جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 9

Serelyn’s POVI woke up before Darian in the morning. For several minutes, I stayed still under the cold blankets and listened to his breathing. The room was exactly as I remembered it. The same curtains. The same dark wooden wardrobe. The same expensive sheets I had chosen because Darian once told me they made the bedroom look more elegant.Seven years ago, I had thought every little improvement I made to this house was an investment in our future. Now I looked around and saw receipts for everything I had given away.I picked up my phone again, checked the bank again and looked at my damn balance. Then my mind dragged me back to the beginning. The first debt had been small.Darian had come home late one evening, loosened his tie, and dropped into the chair across from me.“There’s a problem with the company.”I had immediately put my laptop aside, “How much?”“Not much.”It had been enough to make me hesitate. He had reached across the table and taken my hand.“I’ll pay you back.”

Serelyn’s POVI had survived betrayal, death, and being eaten alive. Now I had seventy-three days to become impossible to destroy.The lottery numbers appeared on the screen at eight that evening. I sat alone at my dining table with the ticket beside my phone. The first number appeared. I checked mine—Match.The second appeared.—Match.My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.Third, Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Match. All of them. For several seconds, I simply stared at the screen.I had remembered these numbers for years without knowing whether I would ever get the chance to use them. Now they were real.I had won. I didn’t scream. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even move. I just picked up the ticket and placed it inside an envelope. Then I locked it in the small safe under my desk. No celebration. No message to Darian. No excited phone call to a friend.The next morning, I contacted the lottery office through a lawyer and began the claim process. After taxes and the required deductions

Serelyn’s POVI barely slept that night because everytime I closed my eyes, I saw the photograph again.My grandmother stood in the center, younger than I had ever known her. Beside her was a boy who had grown into a man I had met only days ago—Kaeldric Vane.I sat at my desk before sunrise, the photograph lying in front of me. I picked it up again.The picture itself was ordinary. Old paper with faded edges. My grandmother’s handwriting on the back.But the words weren’t ordinary.When the end comes, trust no one except him.I read them for perhaps the tenth time. Then I put the photograph down.“No.”My voice sounded strange in the quiet room. I wasn’t going to blindly trust a man because my dead grandmother had written his name into a warning. She had known something. That much was obvious. But that didn’t automatically make Kaeldric safe.What if she had been wrong?What if Kaeldric had changed?What if the warning itself was connected to something I didn’t understand?I had alrea

Serelyn’s POVI spent most of the morning checking numbers. The supplier’s revised quotation sat open on my laptop, beside the original order confirmation. I had called twice already, hoping someone would admit there had been a mistake.But nobody did and the price increase was real. I pulled up the old records from my first life, searching for the date I remembered the manufacturer announcing its adjustment. I had kept the information because it affected several businesses I followed, including one of Darian’s suppliers.The announcement had come weeks later, not like it’s now. I called the supplier again.“Mrs. Vale, I understand your concern,” the man said when he answered. “But we received the notice yesterday.”“What prompted the increase?”“Demand, apparently. Several manufacturers have reported unusually high orders.”“From where?”“I wasn’t given that information.”I tapped my pen against the desk, “Are you experiencing delays as well?”“Some, nothing severe yet, but distribu