บททั้งหมดของ My fiance's uncle's property : บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 36

Lucian.I don't confront him.That's the decision that arrives cold and immediate, the moment I finish cross-referencing the last log entry — no fury, no theatrical unraveling in a hospital corridor where anyone could overhear. Osei has spent weeks inside this family's medical care, close enough to touch every safeguard I've tried to put in place, and if he's discovered before I understand who he's working for, whatever's coming for Harold simply routes itself through someone new.I step into the empty stairwell instead, phone already against my ear, dialing a number I haven't used in over a year.It picks up on the second ring."Dr. Harry Osei," I say. Nothing else. "You know what to do."I end the call before the silence on the other end can turn into a question, and for one long moment I stand in that stairwell with my back against cold concrete, feeling something in my chest settle into the particular, terrible calm that used to carry me through the worst nights of the decade I sp

Lucian.Linda finds us in the family lounge an hour later, and I know before she says a word, from the particular set of her shoulders, exactly what she's about to tell us."He didn't make it," she says. "Dr. Osei. Passed twenty minutes ago."I keep my face perfectly still. It costs me nothing to do it — I've had a decade of practice holding my expression steady around news that should shatter it, and this particular news doesn't even require the effort. I know my own people. I know precisely what it takes to keep a man breathing after a bullet, and I know precisely what it takes to make certain he doesn't stay that way once he's served his purpose.I never gave the order to keep him alive.*You know what to do* has only ever meant one thing, in the years I've used that number, and I made the call fully understanding what I was choosing. I could have chosen differently. I could have had him taken somewhere quiet instead, interrogated at length, every answer about Julian's involvement,

Lucian.Adrian's blood is still on my knuckles when he finally speaks again, one hand pressed to his split lip, backed against the bookshelf with nowhere left to retreat to."You think this changes anything." His voice comes out thick, wet around the words. "You think walking in here, breaking my door, hitting me in front of her — you think that buys you anything at all?""It buys Eveline getting out of this room." I don't lower my voice. I want him to hear exactly how little room there is in it for negotiation. "Whatever you think you're owed for the last ten years, this isn't the place you collect it.""Owed." He laughs, short and ugly, blood catching at the corner of his mouth. "You have no idea what I'm owed, Lucian. You've spent a decade thinking you were the wronged one in this family.The exiled son. The scapegoat." He straightens, testing weight on legs that have apparently carried this lie flawlessly for ten years. "You have no idea what it cost me to sit in that chair every