Alle Kapitel von BURNED EMPIRE : Kapitel 31 – Kapitel 40

Darian’s POV When Sam told me Camilla was here to see me I was elated, I felt she had probably gotten a whiff of the news.That I had gotten the company out of debt, and she was here to apologize and make things right, hopefully I can get her to give me my daughter .But when she stepped into the office, I saw the devilish smirk on her face. I panicked for a moment wondering what games she was here to play “Let’s talk in my office,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face even though nothing about the moment deserved one. I needed her calm. I needed her comfortable enough to slip and tell me where our daughter is She walked ahead of me like she already owned the place, her heels clicking against the floor I had personally chosen when we renovated two years ago. I watched her eyes sweep across the walls, the furniture, the framed photos near the reception area, and I could tell she was cataloguing everything to destroy later.I closed the door behind us and gestured to the chair acro

Darian’s POVThe hospital smelled like antiseptic, the kind that clung to the back of your throat no matter how many times you swallowed. My mother walked ahead of me down the corridor with the same commanding stride she used in boardrooms, as though sheer will alone could make the nurses part faster.We found Ivy’s room at the end of the hall, guarded by a private nurse my mother had clearly paid to keep quiet. The woman inside barely resembled someone who could have once been sent to spy on anyone. Her face was swollen in places, bruised in others, one arm in a cast that stretched from wrist to elbow. Machines beeped steadily beside her bed, the only sound in the room besides her shallow breathing.“Ivy,” my mother said, stepping close to the bed. “Can you hear me?”The woman’s eyes fluttered open slowly, unfocused at first, then sharpening with something like fear the moment they landed on my mother’s face.“Mrs. Baldore,” she rasped. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t—”“I’m not here for ap

Darian’s povSam laid the folder on my desk with the careful precision of a man delivering news he already knew I wouldn't like, the kind of measured movement he'd perfected over years of working for a family that punished the messenger nearly as often as it punished the source of bad news itself."It's not much," he warned before I'd even opened it, standing a half-step back from the desk as though bracing for a reaction. "Lisa ,No last name No family on record beyond a mother who passed six years ago. No property in her name, no significant debts, nothing that gives us leverage. Wherever she came from before she started working for Miss Gomez, someone scrubbed it clean.""Someone with money," I said, flipping through the thin stack of pages, my eyes skimming past bank statements that led nowhere and background checks that looked like they belonged to a woman who had barely existed before a certain point in time."Someone with a great deal of money, and the patience to make sure it

Camila’s POVSunday was the only day I let myself pretend the war didn’t exist.No calls. No board reports. No Lisa knocking on my door with bad news dressed up as an update. Just me, Cora’s empty room down the hall reminding me she was still safe somewhere far from here, and George, who showed up at ten in the morning with grocery bags in both hands like he did every Sunday now, without me ever having to ask.“You’re early,” I said, opening the door before he even knocked.“You’re always awake by nine. I figured I’d stop pretending I don’t know that.” He held up the bags. “I’m making you breakfast. Don’t argue.”I didn’t argue. I just stepped aside and let him in, watching him move through my kitchen like it was already half his, pulling pans down from cabinets he shouldn’t have known the location of, cracking eggs with one hand the way people do when they’ve had years of practice cooking for themselves and nobody else.“You never told me you could cook,” I said, leaning against the

Camila’s POVThree days after George told me the truth, Lisa found me in the garden behind my estate, watching the sun go down over the hedges Cora liked to hide in during her games. I hadn’t been to the office in two days. I hadn’t wanted to be.“You’re taking this well,” Lisa said, settling onto the bench beside me. “The Aurora thing, I mean. I figured you’d want to burn something down.”“I already burned enough things down for one lifetime,” I said. “George didn’t lie to me. He just waited for the right moment to tell the truth. Those aren’t the same thing.”“Darian lied to you,” Lisa pointed out carefully. “For years. Watched you get dragged away and never said a word.”“I know the difference,” I said quietly. “Believe me, I know it better than anyone.”We sat in silence for a while, the evening settling soft and orange around us, birds calling somewhere beyond the hedges. It was the kind of evening that made the whole war feel far away, the kind that made me forget, just for a li