บททั้งหมดของ The CEO'S Vengeful marriage: บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

My mother's apartment looked different when I visited that Thursday, cleaner somehow, like she had spent the last few days trying to scrub away something invisible."I wasn't expecting you," she said, opening the door wider than usual, her eyes darting past me toward the hallway before she stepped back to let me inside."I wanted to check on you," I said. "After everything with Lily. I know Julian threatened you too.""I'm managing." She busied herself in the small kitchen, filling the kettle with water she didn't need, the same nervous habit I remembered from childhood whenever she was avoiding a harder conversation. "How is your sister? Truly?""Frightened. Safe, for now. We're still trying to understand how deep this surveillance actually runs."My mother's hands stilled over the kettle."What do you mean, surveillance?"I told her about the paint swatch, watching her face carefully as I spoke, the way her already pale skin seemed to lose another shade of color with every detail."

Damian set the phone down slowly, his hands trembling in a way I had never once seen from him, not during Julian's threats, not even standing over his father's grave."She could be alive," he said, the words barely audible, like saying them any louder might shatter whatever fragile hope had just cracked open inside him. "Elara, my mother could actually be alive.""We don't know that for certain yet," I said carefully, though my own heart was pounding just as hard. "It could be a coincidence. A facility like that could house any number of patients.""I know." His voice cracked. "I know that. But I can't stop thinking it anyway."I crossed the small distance between us and wrapped my arms around him, feeling the tremor running through his entire body, this man who carried empires on his shoulders without flinching, undone completely by the possibility of a mother he had grieved for fourteen years."I buried an empty casket," he whispered against my hair. "I stood there at seventeen year

Julian was waiting in the lobby when we returned to Thorne Tower just before dawn, sitting in one of the leather chairs near the elevator like he owned the building himself, which, in some legal sense, he still partially did."Well," he said, rising slowly as we approached, his voice carrying none of its usual warmth. "You two have had quite the eventful night."Damian went rigid beside me. "What are you doing here, Julian.""I could ask you the same question." Julian's eyes flicked to the robe still visible in the bag Marcus carried, and something dangerous flickered across his face before he masked it. "Isn't it a bit late for hospital visits? Or was it a different kind of facility you were touring tonight?"My blood ran cold. He knew."You've been busy," Damian said, his voice deceptively calm, though I could feel the fury radiating off him. "Preston Vale. A staffing agency. A care facility. All of it connected, all of it finally coming apart at the exact same time."Julian's smile

Sound returned before anything else. A steady beeping, slow and rhythmic. Voices, low and urgent, layered over each other like water rushing past my ears."...blood pressure stabilizing, but we need to monitor for placental abruption...""...she's been unconscious for almost twenty minutes, is that normal...""...sir, I need you to stay calm, we're doing everything we can..."I tried to open my eyes. It felt like lifting something impossibly heavy, my whole body wrapped in a thick, disorienting fog."Elara." Damian's voice cut through the haze, cracked and desperate, closer to my ear than I expected. "Elara, please, open your eyes."I forced them open, blinking against the harsh fluorescent light, my vision swimming before slowly resolving into the shape of his face, hovering inches above mine, tears streaking silently down his cheeks."Damian," I whispered, my voice barely more than a rasp."Thank God." He pressed his forehead to mine, his hand gripping mine so tightly it almost hurt

Damian carried me from the car himself, refusing every offer of help from Marcus or the doorman, his arms steady and careful as he moved through the lobby of Thorne Tower like I weighed nothing at all."I can walk," I said, half laughing despite the exhaustion still weighing heavy in my bones. "Dr. Alvarez said bed rest, not that I'd forgotten how to use my legs.""Humor me," he said, pressing a kiss to my temple as the elevator doors closed around us. "I need this right now. Let me have it."I softened against his chest, understanding the fear still living beneath his careful composure, the same fear that had cracked him open completely in that hospital room two nights ago."Okay," I whispered. "Humor you."---He settled me into our bed with a gentleness that made my chest ache, arranging pillows around me with the same intense focus he'd once given to hostile takeovers, adjusting blankets, checking and rechecking that I had water within reach, my phone charged, a book close by in c