Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

Chapter Eleven: AshesThe phone rings at three in the morning, cutting through a silence I've long since stopped trusting."Boss." Priya's voice comes through tight, already bracing me for what's coming. "Six buildings in the old pack territory just burned. The training compound. Two warehouses. Blackwood Holdings is going into hard bankruptcy by morning."I sit up in the dark. I don't gasp. I don't reach for the lamp. News like that doesn't need light to land, and I've had five years of practice receiving worse in the dark and calling it nothing.I stand from the bed, calm, unhurried, the same way I'd rise for a nine-figure call that woke me at a worse hour than this one. The line goes quiet for a second before it comes back to life, Priya's voice dropping into something more careful, more deliberate, the kind of tone she only uses when she's about to ask a question she already suspects the answer to."Boss. Are you responsible for this?"I walk to the kitchen while she waits, total

Chapter Thirteen: PheromonesThe club doesn't have a name on the door. It doesn't need one.Kai sits in the private booth at the back, the one with the view of everything and the visibility of nothing, whiskey untouched in his hand for the better part of an hour. Two men flank him — Lucid on his left, all easy smiles and gold rings, and Damien across the table, watching the pool dancers with the kind of attention Kai isn't giving them at all. Girls move through the haze of low light in almost nothing, and every one of them knows better by now than to come within arm's reach of the man in black.Nobody touches Kai Moreau uninvited. Not anymore. Not since the hospital."I really didn't expect you to go this far just to have her." Damien says it low, turning his glass in slow circles. "You could have lost your life. What if something had happened to her?"Kai's eyes flash red before he answers, quick and involuntary, gone as fast as it comes. "I would never allow anything to happen to he

Chapter Fifteen: The Price of Breathing the Same AirThe phone downstairs cuts off mid-ring, then starts again.The sound reaches me through two floors and a closed door, and it's enough. My hands are flat against his chest, his arm still locked around my waist, water running off both of us onto tile that's gone cold under my knees. One more breath and I would have closed the last inch between us. I know it. He knows it. I hate that he knows it.I shove.He lets me go the second I push, no resistance, no argument, and that's almost worse than if he'd held on — because it means he's confident I'm not actually going anywhere. His eyes are still bleeding red at the edges, watching me step out of that tub with water sheeting off my skin, and I don't look back once. I don't trust my own face not to give something away if I do.The cold air outside the bathroom hits my skin hard enough to sting, and I take it, welcome it, because cold is the only thing right now that feels like mine. My hea

Chapter Seventeen: Let Them Cheer Before the FallRose POVThe city looks the same as it did an hour ago. Lit up, indifferent, going about its business like nothing in it just burned.I'm still watching the feed from Warehouse 7 when the door slams open behind me. I don't turn around. I know the walk. I know the sound a tablet makes when someone's holding it too hard."Boss." Priya's voice comes out thin. "Derek just secured three major shareholders back. Two private lenders reopened credit lines an hour ago. Four of the clients who left last week signed new contracts tonight."I keep my eyes on the monitor."If this keeps up for a month," she says, "he claws back nearly half of what you stripped."I don't answer that either."The video's still climbing, boss. Every comment section is calling you a monster who sold her own son. People are putting up side-by-sides — you in Kai's diamond, Jay crying on that couch. Your name is poison right now."I finally turn.I let her see the smile b

Chapter Nineteen: The Things We Paint When We Still Hate Each OtherKai POVThe industrial park is empty this early, nothing but cracked concrete and weeds pushing up through the seams, and that's exactly why I picked it. Jay's remote-control car buzzes between us, knocking against the curb for the third time in a row. His laugh comes out small and surprised every time he wins, like he hasn't decided yet whether he's allowed to enjoy himself."My dad never does this." He says it quiet, almost ashamed, eyes on the car instead of me. "He shouts. Or drinks. Or locks himself in the study with Aunt Rachel." A pause. "I like this."I don't smile. I just hand him a second controller."Most men who shout are afraid of silence. Silence makes them hear what they did."He doesn't answer that right away. He just steers his car in a tight loop around a chunk of broken concrete, careful, like the game matters more than the conversation does. I let him have that. Some kids need the silence filled wi