All Chapters of Reborn to ruin him : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Neither of us moved for a long moment, the phone still glowing between us like it might explode.“Who sent that?” Xavier’s voice had gone low, sharp, all the softness from a minute ago burned out of it completely.“I don’t know.” I stared at the unknown number, my thumb hovering over it like it might bite me. “It came from nowhere. No name, no contact, nothing.”He took the phone gently from my hand and studied the message himself, his jaw working the way it did when he was calculating something he didn’t like the shape of.“Can I see the number?” he asked.I nodded, and he pulled out his own phone, typing quickly, his brow furrowed in concentration. I watched his face for any sign he recognized it, any flicker that might tell me more than his words ever did.“It’s not registered to anyone.” He handed my phone back, frustration bleeding into his voice. “Burner. Whoever sent this didn’t want to be traced.”“That’s not exactly comforting.”“No.” His eyes met mine, steady despite everyth

“Because I recognize that handwriting,” Xavier said. “And if I’m right about who wrote it, nothing in your life is going to look the same after you read what’s inside.”My fingers tightened around the envelope. “Whose handwriting, Xavier?”He didn’t answer right away. He crossed the room and sat down across from me, close enough that our knees almost touched, close enough that I could see the tension carved into every line of his face. Outside, the apartment building settled with its usual creaks and groans, ordinary sounds that felt anything but ordinary tonight.“Open it,” he said finally. “You deserve to see it yourself. I don’t want to color what you find with my own guess before you do.”My hands shook as I tore the seal. Inside sat a single folded sheet of paper, older than the letter Jeremy had shown me hours ago, the kind of paper that had clearly been kept somewhere safe for a very long time, the edges gone soft from handling.I unfolded it slowly.The handwriting was careful

“You came alone.”Ashford stood behind his desk when the receptionist showed me in, a thick folder already waiting on the surface between us, his expression more guarded than it had been yesterday. The office smelled the same as before, old paper and lemon polish, but the light through the window had shifted to the flat gray of early afternoon, and somehow that made everything feel more urgent than it had felt yesterday morning.“Should I not have?” I sat down across from him, my pulse still climbing from the elevator ride up.“No, it’s fine. I only expected Mr. Nightfall might accompany you.” He slid the folder toward me without further comment, and I let that observation pass without answering it, unsure what it meant that Ashford had already started factoring Xavier into his expectations of my life.I opened the folder. Pages of incorporation documents, registered agent forms, a filing history that traced Meridian Holdings Group from creation to dissolution in under fourteen months

“I need the rest of it, Xavier.” The kiss had ended, but neither of us had moved far, his forehead still resting against mine, the harbor wind doing nothing to cool whatever had just passed between us. “I know.” He pulled back enough to look at me properly, the warmth in his eyes sharpening into something more careful. “You deserve all of it. I just needed you to hear the truest part first, before the rest of it makes you doubt everything else I’ve said tonight.” “Tell me.” “I know the exact night Victoria’s payment cleared into her account, because I traced it myself in the first life, after you died, when I had nothing left to do but dig through every piece of this conspiracy I could find.” His hands stayed at my sides, steadying, even as his voice hardened into something more clinical. “I know Mrs. Devonte ordered your parents’ deaths, not through Jeremy, through a man named Thomas Reyes who still works for her private security detail to this day. I know the exact location of fi

“I have to answer him.” I stared at the screen, Xavier still close beside me at the railing, both of us shaken by everything Marcus had just told us. The city lights across the water blurred together, indifferent to whatever was unraveling on this pier. “Tell him the truth. Not all of it.” Xavier’s hand found the small of my back, steady, grounding. “Just enough to buy time.” I typed quickly. With a friend. Needed air after everything last night. The reply came fast enough that I pictured Jeremy standing in that same spot by the window, glass in hand, waiting. Jeremy: Which friend, Kara? I didn’t answer right away. My hands were still trembling, not from the cold this time but from the weight of everything Marcus had just told us, Sofia’s name still echoing somewhere behind my ribs. Xavier’s phone buzzed once beside mine, a single message. He read it and something in his shoulders eased, just slightly, the first real relief I’d seen cross his face all night. “Marcus came throug