All Chapters of Marry Mafia King or My Fifth Fiancés Dies: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Renita's composure shattered the moment she found her voice again.“I need to go,” she said, already backing toward the door, her earlier confidence nowhere to be found. “I have somewhere to be.”“Renita.” Maximilian's voice sharpened. “What did you see?”“Nothing.” Her eyes flicked once more to my hand, to the ring catching the light, before she forced her gaze away entirely. “I have to go, Maxy. I'll call you.”Maxy. The nickname landed somewhere in my chest like a stone dropped into still water, small but rippling outward far longer than it had any right to. She was gone before either of us could stop her, the front door clicking shut behind her with a finality that left the entrance hall unnervingly quiet.I didn't wait for an explanation. I turned and walked, past the staircase, past the sitting room, toward anywhere that wasn't this hallway still humming with whatever had just happened.I don't even know what I want from him anymore, I thought, my heels striking the marble in sh

“The less you know, the longer you live.”That phrase lingered in my head all night, echoing long after Maximilian had left my room and long after I’d stopped staring at the empty drawer where the photograph used to be.I woke up the next morning still trying to process it, no closer to figuring out how my father was tied to any of this, only certain that the truth terrified even a man who rarely showed fear.I didn't expect him to knock on my door before I'd even finished my coffee.“Get dressed. We're going out.”I blinked at him from my spot curled up in the window seat, a book I hadn't really been reading sitting forgotten in my lap. “Excuse me?”“You heard me.” Maximilian stood in the doorway.He’d swapped his usual dark suit for something far simpler—a charcoal sweater that made him look, disorientingly enough, almost ordinary. “Get dressed. We're leaving in twenty minutes.”“After yesterday?” I set the book aside and crossed my arms. “You snatch a photograph out of my hands, re

“We're leaving. Now.”Maximilian was already pulling me to my feet before I'd fully processed the word Crimson still hanging in the air between us, his hand closing around mine with a grip that left no room for negotiation.“Wait.” I dug my heels in, though it did little against his momentum. “Maximilian, what does that mean? Is this the same Crimson as the one from that time in Bali?”“Not here.”“You keep saying that!” Frustration cracked through my voice, sharp enough to finally make him pause, if only for a second. “Every single time something happens, it's not here, not now, not safe. When exactly is it going to be the right time?”“When you're not standing in the middle of a street where someone just tried to put a bullet in your skull!” he snapped, and the rawness in his voice startled me into silence. He steered me firmly toward the waiting car, his other hand still clenched around the bullet casing as though releasing it might somehow undo what it represented.The ride back

Someone was hiding within the walls.My heart hammered against my ribs as I caught the shadow shifting again, slipping past the garden lights and ducking behind the hedge near the side entrance—the door Calista used for bringing in groceries whenever the front entrance felt too formal for something as ordinary as vegetables.I should have alerted the guards. I should have screamed. I should have done practically anything other than what I did next.Instead, I pulled a coat off the back of my chair and crept into the hallway, my bare feet gliding silently across the marble toward the staircase. Every instinct warning me to be careful lost to the burning, reckless urge to find out who dared sneak into this home while Maximilian was away across the city risking his life.By the time I reached the side entrance, it was sitting slightly open with the lock visibly forced, letting a chill sliver of night air drift inside. My pulse thudded as I pushed it further open and scanned the dark gard

The silence that followed my question felt like something physical, pressing down against my chest until I could barely breathe.Maximilian didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He simply stood there in the wreckage of the entrance hall—ash from the burned note still drifting faintly in the fireplace behind him—his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my heart stutter against my ribs.“Answer me,” I said again, quieter now, though the tremor in my voice betrayed exactly how close I was to shattering entirely. “Did you kill my father?”Something in his expression finally cracked. Not the wall I’d been expecting, not another deflection, but something rawer—something that looked almost like pain.“No.”The word landed heavy in the silence, absolute and immediate, with no hesitation behind it at all. For one dizzying second, relief flooded through me so fast I nearly stumbled.“No,” he said again, stepping closer, his voice low and steady, stripped of every calculated edge I'd grown used