บททั้งหมดของ Caged By His Love: บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 80

JETHRO'S POV Lycan's words hit me like a physical blow. The gala was never the target. For one suspended second, standing in the red-lit wreckage of the ballroom with Melanie pressed against my side and a hundred terrified guests stampeding around us, I saw the entire operation laid out in my mind like a chessboard, and I understood, with sickening clarity, exactly how badly I'd been played. Every piece of it had been designed to move me. The vehicle circling the block. The four passes, each one timed to draw my attention to the entrance. The blackout, engineered to trigger panic and force the crowd toward the exits. The explosion, sealing the main door and funneling everyone toward the secondary routes. Rodrigo hadn't intended to attack the gala at all. He'd intended to make me believe he would, and then watch me pour every resource I had into defending the wrong place. "Where?" My voice came out lower than I intended, dangerous and quiet. "Where is the target, Lycan?"

MELANIE'S POV I couldn't move. The violin case lay open on the hallway floor, its faded velvet lining cradling a single white rose and a folded piece of paper, and I stood over it with Jethro's hand wrapped around mine, unable to make my legs carry me any closer. I hadn't seen that case in years. I had buried it at the very back of the nursery closet, behind stacks of tiny folded clothes we'd bought in the hopeful weeks before the miscarriage, because I couldn't bear to look at either one. The violin and the baby clothes. The two things I'd loved most, the two things I'd lost most completely, sharing the same dark corner of the same silent room. "He was in the nursery," I whispered. "Yes." Jethro's voice was rough. "The whole upstairs was searched. Rocco must have surprised them while they were still inside, because they ran without finishing whatever they came to do. But they had time to do this first." "How did he know?" My voice cracked. "How did he know it was there? Nobod

MELANIE'S POVMy father came to the house that afternoon, looking like he hadn't slept at all, his eyes red-rimmed, his hands trembling faintly as he sat across from Jethro's desk."I need to know what happens to me now," he said quietly. "For giving those names to men who turned out to still be loyal to Rodrigo.""Nothing happens to you," Jethro said, though his voice carried none of its usual warmth toward my father, only a kind of exhausted, careful neutrality. "You made a mistake trusting people you thought had left that world behind. It's a mistake, not a betrayal.""It nearly cost us everything.""It nearly cost us everything because Rodrigo is patient and thorough, not because you were reckless." Jethro's jaw tightened. "I've made my own mistakes in this fight. I underestimated how far he was willing to plan ahead. That miscalculation is as much to blame for last night as your two names."I watched my father absorb that, watched some of the crushing guilt in his posture ease, j

MELANIE'S POVI asked Jethro to bring my violin home from the evidence locker two weeks after the gala, once Brandon confirmed there was nothing more to be learned from it.He carried the case into the bedroom himself, setting it carefully on the bed like something fragile, and stood back while I stared at it, my hands twisted together in my lap."You don't have to open it today," he said quietly. "There's no deadline on this.""I know." I reached out and touched the worn leather handle, feeling the familiar shape of it under my fingers. "I just keep thinking about what you said. That you wanted to hear me play again, once this was over.""It's not over yet.""No." I looked up at him. "But maybe I don't have to wait for over. Maybe I can start now, and let it be part of how we get there instead of something waiting on the other side of it."He studied my face for a long moment, something soft moving behind his eyes. "Whatever you need."I opened the case slowly. The violin lay exactly

JETHRO'S POVI called everyone into the study six days after we confirmed Rodrigo's pattern — Brandon, Rocco (back on his feet now, though still moving carefully), two senior members of my security team, and Lycan, who'd insisted on being present despite my initial reluctance."We move in three days," I said, spreading the surveillance photographs across the desk. "His next visit is predicted for Thursday evening, based on the pattern we've tracked for two weeks now. I want to take him then, inside that barn, before he has any chance to retreat to somewhere better defended.""Alive or dead?" Rocco asked bluntly."Alive, if possible. I want answers — who's funding this beyond whatever leverage he holds over Lycan, how deep his network actually runs, whether there are threats still active even if we remove him from the equation." I looked around the room. "But I'm not sending anyone in to die for the sake of taking him alive. If it comes down to his life or one of ours, we choose ours e