All Chapters of The Bride They chased Away: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Chapter 21: Knock on Glass "Relax, Damien. I didn't come to fight. I came to testify." Serena's voice came through the glass wall like she was ordering coffee. Behind her, the corridor lights stuttered red, and the tower sirens kept screaming. Lila felt Damien's hand tighten around hers. Not a squeeze. A clamp. "Marcus," he said, without turning his head. "Already on it." Marcus was at the side door, one finger pressed to his earpiece. "That's a fire alarm, sir. Triggered from this floor. Someone inside the building pulled it, not a smoke sensor. Every exit just unlocked." "Of course it did." Around the long table, the twelve directors had stopped pretending to be calm. Chairs scraped. A man near the end grabbed his tablet and half rose. A woman in a gray jacket was already halfway to the door. The alarm was a perfect excuse to run, and nobody in a room full of cameras wanted to be the last one sitting there. "Sit down," Damien said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need t

Chapter 23: The Stairwell "I'm not here to arrest you, Mrs. Voss. I'm here to ask when your husband last slept more than three hours." The voice echoed down the concrete shaft of Stairwell B, flat and tired and completely without menace. Lila stood on the landing with one hand on the cold rail and her heart trying to climb out through her throat. Special Agent Reyes sat on the steps two flights down, elbows on her knees, a thin manila folder balanced between her boots. Dark jacket. No yellow letters this time. Her hair was pulled back like she'd done it in a car mirror, and there were gray smudges under her eyes that said she hadn't been home since the lake house. "You came," Reyes said. "You said four minutes." "I say a lot of things. Most people don't show up." She tipped her head at the step beside her. "Sit, if you want. I don't bite. Standing's fine too." Lila stayed standing. She kept her back against the wall and her eyes on the door above, the one she'd come through eigh

Chapter 25: Three Seconds"Who are you?"Damien's head turned. The gun came up with it, slow and steady, and the muzzle settled on the center of her chest. Rain ran down the barrel and dripped off the end.Lila stopped walking.His eyes were open. They were gray and wide and wet, and they were looking right at her. But there was nobody behind them. It was like staring into a house with every light on and the door left wide open, and no one home."Damien," she said."Stay where you are.""It's Lila.""I don't know any Lila." His voice shook. "Where is she? Tell me where you put her."Her heart was slamming so hard she could feel it in her teeth. Every instinct she had screamed at her to run back inside, lock the door, call Marcus. But Marcus was in the guest wing, two hundred feet away, and by the time he got here, anything could happen. A man who'd lost himself could pull a trigger without ever knowing he'd done it.So she didn't run.She lifted both hands, palms open, and took one st

Chapter 27: Withdrawal "Damien, tell me you can hear me. Say anything. Say my name." It was two in the morning, and Lila was on her knees on the cold marble floor of the bathroom at Hollow Ridge, holding her husband's face in both hands. He was drenched. His shirt stuck to his chest, and sweat ran in lines down his temples and soaked into the collar. His skin was the wrong color, gray under the gold of the vanity lights. His eyes were open, but they kept sliding past her, fixing on something in the corner of the room that wasn't there. "Lila," he said finally. It came out as a croak. "Yes. Good. Again." "Lila." His hand closed around her wrist, and it was shaking so hard she could feel the bones rattle. "I can't stop it. My hands. My whole... I can't make it stop." "I know. I'm right here." "Everything's too loud." "Then I'll be quiet. You just stay awake." She didn't know how long she'd been kneeling there. An hour, maybe more. Her knees had gone numb. A wet towel lay besid

Chapter 29: The Doctor's Ring"Say hello to the man I've been engaged to for two years, little sister."Serena's voice poured out of the phone, bright and silky and so close it felt like she was standing in the hallway. Ward had thumbed the speaker on before the second ring finished. He held the phone out at chest height between them, like a man offering a cup of tea.Lila didn't breathe."Julian, darling," Serena purred. "Is she there? Tell me she's there. I can practically feel her.""She's here," said Ward. His smile didn't change. "Standing right in front of me.""Oh, good. I was afraid she'd be late."Late. The word dropped into Lila's stomach like a stone. They'd been waiting for her. Dana's folder, the supply closet, the three weeks of hoarded scans. Maybe they'd known all of it. Maybe she'd walked straight into the room they'd built for her."Hi, Lila," said Serena. "I know this is a shock.""You're engaged to him." Lila heard her own voice come out flat and strange. "To my mo