جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

"Heirs to great fortunes are often heirs to hidden enemies." Sheets of rain slammed against the glass windows of "Valmont & Co. Book Café, blurring the city lights into streaks of gold and crimson. Outside, luxury sedans crawled through flooded streets while distant sirens echoed between towering skyscrapers. The rain had always sounded different in Blackridge City. It neither gentle nor comforting. It came down like a form of punishment. To most people, it was just another stormy Friday night. To Seraphine Valmont, it was another reminder that storms always found their way home. She glanced at the antique clock hanging above the café counter. 9:47 p.m. Only thirteen minutes until closing. With practiced hands, she stacked porcelain cups onto the shelf before wiping the espresso machine clean. The warm scent of coffee and old books lingered in the air—a comforting contrast to the cold city beyond the windows. Then.... A middle-aged couple approached the counter, g

Morning arrived without warmth. Without peace. Without happiness. A gray sky hung over Blackridge City as rain clung stubbornly to rooftops and windowpanes. The streets below slowly came alive beneath a curtain of mist—cars splashing through puddles, distant sirens echoing between concrete towers, pedestrians hurrying beneath umbrellas. The city was waking. Apartment 4B wasn't. It remained wrapped in a suffocating silence. One that felt less like calm... and more like the quiet before something catastrophic. Seraphine Valmont hadn't slept. Not for a single minute. She stood beside the kitchen window, fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold. Her eyes remained fixed on the rain outside, but she wasn't seeing any of it. Her mind replayed the same scene over.....and over... ...and over again. The alley. The blood. The gunshots. The stranger collapsing into her arms. How had one impulsive act of compassion dismantled the quiet life she'd spent y

Sera did not sleep.She tried.God, she tried.She turned the hotel pillow over at least three times, pulled the blanket up to her chin, then kicked it away when the room became too warm. She closed her eyes and counted backward from one hundred.Ninety-nine.Ninety-eight.Ninety-seven.At eighty-three, she gave up.The photograph was still on the bedside table.She had turned it facedown.That didn't help.Knowing it was there was enough.Sera sat up and stared at the clock.4:17 Am "Great."She rubbed both hands over her face.Her body was exhausted, but her mind refused to cooperate.Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the same things.Rain.Blood.A gun.Gray eyes.Her apartment.The balcony.The black envelope.And those four words.You should have let him die.She reached for the photograph.Her fingers hovered over it before she finally turned it over.It was still her.Standing outside the café.She remembered the exact moment the picture had been taken. She had been car

The rain returned before dawn.It wasn't the kind that arrived with thunder or violent winds. It fell quietly, draping Blackridge City beneath a veil of gray, soft enough to soothe the streets, yet heavy enough to make the skyline disappear.Sera watched the rain through the café window.Rainy mornings usually reminded sera of people lingering longer over coffee. Students hiding in the reading corner with novels. Couples occuping the tables beside the windows, sharing slices of cheesecake while pretending they weren't watching the weather together.Today...The rain reminded her of him.Gray eyes.A quiet voice.The stranger who finally had a name.Lucien.She whispered it unconsciously.The name still felt unfamiliar.Like a melody she had heard before but couldn't remember where."Sera."She looked up.Evelyn was arranging freshly baked bread behind the counter."You've been staring outside for ten minutes.""I have?""You've polished the same mug four times."Sera laughed softly

"Take Miss Valmont somewhere secure". Lucien ordered his men. For twenty-three years of existence, Sera hadn't realized Blackridge had so many roads hidden beneath its polished skyline. From the security bureau, the SUV carrying her moved silently through a succession of steel gates, each more heavily guarded than the last. Security cameras tracked every angle of the vehicle. Armed personnel stood at checkpoints dressed not in military uniforms but in tailored black suits, earpieces tucked discreetly behind their ears. No one smiled.No one asked questions.The gates opened before the SUV even came to a complete stop. As if everyone already knew who sat inside.Or perhaps...Who had brought her here.Sera rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window. Everything still felt unreal. Less than two hours ago she had almost been killed.Less than an hour ago she had learned the wounded stranger she'd sheltered in her apartment was Lucien Devereaux.The name echoed inside