LOGINChapter 88A pin drop could have been heard over the roaring silence in the boardroom.Chloe stumbled backward, her red high heels catching on the carpet. "Y-Your son? You don't have a son! You don't have an heir! Victor made sure of it!""He has me."The high-pitched, incredibly calm voice didn't come from anyone sitting at the table. It came from the doorway.The heavy double doors swung fully open.Standing in the threshold, flanked by two massive private security guards, was Leo Frost. The four-year-old prodigy wore a perfectly tailored miniature navy suit that exactly matched his father’s. He held his oversized tablet tucked neatly under his arm.The board members gasped, their eyes darting rapidly between the towering billionaire at the head of the table and the tiny boy in the doorway. The aristocratic jawline, the dark hair, and the piercing, storm-gray eyes—the resemblance was absolute, terrifying, and completely undeniable."Who the hell is that?!" Chloe shrieked, pointing a
Chapter 87The morning of the board meeting dawned bitterly cold, the sky a bruised, unforgiving gray that matched the tension gripping the city’s financial district.Inside the cavernous, glass-walled executive suite of Cole Corp, the atmosphere was thick enough to suffocate. Fifteen senior board members sat around the massive mahogany table, murmuring nervously among themselves. The sudden death of Victor Vance and the rumors surrounding Ethan Cole’s erratic behavior at the memorial service had the company’s stock prices teetering on the edge of a violent plunge.At the head of the table, an empty leather chair waited.To the right of the empty chair sat Chloe. She wore a striking, blood-red designer suit, her blonde hair pulled back into a severe, calculating knot. The manic desperation she had exhibited in her uncle’s study over the weekend was entirely gone. She sat perfectly still, a terrifying portrait of absolute, venomous confidence. Resting neatly on the table in front of he
Chapter 86While Ethan and Zara were leaving the precinct, the atmosphere inside the Vance Manor was toxic with sheer, unadulterated panic.Chloe stood in the center of Victor’s sprawling, dark mahogany study. The room looked like it had been ransacked by a tornado. Books were thrown from shelves, Persian rugs were overturned, and expensive art hung askew on the walls."Where is it?!" Chloe shrieked, violently sweeping a stack of crystal whiskey decanters off the desk. They shattered against the hardwood floor, splashing amber liquid everywhere.She was hyperventilating. The events at the shipyard had completely broken her grip on reality.Ethan remembered.He wasn't going to marry her. He was going to walk into the boardroom on Monday and casually destroy her entire life. Kael was in police custody, the offshore accounts were frozen, and she had absolutely nowhere to run. Zara had completely checkmated her.Unless...Victor was a paranoid, meticulous sociopath. He never entered a war
Chapter 85The following morning, the atmosphere inside the central police precinct was a chaotic blend of ringing phones, shouting detectives, and the stale smell of bad coffee.Julian Pierce sat on a rigid metal bench in the holding area, wearing the same tailored suit he had been arrested in. He looked exhausted, his sandy-blonde hair disheveled, but he immediately stood up when the heavy security doors buzzed open.Zara walked through the threshold, followed closely by her legal team."Julian," Zara breathed, practically running toward him and throwing her arms around his neck.Julian caught her, burying his face in her dark hair, letting out a profound sigh of relief. "Thank god. When they pulled me over and popped the trunk... Zara, I thought I was going away for life. How did you get the charges dropped?""We acquired an audio confession from the men who planted the body," Zara explained, pulling back and gripping his arms. "Kael is currently in Interrogation Room B cutting a p
Chapter 84The drive back to the Frost Estate was enveloped in a suffocating, heavy silence.Outside the tinted windows of the Porsche, the coastal fog clung to the winding cliffside roads. Inside, the adrenaline that had fueled them both at the shipyard was rapidly burning off, leaving behind a raw, agonizing emotional wreckage.Ethan sat in the passenger seat, staring at the woman behind the wheel. The dashboard lights cast a soft, ethereal glow over Zara’s profile. She drove flawlessly, her grip on the leather steering wheel loose but precise. Yet, he could see the faint tremor in her lower lip and the rigid tension radiating through her shoulders.She had just stared down a heavily armed mercenary and a sociopathic stepsister without blinking. But now that the immediate threat of death had passed, the reality of what had actually occurred was settling into the enclosed space of the car.He remembered. Everything.Ethan slowly reached across the center console. He didn't ask for pe
Chapter 83The abandoned South Bay shipyard was a desolate wasteland of rusting shipping containers, broken cranes, and the heavy scent of saltwater and decay. A thick, chilling fog rolled off the ocean, obscuring the moonlight.A sleek black Mercedes pulled into the center of the yard, its headlights cutting through the mist.Chloe stepped out, clutching a heavy leather duffel bag to her chest. She was trembling, terrified of the shadows, but driven by absolute desperation.From behind a stack of rusted containers, Kael emerged. The massive mercenary wore dark tactical gear, his face heavily scarred. He didn't look happy."You're late," Kael grunted, stepping into the headlights.Chloe practically threw the duffel bag at his feet. "There’s two million in untraceable bearer bonds in there. It’s everything I could pull from the corporate slush funds without alerting the board. It’s more than enough to cover your retainer."Kael kicked the bag open, inspecting the stacks of paper. He sn







