LOGINSilas’s POVThe thin and gray smoke from Serena’s cigarette drifted between us, in the dim light of the safe house. She sat on the edge of the leather sofa, her perfect posture was stiff and her eyes tracked my every move like a hawk. She didn't trust me. Not yet. But she would. I would make sure of that.I leaned against the heavy wooden desk, crossing my arms over my chest. Every muscle in my body felt tight and I felt a dull throb pulsing at the back of my skull where the tumor was slowly eating away at me. I ignored it. I had a job to do before the dark took me completely, and that job was keeping Lauren safe. Even if it meant making a deal with the devil sitting right in front of me."You're taking a long time to speak, Silas," Serena said, her voice dropping into that smooth, rich tone she used when she wanted to command a room. "My time isn't cheap. And keeping you hidden from Julian isn't exactly a walk in the park.""Julian doesn't know shit," I spat, letting a harsh laugh sl
Serena's POV The glowing screen of my laptop cast a harsh blue light over my face. The penthouse was dead silent, but my chest was heaving so hard I thought my ribs would snap. I stared at the grainy security footage playing on a loop. It was from the bar lounge where Julian and that little bitch Lauren were last night.My fingers dug into the edge of the desk until my fake nails bent.On the screen, Julian, my husband, had Lauren pinned against a wall. His hands were buried in her hair, pulling her face up to his like he was a starving man and she was his only salvation. And her? The street rat was kissing him back, her hands gripping his shirt like she belonged there."You fucking bastard," I whispered, the words scraping against my throat.They looked desperate. They looked completely and violently consumed by each other.I slammed the laptop shut. The sharp crack echoed through the bedroom, but it didn't stop the image from burning into the back of my eyelids.My sister. My cheap
Julian’s POV What the fuck did I just do?I pulled my mouth away from hers so fast my shoes slipped slightly on the hardwood floor. My chest was heaving, my heart was pounding against my ribs. The taste of her, the sweet and entirely too familiar, lingered on my tongue, burning badly.Lauren stayed pinned against the pillar, her eyes wide in the dim light of the living room. Her lips were swollen and wet, parted as she tried to catch her breath. Her small hands were still hooked around the back of my neck, her fingers trembling against my skin. For a second, just a split second, the raw hunger in my gut roared back to life. I wanted to lean right back in, destroy the distance between us, and ruin both of our lives tonight.Then, the cold reality of my life crashed back into my head like a physical blow."Fuck," I muttered, ripping myself completely out of her space. I turned my back on her, rubbing a hand roughly over my face. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't look at the way her ha
Julian’s POV The rain pattered across the massive glass windows of my penthouse, blurring the Seattle skyline into gray and black. It was past midnight. The rest of the city was quiet, but inside these walls, the air felt thick, heavy, and hot.I stood by the bar, pouring a glass of amber liquid I didn't even want. My mind was a complete wreck. For weeks, I had been drowning in a strange, angry confusion. The woman sleeping in my master bedroom–the woman my papers said was my wife, Serena–felt like a total stranger. But the girl currently sitting on the long leather couch across the room? She was the one driving me insane.Lauren was staring at a stack of printed reports Marcus had brought over earlier. She wasn’t a corporate executive. She didn't know the first thing about complex mergers or offshore banking tricks. But she had been sitting there for three hours, stubbornly turning the pages anyway, trying to find any mention of her sister's disappearance."You're going to burn a ho
Marcus’s POV The glowing screen of my laptop was starting to burn a hole straight through my retinas. It was past two in the morning, and the rest of the penthouse was dead quiet, but my head was pounding like a drum. I took a swig of the cold, bitter coffee sitting on my desk and cursed under my breath.Working for Julian Cross meant you didn't get the luxury of a normal sleep schedule. But lately, things had been completely fucked. Ever since Serena showed up again, acting like the perfect, doting wife, the entire energy in this place had shifted. Julian was on edge, a walking bomb waiting for a reason to go off. He’d spent the last week acting like a lunatic, avoiding Lauren like she was the goddamn plague while staring holes through the back of her head whenever she walked into a room. The man was miserable, furious, and obsessed. He didn’t remember that Lauren was the one he actually fell for during Serena's absence, but his instincts were screaming at him anyway.And my job? My
Julian's POVI was going out of my fucking mind.Seven days. Seven whole fucking days since I made the conscious choice to stop looking for her, to stop breathing the same air as her, to stop letting her existence pull at parts of my brain I couldn't control. I thought it would work. I was Julian Cross. I didn't get led around by my nose, especially not by some girl who claimed to be my wife's twin sister but looked at me like she was looking at my soul.But hiding from Lauren in my own damn house was the hardest thing I’d ever done.I sat at the massive mahogany desk in my study, the leather chair feeling more like a cage than a seat. The room was dark, lit only by the green lamp on the corner of the desk. It was past midnight. The rest of the penthouse was dead silent, but my chest felt like a bomb waiting to go off."Boss?"Marcus’s voice broke the quietness. He didn't knock. He never did when it was late and he knew I was in a foul mood. He stepped into the room, holding a folder,
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN LAUREN’S POV The private flight back to the city was suffocating. Julian had spent the entire nine hours sitting across from me, a glass of scotch in his hand, reading through files on his tablet like he hadn’t just shattered my entire reality against a bathroom door. He
CHAPTER ELEVENLAUREN’S POVJulian did not rush me.That was the first thing that made it worse.He just stood there for a second, looking down at me like he had all the time in the world, like he was deciding which part of me to cut open first. Then he dragged another chair across the floor and sa
CHAPTER FOUR LAUREN’S POV When I finally gathered the courage to unlock the bathroom door and step back into the bedroom, it was completely empty. Julian had left. I let out a massive sigh of relief. My shoulders dropped, and my shaking hands finally went still. I crawled into the massive, empty
CHAPTER THREE LAUREN’S POV Julian stopped moving completely. He just froze.For one very scary second, it felt like all the air left the room. I could not breathe. I did not step back. I stood right where I was. My chest moved up and down very fast. I thought he was going to take out a gun. I tho







