Chapter: Chapter 113Marcus’s POVThe video arrived on my phone at 3:47 in the afternoon while I was reviewing quarterly reports in my study, a task that had become rote and mindless enough to let my thoughts wander. Roland's updates had been coming in all week without anything alarming to report. Iris had gone to the grocery store exactly as she said she would, had met Maya for coffee at the time and place she mentioned, had attended a meeting at her publisher's office with no deviation from the itinerary she volunteered the night before. Every detail checked out, and some small part of me had begun to believe that maybe this could work, that maybe the surveillance and the tracking and the quiet verification of her every move were temporary measures that would eventually become unnecessary.The notification chimed and I opened it without urgency, expecting another routine confirmation of something she had already told me. What I saw instead made me set my phone down on the desk and stare at the wall fo
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-30
Chapter: Chapter 112Iris's POVThe call from my publisher came on a Tuesday morning, three weeks after Marcus had opened the front door and given me a choice. Eleanor Vance herself was on the line, which was unusual. Eleanor didn't make personal calls to authors. She had assistants for that, layers of them, a whole bureaucracy designed to insulate her from direct contact with the people who wrote the books that kept her company afloat."Iris, I have an extraordinary opportunity for you," she said, her voice crackling with the enthusiasm of someone who thought she was delivering good news. "There's a potential collaborator who's been asking about you specifically. Very interested in the next book. Very interested in your process. I think a meeting could be extremely beneficial for your career.""What kind of collaborator?""A private investor with significant resources. He's been following your work closely and he has some ideas for expansion into other media. Film ri
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-28
Chapter: Chapter 111Iris's POVThe first thing I did after Marcus went to bed that night was delete every message Victor had ever sent me. I sat on the bathroom floor with my phone in my hand and my back pressed against the cold tile, and I went through every thread, every text, every voicemail from every unknown number he had used to reach me. There were dozens of them, stretching back months, a digital record of an obsession that had consumed my life and destroyed my marriage and very nearly cost me everything I had left.My phone buzzed while I was deleting the last thread. A new message from a number I didn't recognize. "You've been silent for three days. Call me. Now."I deleted it without responding and blocked the number. Another message came through ten minutes later from a different number. "Iris, this isn't a game. Pick up your phone."I blocked that number too. Then another. Then another. He kept creating new accounts and new numbers and new ways to reach
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-27
Chapter: Chapter 110Marcus's POVI watched her stand in the doorway with the afternoon sun framing her like something out of a dream I had once believed in, and I waited to see which way she would fall. The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything I had said and everything she hadn't yet decided, and I found myself studying her face the way I had studied the pages of her book, looking for clues, looking for truth, looking for something that would tell me whether the woman I married still existed inside the woman who had betrayed me.She didn't move toward the door. She didn't move toward me either. She just stood there with her hands trembling at her sides and her eyes fixed on some point between the threshold and the living room, and I realized she was waiting for me to take the choice back. She expected me to slam the door and lock the deadbolt and tell her the offer had expired. She expected cruelty because she had been living with cruelty for so long she had forgotten what mercy looked lik
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-26
Chapter: Chapter 109Iris's POVHe left me alone with my confession for hours. I stayed on the couch because I didn't know where else to go, my legs drawn up beneath me and my eyes fixed on the study door that had clicked shut behind him with a finality that echoed through the empty rooms. The house was silent except for the occasional creak of the floorboards overhead and the distant hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and every minute that passed without him emerging felt like a small eternity. I had spilled every secret I had been carrying for months, every terrible choice and every weak excuse, and he had given me two words before walking away. The waiting was unbearable. Not knowing what he was thinking or what he planned to do, not knowing if he was calling a lawyer or packing my bags or simply sitting in that study with his head in his hands, was worse than any punishment he could have devised. I’ve spent two days trapped in this house with his silence, and thought that was the worst thing he
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-25
Chapter: Chapter 108Iris's POVI must have fallen asleep at some point during the night because I woke to gray light filtering through the living room curtains and the sound of a book closing. This was not the soft rustle of a page turning, but the final, deliberate thump of a cover being shut. I sat up so fast my head spun, my neck aching from the awkward angle I had been slumped on the couch.Marcus was standing in front of his armchair with the book in his hand. He had finished it. The remaining pages that had been clustered in his right hand were now all on the left, and the cover was closed, and he was looking at me with an expression that made my blood run cold. It was not anger or grief or even the flat calm I had grown used to over the past two days. It was something more resolved, something that looked almost like peace, and I understood with a clarity that made my stomach drop that the waiting was over.He set the book down on the coffee table between us, placing it carefully in the center as i
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-24
Chapter: Chapter 79Eve's POVVictoria Ashford resurfaced on a rainy Thursday afternoon, three days after we returned from Vermont.She called Devin directly, which was unusual because Victoria and I had developed a strange, adversarial respect for each other over the months of our conflict. She did not bother with pleasantries when he answered the phone. She simply said she had information about the silent partner and she was willing to share it in exchange for a private meeting.Devin relayed the message to me with an expression of deep skepticism. "She says she wants to meet at the Ashford family home in Greenwich. Neutral ground, she called it. I do not trust her.""Neither do I. But if she has information about the partner, we need to hear it. Victoria may be manipulative and self-serving, but she is not a killer. She would not threaten our baby.""I am not so sure about that.""Then come with me. We will meet her together, and if she tries anything, the security team will be right outside."The Ash
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-29
Chapter: Chapter 78Devin's POVSolomon found Lydia Vance on a Tuesday morning, ten days after the hospital scare.She was hiding in a small town in Vermont, working as a waitress in a diner off the interstate under a name that was not her own. She had dyed her hair a mousy brown and stopped wearing makeup and developed the hunched, evasive posture of a woman who was afraid of her own shadow. When Solomon's people approached her at the end of her shift, she tried to run. They caught her gently, spoke to her calmly, and convinced her that they were not working for Martin Lovelace.The safe house where they brought her was a cabin in the Green Mountains, surrounded by forest and accessible only by a single dirt road. Eve and I drove up the next day with the security team following at a discreet distance. The autumn leaves were past their peak now, the mountainsides fading from brilliant gold to muted brown, but the air was crisp and clean and smelled of pine.Lydia was waiting for us in the cabin's main ro
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-27
Chapter: Chapter 77Eve's POVI woke up feeling off on a Thursday morning, four days after the break-in at Priya's apartment. The cramping started as a dull ache low in my abdomen that I tried to The cramping started to dismiss as normal pregnancy discomfort. The books had warned me about round ligament pain and bloating and a hundred other minor symptoms that came with growing a human inside your body. I told myself it was nothing, that I was overreacting, that the stress of the past few weeks was making me imagine problems that did not exist.Until I went to the bathroom and saw the blood.It was not a lot. Just a few spots of bright red on the toilet paper, small and innocuous and utterly terrifying. I stared at them for a long moment, my mind refusing to process what my eyes were seeing. Then I called for Devin, and my voice came out high and thin and nothing like my own.He was in the bathroom in seconds, his face pale when he saw the blood on the tissue I was h
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-26
Chapter: Chapter 76Eve’s POV "There will not be a next time," Devin said. His voice was hard and certain. "You will stay here until this is over. The security team will escort you to and from work. You will not go anywhere alone. And we will find Gregory Hale before he has a chance to make good on his threats." I sat down beside Priya and took her hand. Her fingers were cold. "I am so sorry this happened to you. You did not sign up for death threats when you took this job. If you want to leave, if you want to take a leave of absence until this is over, I will completely understand." She shook her head, and some of the steel returned to her expression. "I am not leaving. I have worked for you for three years, Mrs. Cresswell. I have watched you stand up to Martin and the board and everyone else who tried to tear you down. I am not going to let some hired thug with a marker scare me away from a job I love and a boss I respect." "Priya."
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-25
Chapter: Chapter 75Eve's POVThe call from Priya came through at half past nine in the evening, just as I was settling into the couch with a cup of decaffeinated tea and a book I had been trying to read for the past three weeks. Devin was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, the soft clink of dishes against the sink a familiar and comforting backdrop to the quiet of the apartment. The security team had changed shifts an hour earlier, the evening crew replacing the day crew with the silent efficiency that had become routine.My phone buzzed against the coffee table, and Priya's name flashed on the screen. She never called this late unless something was wrong. I snatched it up before the second ring."What happened?""Mrs. Cresswell." Her voice was steady but there was a tremor beneath it, a thread of fear that she was trying very hard to control. "Someone was in my apartment. When I got home tonight, the door was unlocked and the lights were on. Nothing was taken, or at least nothing obvious. But the
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-24
Chapter: Chapter 74Eve’s POVThe kiss started soft, the way it always did between us now, a gentle press of lips that carried the weight of everything we had survived together. But gentleness had never been our only language, and as his hand came up to cup my jaw, I felt the kiss deepen by imperceptible degrees. His thumb traced the line of my cheekbone while his mouth moved against mine with a slow and deliberate intensity that made my breath catch in my throat."We should be careful," I murmured against his lips, though my hands were already sliding up his chest and my body was already leaning into his warmth."We are always careful." His voice was low and rough, the voice he used in the darkness of our bedroom when the rest of the world fell away. "I just want to make you feel good. I want to make you forget everything else for a little while.""You are very ambitious.""Hmmmmm."He kissed me again before I could respond, and this time there was nothing gentle about it. His mouth was hot and demandin
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-21
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