The Victorian Mga Nobela at Kwento

I could not let them see how shaken I was. I poured myself a drink and downed it in one gulp. Then another. The alcohol burned but it did not calm me down. There was a knock on my study door. "Damien? Are you in there?" It was Victoria. I set down my glass and called out, "Come in." Victoria entered, looking elegant as always in a navy blue dress. She was thirty five, three years older than me, and had inherited Eleanor's sharp features and sharper mind. She had been in London for the past two weeks overseeing our European operations.

She met his gaze, steady despite the fear that I could see crawling beneath her ribs with the way she kept tugging at the hem of her shirt. “Victoria Blackthorne does not lose wars,” Viktor said quietly. Annabelle inhaled slowly. “Then she shouldn’t have started one with me.” For the first time since we got here and started this boring conversation, Viktor’s expression shifted into something resembling respect.

"Sumire, this is your unluckiest night and my ticket to the win. Your fame, projects, spotlights, and adorations from your avid fans will finally be mine. You will lose everything that you love and suffer for the rest of your days. So stay there, and be a good girl. Somebody will take care of you tonight, " Laughing like true villainy, Victoria said as she looked contemptuously at the maiden who was moaning and groaning in bed. Five minutes later, a series of knocks bomb on the door of the exclusive suite. Eyes glint in deviltry, Victoria widely smiling victoriously as she sauntered towards the door. She was certain those were the men she was expecting to arrive.

I felt a knot tighten in my stomach, a sense of foreboding washing over me. Her name was Victoria Harrington, a powerful and ruthless businesswoman known for her cunning tactics and insatiable ambition. She had been Adrian's closest business rival for years, constantly vying for dominance in the corporate world. And now, it seemed, she had set her sights on a new conquest – Adrian himself. I approached them just as Victoria reached Adrian, her lips curled into a calculated smile. "Adrian Sinclair, as charming as ever," she purred, her voice dripping with honeyed words.

“Empires don’t die, darling. They multiply.” And then she did something Ava didn’t expect. She smiled softly, like a mother looking at her child. “Do you think I didn’t plan for failure?” Ava froze. “What do you mean?” Victoria coughed, a wet, broken sound, and raised a trembling hand toward the ground. “Everything you burned… was just one branch.” Ava’s stomach turned. “No.” “Oh yes,” Victoria said, her voice faint but gleeful. “You think you destroyed my research, my files, my reach? There are other labs, people, and systems I built years before you were born. You only burned one seed. The forest still stands.”

"Listen, I know you begged and crawled your way up to his neck just so you can have him, you whore!" "Victoria, or whatever you're called, listen up," I said, and I had no idea where my courage came from, but I found myself talking, my voice growing stronger with each word. "I'm not a whore, neither did I crawl my way up to the so-called Adrian's neck. I don't even know who you're talking about. Just because you throw yourself at men doesn't mean that other ladies do too." "How dare you?" Victoria asked, gasping as if I had struck her.

A sharp, digital chime echoed from the private, biometric elevator doors. The locks hadn't been picked. They had been overridden by the ghost codes Victoria Cross had stolen from the Valerius architecture. The heavy steel doors slid open. Victoria Cross stepped into the penthouse. She looked terrifyingly like a mirror image of Zara's own aristocratic coldness. Victoria wore a flawless, slate gray tailored suit. Her silver hair was pulled back into a severe knot. She wasn't holding a weapon, but she was flanked by two massive, heavily armored Volkov mercenaries carrying suppressed tactical rifles.