Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

The apartment went completely dark. I could hear my own breathing, fast and uneven, while Adrian stood in front of me. “Stay close,” he whispered. I could not see his face clearly, but I could feel him moving carefully through the room. “What is happening?” I asked.“I do not know.”A loud sound came from the hallway, followed by another. Someone was moving outside the apartment. Adrian reached for my hand. “Come with me.”I followed him toward the bedroom, the darkness making every step feel dangerous. He opened the wardrobe and pulled out a small flashlight. “Keep this.” I took it. “What are you going to do?”“Find out who is outside.”“No.”He looked at me. “I am not leaving you alone.” His expression softened. “I will be right outside the door.”Before I could answer, we heard footsteps approaching, and Adrian immediately pulled me behind him. The door handle moved, and someone was trying to enter. I held my breath as Adrian reached into his jacket. The door opened suddenly, and a

I could not stop thinking about the message. Your uncle is not dead. The words followed me throughout the entire drive to my grandmother’s house. My uncle had been declared dead three years ago. I had attended his funeral. I had watched my father cry over his brother’s coffin. Or at least, I thought I had. Now I was beginning to question everything.Adrian drove silently while Nora sat in the back seat, staring at her phone. After several minutes, I finally spoke. “Do you believe the message?”Adrian kept his eyes on the road. “I believe we should find out.”“What if my uncle really is alive?”“Then we will deal with it.”I looked at him. “You say that as if everything is easy.”“It is not easy.”“Then why are you always calm?”He smiled slightly. “Because one of us needs to remain calm.”I looked away, but I could not stop myself from smiling too, and for a few seconds the fear disappeared. Then my phone vibrated again, and I looked at the screen to find another unknown number. I ope

I could not breathe. My mother was standing in front of me, the woman I had spent most of my life believing was dead, and she was looking at me with tears running down her face. I wanted to run to her, to hold her, to demand to know why she had abandoned me, but instead I stood frozen in place.“Mom?”She covered her mouth as another tear slid down her cheek. “Elena,” she said, and her voice was exactly the same as I remembered from my childhood. For one brief moment I was a little girl again, waiting for her to come home. Then the memory dissolved and everything I had believed for years came rushing back.“You’re alive,” I said.She nodded. “Yes.”I shook my head, unable to accept it. “No.”She stepped toward me. “Please.”“Don’t come any closer.” My voice broke as I said it. “Why did you let me believe you were dead?”She looked down at the floor. “Your father told me it was the only way to keep you safe.”“My father,” I repeated, staring at her.“Yes.”“So he lied to me too.”“He w

I stared at the message until the words stopped making sense. You chose Adrian. Now you will lose everything. My hands were shaking. Victor had already taken so much from me, but this felt different somehow. He was no longer trying to hurt my heart. He was trying to take control of my entire life.“What happened?” Adrian asked.I handed him my phone. He read the message and looked up at me. “Don’t panic.”“I’m not panicking.”He gave me a look that said he didn’t quite believe me.“I’m angry,” I clarified.“That’s better.”Daniel continued driving while Adrian examined the documents on my phone. “Victor cannot legally take the company,” he said after a moment.“He said he already did.”“He may have frozen your access, but that doesn’t mean he owns anything.”I looked at him. “Then why can’t I access my accounts?”“Because someone with authority has approved the restriction.”“Who?”“That’s what we need to find out.”My mother reached over and touched my shoulder. “Your father prepared

I stared at Jonathan, waiting for him to say the name again, hoping I had somehow misheard him the first time.“It was your mother.”The words struck me harder than anything I had heard so far. “No.”My mother stood a few steps away, and her face went pale as the color drained from it entirely. “Elena, listen to me.”“You ordered my father’s death?”“No.”Jonathan opened the file and set a document down on the table between us. My father’s signature sat at the bottom of the page, and beneath it was a payment record connected to an account bearing my mother’s name. My hands went cold as I looked at it.“I don’t understand,” I said.My mother picked up the document with trembling fingers. “I never ordered your father’s death. I paid someone to protect him.”“Who?”“Daniel.”My uncle. Adrian stepped closer to us both. “Can you prove that?”My mother reached into her handbag and pulled out an envelope that looked as though it had been kept safe for years. “I have held on to this because I