Todos os capítulos de Ruin of the Sovereign Billionaire : Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Kirrily povWhite steam hissed from the cracked gravel, curling up into the rain like frantic ghosts.Armed mercenaries stood around the Apex cruisers, rifles wavering between Lachlan and the man claiming to be her dead father. Radios blared the instantaneous collapse of Vance Enterprises on the Sydney exchange.Her thumb stayed flat on the red override. Every second she held it down, Archangel’s algorithms dumped another ten million shares at bottom-tier valuations. She was cutting the throat of the nation’s largest energy grid in real time, draining billions into the ether.Lachlan broke away from the cruisers.He strode up the flagstone path, dark coat soaked, chest heaving. He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and looked up through the mist.Bloodshot silver-grey eyes. Disbelief. Betrayal. Naked grief.“Kirrily. Stop the cascade. Look at me… please.”She kept her posture rigid, expression carved from ice. “Why should I stop it?”“Because it’s suicide! If you dump the entire

Kirrily Archer POVYou never forget the feeling of being hunted. It isn’t loud. It’s an itch at the base of your skull. A cold draft in a warm room. A shift in the air that makes the fine hairs on your arms stand up.I stood by the fogged kitchen window of the Byron Bay cottage, both hands wrapped around a chipped mug of lukewarm chamomile. My knuckles were white. Outside, the afternoon sun sank toward the horizon, casting long bruised shadows across the coastal scrub and the blackened wreckage of the back porch.I kept perfectly still behind the faded linen curtain.My eyes locked on a narrow gap in the tea-trees lining the dirt road. Through the twisting branches and coastal mist I could just make out the dull matte-grey bumper of an unmarked sedan parked on the muddy shoulder.It had been there three hours.Engine dead. Headlights off. Every so often the faint blue glow of a dashboard screen lit the heavy silhouette of a man in the driver’s seat. Not local police. The Byron Bay cru

Lachlan Vance POVRain came down in thick blinding sheets as I marched away from Kirrily’s porch. Every step felt like dragging bare skin over broken glass. The finality of the deadbolt still echoed louder than the storm.She had looked at me with pure terror. Not anger. Terror. I was the monster in her nightmare. No amount of mud or tears could rewrite that.I didn’t walk to the SUV. I veered into the dense wet tea-trees, eyes locked on the matte-grey sedan fifty yards down the shoulder.She was right. An operative was sitting in the dark.I flanked the vehicle from the rear, approaching the driver’s side blind spot. Engine dead. Faint glow of a tactical tablet lighting the heavy-set man behind the wheel.I didn’t knock. I wrapped my hand in the wool of my coat sleeve, drew my elbow back, and drove my fist through the driver’s window.Tempered glass exploded inward. Before the man could shout I reached through the jagged hole, grabbed his tactical vest, and dragged him halfway out, p

Lachlan Vance POVThe twenty-four-hour wait was a unique kind of torture-slow, crushing pressure that built in the back of my skull and radiated down my spine.I paced until the carpet fibers flattened. Didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. Just stared at the digital clock, watching the red numbers flip with agonizing slowness.At 7:15 p.m. the electronic lock clicked.Callan stepped in. He didn’t speak. His face was a mask of solemn quiet grief. He walked across the room holding a heavy cream-colored envelope sealed with the dark red wax crest of Sydney’s most prestigious uncorrupted genetic laboratory.“I’m sorry, Lachlan.”My heart slammed so hard I thought it might crack my sternum. Hands shaking violently, I tore the wax seal and pulled the single crisp medical sheet into the dim light of the brass floor lamp.Sterile jargon. Allele sequences. Genetic locus charts that blurred together. I didn’t need the charts. My eyes dropped straight to the bolded conclusion at the bottom.Probability of

Lachlan Vance POVThe clock read 4:15 AM.I moved through the room without turning on a single light, silent as I could make myself. In the bathroom, I ran the shower to a low, steady drizzle enough white noise to cover any sound and pulled a heavy black duffel bag out of the closet.In the false bottom, wrapped in a layer of signal-blocking mesh, was a prepaid phone. I kept it for the kind of acquisitions that never touched a paper trail a device with no link to the Vance network, and no link to Callan's surveillance.I powered it on. The screen threw a hard blue light across the tile.I needed a lab. One that couldn't be bought, couldn't be leaned on, and had no ties whatsoever to the Sydney registry.I dialled a scrambled international line, the kind that looped through Singapore before it ever touched Melbourne, and let it ring."Dr Thorne," I said it quietly the second the connection caught.Aris Thorne was a brilliant, reclusive geneticist running an independent diagnostic lab o