LOGINEliana
Maxwell's words rang in my head as I walked into Theodore's office.
...So you're the reason my daughter's going to prison...
I set the folder on Theodore's desk and stood there trying to collect myself while he closed the door behind me. My hands weren't shaking and I was proud of that. They wanted to but I wasn't going to give Maxwell that satisfaction, not even privately, alone in a room with just Theodore watching.
Eliana"Lia."His voice filled the small kitchen of my new apartment, low and rough around the edges. It had none of the confident swagger his voice used to have. Or maybe that just became a recording. "I don't know if you're listening to these. I don't know if you'll ever listen to them. But I keep..." He paused, exhaling slowly. "I keep picking up the phone anyway. I don't know what that says about me."I stood at the kitchen counter with my coffee going cold in my hand. My eyes were fixed on the window and the busy buzz on the streets of San Francisco filtered in through it."I miss you." His voice dropped. "I just... I miss you. That's all I called to say."The message ended.I stood there for a long second after, batting my eyelids so hard. Then I set my coffee down, picked up my apron from the counter, and w
TheodoreShe had her back to the door when I came in.The evening light cut sideways across the room, hitting the lilies on every surface. The smell of them reached me before I was fully through the door. It had been a week of having them sent every morning.Eliana was looking at her phone, legs crossed on the bed, hair loose. She heard me and the amused expression on her face turned into a blank slate.How much longer would we have to do this?"Stop sending more flowers. The ward is huge but the flowers everywhere are making it look too small." She nodded at the lilies surrounding the room.I set the food I had brought on the bedside table and pulled the chair close. "Eat.""You say that every time.""Every time because you haven't eaten yet."Her mouth pressed together bu
Third POVTheodore himself, still in his suit jacket from the meeting they had pulled him out of walked in to take in the scene. His eyes swept the room once and found Eliana on the bed, his daughter on the floor. He moved to Eliana without looking at anything else, his hands going to her face, her wrist, the torn IV line hanging loose and bloody from her arm.Maxwell was already on the floor with two men on top of him, face down, his cheek against the hospital tile, arms wrenched behind his back. He strained against the hold until the third man put a knee in his back and he went flat on the ground.Theodore sat on the edge of Eliana's bed and put both arms around her, tugging her into his chest. She dropped her forehead against his chest and closed her eyes.In the corner Serena sat on the floor with her back against the wall, both hands at her throat, her phone in her lap still recordin
Third POVMaxwell had to give it to them.Blackwell's PR team was good. Really good. He had watched them work over the past months and he had to admit, the way they pivoted the narrative, slowly and then all at once, pulling focus from the scandal and redirecting it toward some global launch was a smart move. The board had gone quiet. The investors had retreated, satisfied that they would be making money and all his schemes to take down Blackwell had ended flatly.He sat in his study with the lights off and his drink untouched, admitting to no one but himself and only because there was no one else in the room that he was losing.Everything he had built toward was falling apart. Leslie was in prison, The mole operation was gone. The legal fees he had paid for Leslie's case and the public humiliation of watching his daughter get dragged out of Serena Blackwell's house in handcuffs while half the
ElianaThe hospital ceiling was the same one as last time.I knew it before I fully came back to myself, that particular pattern of tiles and fluorescent light. Damn, I was becoming a regular at the hospital, wasn't I? First the fire incident, now getting my shit rocked in the alleyway by Damon.Everything hurts. If I hurt in one place, that would have been manageable. But everywhere hurts, my ribs when I breathe, my cheekbones when I move my face, my hands when I try to close them and my legs.I lay very still on the bed, keeping my eyes glued to the ceiling. When would the painkillers kick in again?Theo had brought me in. I remembered that much. The car, his arm around me, his voice talking to someone, then the lights of the emergency entrance, a wheelchair and hands that weren't his taking me away. I remembered him standing at the edge of whatever they were doing to me wa
TheodoreHer door was wide open.I pushed through and stopped. A box was overturned near the kitchen counter, books scattered across the floor, her phone against the floor with the screen shattered and a chair knocked on its side. I was back on the street before I could think, glancing for any other sign of struggle.Someone had attacked her."Help! Somebody help me!"Fuck, was that coming from the alleyway down the street? I raced down without thinking twice with Steve getting out of the car and following behind me."Eliana?!"I came around the corner and everything in me went cold and still. Damon had a metal pipe raised above his head, both hands wrapped around it. Eliana had her back flat against the wall with nowhere left to go, both arms up in front of her face."HELP-" 
Eiana"This color suits her very much."The attendant held up a sapphire blue gown against my barely covered body. I stood on the raised platform in nothing but a black bra and matching panties. My skin prickled under the cool air and Theodore's heated ga
ElianaI did, thrills shooting up my spine when his free hand moved to my throat. His fingers wrapped around it lightly, feeling me swallow under his palm."Fuck." He cursed and set the fork down. His hand tightened a little on my throat. "You almost died
ElianaMy body moved.Pure instinct threw me sideways as a thousand pounds of crystal and metal plummeted toward where I had been standing.I hit the marble floor hard. Pain exploded through my shoulder and my hip. The chandelier cras
ElianaNo one came to a place like this unless they didn't want to be found.Graffiti covered the rusted and dirty walls of the warehouse. There were broken windows scattered around the building. I gripped the small purse holding the eight tho







