All Chapters of THE BILLIONAIRE'S REJECTED WIFE WAS THE MAFIA HEIRESS: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Ethan had never in his life driven the way Nico drove through the last mile of the estate's private road, tires skidding on wet pavement, headlights cutting through smoke that shouldn't have been visible from this far out, the distant crack of gunfire growing louder with every second that passed.He had spent most of the drive from Sorensen's apartment in a kind of numb, focused silence, his mind refusing to fully process what they'd found in that back bedroom, his body running entirely on adrenaline and fear for a woman who was, at that exact moment, somewhere he couldn't see or protect. He kept his phone gripped in one hand, screen dark since the call had dropped, willing it to light up again with her name, and when it didn't, he made himself stop staring at it and focus on the road instead, because staring at a silent phone wasn't going to get them there any faster."Stay in the car when we arrive," Nico said, voice tight with focus, weapon already drawn and resting acros

Isabella found Ethan alone in the estate's kitchen an hour later, sitting at the long wooden table with a laptop open in front of him, already deep into building the case Enzo had demanded, dark circles under his eyes from two consecutive sleepless nights.The kitchen was quiet in a way the rest of the house wasn't, most of the staff finally allowed to rest after a night that had asked more of everyone than any single day usually did, and the early morning light coming through the tall windows gave the whole room a strange, fragile calm, the kind that only exists in the hours right after a crisis has passed and before the next one has fully announced itself. Isabella stood in the doorway for a moment before he noticed her, watching him work, the particular focus on his face reminding her of the man she'd married three years ago, before divorce papers and warehouses and burned archives had rearranged everything she thought she understood about him."You should rest," she said

Ethan hadn't left the kitchen table in nine hours, laptop open, phone constantly buzzing with updates from Daniel, coffee going cold beside him for the third time that morning, entirely absorbed in the methodical, careful work of building a case that could withstand real legal scrutiny. The kitchen had slowly filled and emptied around him as the household woke, staff moving quietly through their morning routines, careful not to disturb the man hunched over a laptop at the long table, dark circles under his eyes, a legal pad covered in handwriting beside him that had grown increasingly cramped as the hours wore on. He'd stopped noticing the sunlight shifting across the floor sometime after eight, his entire focus narrowed down to spreadsheets, wire transfer records, and the particular, grinding satisfaction of watching disparate pieces of information slowly begin to form a coherent shape. "I've got the wire transfer records," Daniel said over speakerphone, his voi

Daniel had Vivian out of the booth and moving toward the door before she'd fully processed the message on her screen, his hand firm on her elbow, his voice low and urgent in a way that cut through her rising panic. "Car. Now. We're not staying here to discuss it." "Daniel, if they know I took that thread, they could already be watching this place." "Which is exactly why we're leaving through the kitchen," he said, already steering her past a startled line cook and out a back service door into a narrow alley slick with rain. "I have a car two blocks from here, not the one I drove in. Move fast, don't run, running draws attention." Vivian's heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her throat, every instinct in her body screaming at her to sprint, and she forced herself instead to match Daniel's measured, purposeful pace, understanding, even through the panic, that he knew this kind of situation far better than she

Marcus was reviewing quarterly projections in his office when the elevator doors opened onto his floor, disgorging six federal agents in dark jackets who moved through the space with the calm, practiced efficiency of people who had done this many times before.He'd noticed nothing unusual about the morning up to that point. His assistant had brought coffee at the usual time. His nine o'clock call with a supplier in Seattle had gone exactly as planned. He'd even allowed himself, sometime around ten, a brief, private moment of satisfaction watching Blackwood Industries stock continue its slow bleed on his monitor, the particular pleasure of a man who believed, however wrongly, that he had finally gotten ahead of an opponent who'd spent years underestimating him.He knew, the moment he saw them, exactly what was happening, and some small, detached part of him almost admired the speed of it, even as the rest of him scrambled, uselessly, for an exit that no longer existed. He tho