Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

Racing the Silence"It's not about the boathouse," Reyes said twenty minutes later, phone pressed to his ear, relaying information from his contact as fast as it came in. My source at the airfield pulled the flight manifest. Trevor's meeting a private investor in Milan tomorrow morning, someone financing his acquisition once he takes control of the parcel. It's been on his calendar for three weeks. This isn't about us. He has no idea what we found tonight.The relief that moved through the room was immediate, and short-lived."That doesn't mean it's safe," Damian said, already pulling up flight options on his own phone. "He'll be in the same region. If anything alerts his people while we're there."Then we move fast, and we move quiet, Vivienne said. "We're not walking into Como to confront anyone. We're going in, getting the documents, and getting out before he even knows we've left the country."They booked the last two seats on a red-eye out of JFK, with Reyes and one of his truste

What the Woods KnewBranches tore at Vivienne's arms as she ran, the folder clutched tight against Damian's chest, both of them moving as quietly and quickly as the dense undergrowth allowed, the voices behind them growing fainter with every desperate stride."Down here," Damian whispered, pulling her sideways into a shallow ravine half-hidden by overgrown ferns, pressing them both flat against the damp earth as footsteps crunched along the path they'd just abandoned.Vivienne held her breath, heart hammering so loudly she was certain it could be heard from twenty feet away. Through a gap in the ferns, she watched the two men pause at the fork in the path, one of them speaking quietly into a radio clipped to his jacket."Negative on visual," the man said, his accented English carrying clearly in the still morning air. "Property's empty except the caretaker's boat. We'll do a full sweep of the main house before we report back to Conti."Conti.The name meant nothing to Vivienne, but s

The Smirk Before the StormThe silence on the phone stretched for what felt like an eternity before Reyes's voice finally broke through again, breathless, shouting over the fading chaos of sirens and radio static."We have him! Damian, we have him, he's alive, he's talking, he's asking for you."Vivienne felt the sob tear out of her chest before she'd even fully processed the words, relief crashing through her body so hard her knees buckled, Damian catching her against him, both of them shaking, both of them crying openly now, twelve days of terror finally breaking free all at once."Is he hurt?" Damian managed, his voice raw.Banged up. Dehydrated. A couple of cracked ribs from what it looks like, Reyes said. But he's alive, and the paramedics say he's going to be fine. We're taking him to Lenox Hill now. Come.They didn't remember the drive to the hospital. Vivienne would later recall only fragments. Damian's hands white-knuckled on the wheel, the blur of city lights, the way her ow

A Family, Finally WholeThe boardroom emptied slowly, reporters rushing off to file their stories, board members lingering in small, stunned clusters to process what they'd just witnessed. Vivienne stayed close to Damian's side through all of it, watching him shake hands, answer careful questions, hold himself together with the same steady composure that had carried him through the entire ordeal, and watching, too, the way his eyes kept drifting back toward the closed doors Trevor had been led through, something unsettled still sitting behind his relief."Don't let him ruin this," she said quietly, once the room had finally cleared enough for a private moment. "Whatever Trevor meant by that last warning, we'll deal with it. Tonight, I want you to just let yourself feel what you actually won."Damian exhaled slowly, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he looked at her. You're right. I know you're right. He managed a tired, genuine smile. My grandmother's expecting us for d

The Sins We Didn't Know We InheritedNeither of them slept that night.They sat together on the living room floor of Damian's apartment, the old ledger spread open between them under lamplight, its faded ink telling a story neither of them had been prepared to hear, decades of careful arrangements, quiet favors, a foundation built on exactly the kind of compromise Damian had spent two weeks fighting to expose in someone else's family. I keep reading the same page over and over, Damian admitted, his voice hoarse with exhaustion, like it's going to say something different the tenth time."It won't," Vivienne said softly, resting her head against his shoulder. But you reading it a hundred times doesn't make you responsible for what your grandfather did sixty years before you were born."Doesn't it?" His voice cracked. I inherited the company. I inherited the money. I inherited the name that opened every door for me my entire life. If none of that would exist without arrangements like the