บททั้งหมดของ Velvet Chains : บทที่ 91 - บทที่ 100

What I Choose to Answer ToI don't think this is wise, Reyes said, watching Vivienne draft and redraft a message on her phone at the kitchen table, exhaustion and concern etched across his tired face. Engaging with him directly, on his own terms, that's exactly the kind of psychological ground he's spent thirty years mastering. You'd be playing a game he's had decades to perfect.Maybe, Vivienne said, not looking up from the screen. Or maybe he's genuinely uncertain for the first time in his adult life, and that uncertainty is worth responding to honestly, before he talks himself back into whatever version of certainty he's used to.And if it's manipulation, Damian said quietly, though his voice carried none of Reyes's flat warning, something more careful and considering instead. If he's simply learned, over thirty years, exactly which words draw out precisely this kind of response from someone like you.Then I'll have lost nothing but a little time, Vivienne said, finally looking up

What's Left of HimReyes worked through the night, cross-referencing hospital admissions, emergency service calls, anything that might explain a sudden gap in a man who'd spent thirty years building an entire life around perfect, careful invisibility.There, he said finally, just before dawn, turning his laptop toward Damian and Vivienne with tired, focused urgency. A John Doe admitted to a private urgent care clinic outside Newark two days ago. Gunshot wound, treated off the books, cash payment, no insurance, no identification provided. The clinic's known for treating patients who'd rather not involve police.Is he still there, Vivienne asked, her heart pounding.Discharged himself yesterday, against medical advice, Reyes said grimly. But the clinic's intake nurse remembered him well enough to describe him. Middle-aged, unremarkable features, extremely calm despite what should have been considerable pain. She said he asked, before leaving, whether anyone had come looking for him.We

DividedDamian's hands shook so violently he nearly dropped the phone twice while trying to dial his grandmother's number.It rang. And rang. And rang. She's not answering. His voice cracked with a fear Vivienne had never once heard from him, not in the alley, not in the warehouse, not even watching him beg for her life on a loading dock months ago. Vivienne, she's not answering.Move, Reyes ground out from the stretcher paramedics were still loading into the second ambulance, his face gray with blood loss but his eyes sharp, furious, alert. Take my car. I already called it in; local units are three minutes out, but you'll beat them there if you go now.They ran.The drive to Margaux's townhouse took eleven minutes that felt like eleven years, Damian running two red lights, Vivienne gripping the door handle so hard her knuckles went white, both of them silent except for the ragged sound of their own breathing and the distant, useless wail of sirens still chasing them from behind.The

Two Steps AheadHe thinks he's walking into a party, Damian said, spreading the gala's floor plan across Reyes's hospital room table, the security chief propped up in bed but sharp-eyed and fully engaged despite the bandages still wrapped tightly around his torso. He's not. He's walking into the most heavily fortified building in this city, and he doesn't know it yet.He'll suspect something, Nathaniel said from the adjacent bed, his voice still weak but steadying with every passing day, Okafor having personally authorized his transfer to the same secure wing once his condition stabilized. He always suspects something. That's how he's survived this long. The question isn't whether he detects the trap. It's whether he decides the risk of walking into it anyway is worth whatever he's actually come to accomplish.Which is what, Vivienne asked. If he's not simply coming to kill us, if that's all he wanted, he's had a dozen easier opportunities; what does he actually want from walking into

The Man in the RoomFire drill, Reyes announced calmly into the ballroom's microphone, cutting smoothly across the string quartet's final notes, his voice carrying the exact, practiced authority of a man who'd rehearsed this precise deception for days. Nothing to be alarmed about, folks; standard protocol. We'll have you back inside within twenty minutes. Please proceed to the main entrance in an orderly fashion.Three hundred guests began filing calmly toward the exits, champagne glasses set down, mild annoyance the only visible reaction rippling through the crowd. Beneath the veneer of routine, Okafor's team moved with brutal efficiency, the bomb squad already converging on the centerpiece, agents quietly positioned at every exit, watching not for panic but for the one person in the room who wasn't actually surprised.Vivienne stood near the north exit with Damian, forcing herself to smile and nod at departing guests, her heart hammering violently beneath her calm exterior.There, N