Chapter 9 I sighed, irritation starting to creep in. “I’m not most girls p> He smirked. “That’s what they all say p> I finished my drink and picked up the second glass, scanning the crowd again. Still no sign of Ivy. I checked my phone. Nothing from her. I set
Chapter 8 We danced longer than I realized. Time blurred the way it always did when you are having fun. Ivy and I moved together easily, laughing, bumping shoulders, singing along to lyrics we barely knew. Sweat clung to my neck, my hair sticking to my skin, but I didn’t
Chapter 7 I waited until Ivy finally stopped pacing. It took a few minutes. She circled the room twice more, ran a hand through her hair, then sank onto the edge of the bed with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t want to go,” she muttered. “I already told him I
Chapter 6 I was sixteen then. Ivy was barely eight then hollow-eyed and silent in a way no child should ever be. I still remembered the way she’d stood in the doorway of Lucas’s old apartment with a single suitcase, like she was afraid to take up too much space.
Chapter 5 I left the house to my car, my brothers had gone before me probably to clear off their heads too, we all had our hands tied, grandpa was the head of Hartwell corporations, and while my brothers somehow ran the company and other branches too my grandfather was
Chapter 4 The words echoed inside me. She’s not built for this. I thought of Ivy the way she really was, not the polished version people saw at family functions. The way she cried when she felt overwhelmed. The way she still reached for my hand in crowded rooms. The
Chapter 3 Noah’s voice cut through the room, rough and strained. “Why?.” Noah asked. Grandfather took his sweet time before answering. “Because our family needs his influence and his name p> “But we already very well to do on our own why do we need him p> Grandfather didn’t answer
Chapter 2 It always had. My grandfather’s house sat on the edge of the city, large and imposing, the kind of place that looked impressive from the outside but felt cold once you were inside. I’d grown up there in pieces. Holidays, mandatory dinners. Meetings that felt more like evaluations
Chapter 1 The sound of my brothers hands slamming the table echoed through the room, loud enough that I felt it in my chest before I fully registered what had happened. “That’s insane,” Lucas shouted. “You can’t be fucking serious p> My grandfather didn’t flinch. He sat at the head
Chapter 300 Chapter 300: He ran down the hallway — a man desperately trying to outrun the reality of his own destroyed life. The twin engines of the private helicopter screamed as the aircraft tore through the night sky, leaving the glowing grid of Manhattan far behind. Inside the cabin,
Chapter 299 Chapter 299: Cole rubbed his temples. A sickening knot of anxiety had been lodged in his stomach since he left Boston. He had ordered his intelligence team to dig into June’s background, but the results were delayed. The uncertainty was driving him to the edge of his composure.
Chapter 298 Chapter 298: The impact was not a crash. It was an explosion — two massive blocks of steel meeting with apocalyptic kinetic force. The heavy bulletproof windshield shattered instantly into a million opaque spiderwebs. The Suburban’s grille drove into Crawford’s door. The heavy armor plating of the Escalade
Chapter 297 Chapter 297: He wrenched the steering wheel hard. The massive Escalade drifted across three lanes of traffic, its heavy suspension absorbing the brutal maneuver, and surged onto the coastal highway on-ramp. The dark, freezing waters of the Atlantic appeared on their left. The highway was nearly empty. Crawford
Chapter 296 Chapter 296: Then a harsh, violent buzzing shattered the peace. Crawford’s encrypted tactical phone vibrated aggressively against the glass table. The warmth in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by cold, calculated steel. He picked up the phone and read the message. He looked up at June.
Chapter 295 Chapter 295: She had been staring at scrolling lines of chemical data for six straight hours. Her neck ached and her eyes burned, but she could not stop. The FBI had sent over the latest shipping manifests from the Providence port, and she was cross-referencing the batch numbers
Chapter 294 Chapter 294: “First of all,” Crawford said, his voice descending to a terrifying, deliberate cadence. “Her name is June Erickson. Do not ever refer to her as insignificant again p> He stepped forward. The distance between them vanished. “Secondly,” Crawford continued, his dark eyes boring into Cole’s skull,
Chapter 293 Chapter 293: “Crawford,” Cole hissed, the word tearing through his teeth. “Mind your own damn business p> Crawford did not blink. He placed both hands flat on the mahogany table. “It is my business now,” Crawford stated, his voice dropping to absolute zero. He glanced at his own
Chapter 292 Chapter 292: Then he turned and followed June out through the doors. Cole stood frozen in the center of the dining room. The humiliation was a physical weight crushing his chest. He looked down at Alycia’s hand still gripping his sleeve. He ripped his arm away. “Who the
Chapter 291 Chapter 291: June stopped walking. She looked at Alycia with the same expression she reserved for a stain on a lab counter. Alycia halted two feet away, clinging to Cole’s arm like a parasite. She looked June up and down, her lips curving into a toxic, pitying smile.
Chapter 290 Chapter 290: Cole’s hand froze. The memory of her holding a glass shard to her own throat flashed through his mind. He saw the same absolute revulsion in her eyes now, and knew with sickening certainty that his touch would be a violation she would physically fight off.