Semua Bab BOUND TO THE BILLIONAIRE’S CONTRACT : Bab 21 - Bab 30

I deadass literally stopped breathing. Like, my lungs literally just went on strike. I stared at those six words on my cracked phone screen until the glowing letters started blurring together into a giant, terrifying mess. *I saw you holding his wound, El.* El. Nobody called me that. My dad called me Ellie. Chloe called me a loser whenever she wanted to borrow my clothes. Alexander called me *wife* like he was reading off an arrest warrant. Julian was the only person in the universe who called me El. My hands shook so violently the phone slipped right out of my fingers. It hit the marble bathroom floor with a loud, hollow clack. I dropped to my knees instantly, snatching it back up, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it was physically hurting. Was I losing my mind? Was this some sick, twisted joke? Marcus Rossi could’ve tortured Julian four years ago for all I knew. Maybe Julian told him everything before he died. Maybe Rossi’s people had my old Queens apartment bugge

I swear to God, my stomach didn't just drop—it straight up fell through the elevator shaft and landed in the sewer. There I was. Barefoot, shivering in an oversized hoodie, holding forty pounds of sleeping toddler, standing two inches away from an open elevator that was supposed to be my golden ticket out of hell. And right behind me was Alexander Vance. The guy looked insane, fr. His tux shirt was gone, his chest was wrapped in bloody white gauze, and he was holding a black pistol like it was an extension of his own hand. Sweat was dripping down his sharp jawline, and his dark eyes were burning a hole straight through my soul. "Going somewhere, wife?" His voice was raspy, low, and so full of lethal threat I literally forgot how to speak. My brain went into full-blown emergency overdrive. "Alexander!" I squeaked, trying to sound completely innocent while my heart was hammering a million miles an hour against my ribs. "Oh my god, what are you doing out of bed?! Dr. Evans literall

So yeah. That’s how I ended up trapped in a giant, hyper-luxurious bedroom on the top floor of a Manhattan skyscraper like a literal princess in a dark mafia fairy tale. Ngl, if you told me six months ago that I’d be hostage to a gorgeous, psycho billionaire who just took a sniper bullet to the shoulder for me, I would’ve laughed in your face and told you to stop watching so much bad TV. But here I was. It was like three in the morning. The penthouse was dead quiet except for the faint hum of the central air conditioning. Dr. Evans finally packed up his silver silver instruments and left after giving Alexander enough painkillers to put down a full-grown horse. Viktor posted two massive, human-brick-wall guards directly outside the master bedroom doors. You could literally hear their heavy boots shifting every five minutes. Leo was completely knocked out next to me on the massive king bed. My little guy was so exhausted from all the chaos he didn't even wake up when I pulled his s

Make it make sense. Seriously, I need somebody to explain to me how this is real life, because my brain was completely short-circuiting. I’m standing in a freezing cold, hyper-luxurious master bedroom, staring at Viktor’s bruised, bloody knuckles, while he casually explains that my own stepmother is on a mafia payroll. Not just any payroll. Marcus Rossi’s payroll. The guy who ordered a sniper to shoot up a charity gala. The guy who actively wants my husband—fake husband, whatever—dead. And Beatrice took his money. Look, I always knew Beatrice was garbage. Like, literal, bottom-of-the-barrel human trash. When my dad got sick, this woman practically forced me to sleep on a broken metal cot in our cramped laundry room just so she could turn my actual childhood bedroom into a walk-in closet for her counterfeit designer bags. I knew she was greedy. I knew she was toxic. Hell, I already knew she sold me off to Alexander in a marriage contract just to clear her own gambling debts. That

You know when people in movies do some crazy, high-adrenaline stuff, and then cut to the next scene where they’re casually sipping coffee at a diner? Yeah, that’s absolute garbage. Complete fiction. Because the second I slammed that heavy, bulletproof SUV door shut behind me, the adrenaline crashed so hard I thought my skeleton was going to collapse. My hands were shaking violently. My teeth were actually chattering like it was twenty degrees below zero, even though Davis had the heat blasting in the car. I had to physically shove my hands deep into my hoodie pockets and sit on them just to keep from vibrating out of the leather seat. I stared out the tinted window as Davis peeled away from the curb, leaving Beatrice's tacky beige McMansion in the rearview mirror. My brain was doing backflips. I just watched a mafia don recruit my stepmother to be a double agent. I was literally an accessory to whatever dark web, underworld extortion just went down in that foyer. And the wildest