All Chapters of Beyond Our Broken Dreams: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The orders flew out from one of the highest offices in Harbor City, driven by a desperate determination to leave nothing undone.Preston threw every connection he had into the search.His reach extended across the globe.The reward was staggering, enough to tempt anyone with even the smallest lead.Top private investigators and information brokers from around the world descended on the case like sharks smelling blood.Liam joined the search too.Money poured out endlessly.Leads came in one after another.And one after another, they proved false or useless.Someone claimed to have seen a woman resembling Tanya somewhere in Southeast Asia.Preston immediately sent his most trusted people there.They spent days watching the area, only to discover that the woman was nothing more than a tourist with a vaguely similar build.Every lead began with hope.Every one ended in deeper disappointment.She had vanished into the crowd like a single drop of water disappearing into the oc

Preston didn't attend Sylvia's trial.Liam did.He sat in the very back row of the courtroom, watching without expression as Sylvia was led away by the court officers, sobbing and completely distraught.The moment she saw him, she reacted as though she'd found her last hope.“Liam! Liam, please help me!”She cried desperately.“I know I was wrong! Please talk to Preston! Ask him to let me go! We've known each other since we were kids!”Liam simply watched her.He didn't say a word.Not until her cries disappeared beyond the courtroom doors did he finally stand and leave.He never looked back.And just like that, it was over.Sylvia went to prison.The Shaw family suffered a devastating blow and never truly recovered.Meanwhile, as Preston continued his obsessive search for Tanya, he began another kind of penance.One that bordered on self-punishment.He paid an enormous sum for the dilapidated old house where Tanya had lived as a child.The walls were faded and peeling

He went alone.He took the fastest flight he could get, then transferred to a car and raced toward the border town.His heart pounded the entire way.This time, he had to find her.He had to.But less than thirty miles from the town, on a winding mountain road, everything went wrong.A heavy truck suddenly lost control around a bend and came barreling straight toward Preston's car.The driver yanked the wheel hard.Their car barely avoided a head-on collision, scraping along the mountainside.But the truck still clipped the rear of the car.The impact sent them spinning out of control.The vehicle rolled off the road and down the embankment.A deafening crash.The shriek of twisting metal.Glass exploding everywhere.The world spun violently.In the final second before Preston lost consciousness, the image that flashed through his mind was Tanya at the piano.Her head slightly bowed.Her profile quiet and still.Preston was rushed to the nearest hospital.His injuri

Three years.More than a thousand days and nights.Long enough for a city to transform completely.Long enough for a person to become someone new.Long enough for some wounds to scar over, while other longings festered into poison.Preston remained unconscious for two weeks after the crash.When he finally woke, the accident had left him with serious lasting injuries and a long road of rehabilitation ahead.But he seemed almost numb to the pain.The moment his condition improved enough, he threw himself back into the search.Yet after that missed lead in the border town, Tanya seemed to vanish from the face of the earth.Not a single reliable clue surfaced again.Preston grew quieter.Colder.More withdrawn.He poured most of his energy into work, and under his ruthless expansion, Hayes Corporation grew even more powerful than it had been three years earlier.But anyone who knew him could see the change.The intimidating aura that kept everyone at a distance had only gr

Summer's gaze shifted from Preston to Liam.Her expression remained completely unchanged.Only when she heard the name “Liam” did the corner of her mouth lift almost imperceptibly.It wasn't a smile.More like a faint, mocking flicker of recognition.Then she looked at Liam and smiled.The smile bloomed across her beautiful face, dazzling yet utterly devoid of warmth.There was something almost icy about it.“Mr. Hunter,” she said quietly, her voice carrying clearly to both men. “It's been a long time.”She paused.Her gaze swept meaningfully over Liam's face.Then her red lips parted, and the next words sent ice straight through his veins.“Oh, that's not right.”Her smile deepened slightly.“I suppose we used to see each other every night.”Every night.Two simple words.Yet they cut into Liam like knives, ripping away the last filthy layer of secrecy covering what had happened between them.All the color drained from his face.His lips trembled.He wanted to say