious about the promised announcement."Okay," Diana said, standing in front of the fireplace with Marcus beside her, both of them practically glowing. "We have news.""You're pregnant again," Ava guessed immediately."No," Diana said, laughing. "Better, actually. Or different-better. Marcus, tell them."Marcus cleared his throat, his usual composed demeanor cracking slightly with obvious excitement. "I'm stepping down from Sinclair Capital. Diana and I have decided to start our own venture fund. Specifically focused on women-led and minority-led businesses… companies that don't always get taken seriously by traditional investors.""We're calling it the Cole-Reyes Fund," Diana added, prac

The minutes stretched unbearably, nobody speaking, the whole room holding its collective breath. Charlotte had fallen asleep against Diana's shoulder, exhausted past the point of fear, but Theodore remained awake, small and solemn in Noah's lap, sensing something enormous even without understanding its shape.It was nearly twenty minutes before Theo emerged, and the moment I saw his face, pale, hollowed, tears streaming freely, my whole body braced for the worst."She's alive," he said, his voice cracking on the words, and relief crashed through the room even as his expression remained devastated. "She's alive, but…" He sat down heavily, unable to continue for a moment. "The surgery stopped the internal bleeding. But the head trauma caused significant swelling. They had to induce a medical coma to reduce the pressure. They don't know yet, when they bring her out of it, what kind of damage there might be. Speech, memory, mobility… they said it could be anything, or it could be nothing.

I sat frozen, the phone pressed to my ear. "Ava, are you certain? Memories after trauma like this can sometimes be unreliable.""I know that's possible," she said, her voice steadier than I expected. "But this feels different from the fragments coming back naturally. This feels sharp. Specific. The truck's grille filled the mirror, and then it turned, hard, directly into our lane. There was no skid before it. No sign of losing control."I told Noah the moment I hung up, and he went very still, the same focused alertness I recognized from every crisis we'd faced together settling over him instantly."We need to report this," he said. "Immediately. Whether it turns out to be accurate or not, it needs to be investigated properly."Detective Ramirez, the same investigator from Ryan's fraud case years earlier, now heading a different division, took the report seriously, pulling traffic camera footage from the highway, interviewing witnesses who'd been near the accident scene. It took two w