All Chapters of Reborn as the Ruthless Heir’s Contract Wife: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The ring belonged to Alaric Mercer.My grandfather.Father stood beside Helena’s monitor, staring at the restored image as though the dead had reached through the screen.“That ring was buried with him,” he said.“Did you see it on his body?” I asked.Father’s silence answered me.Alaric Mercer supposedly died twenty years earlier after his yacht caught fire beyond the eastern harbour. Investigators recovered several personal items but no identifiable remains. The family held a closed-casket funeral.Another death without a body.Another conclusion everyone had accepted because grief made questions feel disloyal.Caelan enlarged the surviving frame from the clinic.Only the stranger’s hand and part of his dark sleeve appeared. The divided-crown ring pressed against Caelan’s wrist while the syringe entered my intravenous line.“It could have been stolen,” he said.Father turned toward him.“Alaric never removed it. Not while sleeping. Not during surgery. Not even when he signed the agr

Ronan contacted me again at dawn.This time, he sent coordinates to a disused railway station outside the city. Mara’s team confirmed the area contained no visible Crowne activity, but that meant little.I informed Caelan.Our separation did not justify walking blindly into danger.His reply arrived immediately.I’M COMING.I nearly told him not to.Instead, I answered:STAY OUTSIDE UNTIL I CALL.His response contained one word.AGREED.Ronan waited inside the empty station beneath a broken clock. The evidence case sat beside him.He had removed his weapon and placed it on the floor.Mara searched him before allowing me closer.“You could have brought this evidence to the estate,” I said.“The estate is monitored.”“So is Mercer House.”“Yes.”“Then where is safe?”“Nowhere connected to our families.”He opened the case.The bridge photograph, future police report, and C-17 sample remained inside.“You did not steal them for Crowne.”“No.”“Why take them?”“Because Helena’s laboratory

We rebuilt the night minute by minute.11:46 p.m.—my car left the Vale charity reception.11:52 p.m.—the driver received an instruction from my phone to use the bridge road.11:58 p.m.—Caelan’s vehicle began following.12:07 a.m.—an unknown car struck Caelan two kilometres from the bridge.12:11 a.m.—my brakes stopped responding.12:14 a.m.—my car broke through the barrier.12:16 a.m.—Caelan entered the river.12:19 a.m.—the Crowne ambulance arrived.12:22 a.m.—I was pulled from the car alive.The official report claimed rescue teams did not arrive until 12:41.Crowne controlled the scene for nineteen minutes before real emergency services appeared.“What happened to my driver?” I asked.Ronan opened the personnel file.“His body was never recovered.”I had assumed he drowned.The underwater photographs showed the driver’s door open and his seat belt released.“He escaped.”“Or was removed.”“Did he work for Crowne?”“We found payments to his wife through Halden Relief.”Another betra

The vehicle stopped twenty metres away.Mara’s officers aimed from concealed positions, but I signalled them not to fire.Caelan appeared conscious. His hands were unbound, yet the stiffness of his posture told me he was not there willingly.The elderly driver stepped out.Alaric Mercer looked older than the photographs but less frail than a man approaching ninety should have appeared. His silver hair was cut neatly, and the divided-crown ring shone beneath the bridge lights.Father’s eyes.My eyes.“You look like Isabelle,” he said.His voice matched the one in Caelan’s fragmented memory.“You died twenty years ago.”“So did you.”The answer stripped death of meaning.“Release Caelan.”“He came voluntarily.”I looked at my husband.“Is that true?”“Yes.”“Why?”“Alaric offered the missing clinic footage.”My anger flared.“You disappeared without telling me.”“I knew you would follow.”“So you removed your ring and phone to make me believe you had been taken?”“To make Crowne believe

The competing messages were designed to divide instinct from trust.Caelan’s voice ordered us not to open M-17.My voice urged us to do it.Either recording could have been fabricated.We tested both.Caelan’s contained background noise from the current day—machinery beneath Mercer House and the same irregular vibration detected near the archive.Mine came from the night of my death.I could hear the clinic monitor beneath the words.The message was genuine but removed from its original context.Crowne had taken something I said in another life and turned it into a command against my husband’s current warning.“We do not open it,” I decided.Father looked relieved.“What about the blood?”“Someone brought it here to make us believe Caelan is inside.”Ronan searched the underground passage.The blood trail began abruptly, with no drops leading toward it. It had been carried in a container.Caelan remained elsewhere.Darius instructed me to bring Alaric’s death certificate to the origin