LOGINVALENTINA My throat felt dry, desperate for even a single drop of water. My wrists hurt from the ropes biting deep into my skin, and my head still pounded relentlessly from whatever they had used to knock me out cold. Every muscle in my body ached from being tied to this same damn chair for what felt like an eternity. I hated every inch of it. Every inch of this damned damp room. I hated the ropes digging into my flesh. I hated Agatha with every fiber of my being. I hated Harold and his smug face Most of all, though, I hated that I couldn’t stop thinking about Horace. Did he know I was missing? Did he even care anymore? Or did he still believe I was the one who murdered Deja? The thought stabbed deeper than the ropes ever could, twisting like a knife in my chest. Lita growled inside me, her voice fierce and unyielding. “He’ll come.” I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the hard chair. “I don’t know.” “He’ll come,” she repeated, stronger this time. I wished I had her
HORACEThe whiskey tasted like absolutely nothing anymore. That was a real problem because in the beginning. Those first few days it had burned hot. Hot enough to throw some of the noise screaming inside my head but now it just slid down my throat like plain water while my entire life kept collapsing around me in slow horrible pieces that I couldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried. I sat alone in the study room of the rebuilt penthouse with a half-empty bottle on the table right in front of me and another one lying somewhere on the floor where I must have dropped it earlier without even noticing. The place looked exactly like it had before the fire with the same furniture and the same walls and the same expensive bullshit that used to feel like home but now everything felt empty.Like somebody had stolen something important from it or maybe... someone.My jaw clenched so tight it ached as I stared at nothing in particular because every single corner of this space still carried trac
ZURIAShe leaned in, her eyes wide with a manic, hateful energy, and she continued, “Maybe she finally realized nobody wants a cold-blooded murderer around,” she sneered.That was it. I completely saw red.A blinding fury exploded in my chest, and I lunged forward, my hands reaching straight for her throat. But before my fingers could even graze her skin, several heavy hands clamped down on my arms. Three guards threw their weight onto me, physically dragging me backward.“Miss, stop!”“Let go of her!”“Please, just calm down!”They were shouting over each other, but I didn't care about their warnings. I thrashed violently against their grip, my boots kicking out against the floor. “Let go of me! Get your fucking hands off me!” I screamed, my voice echoing.Elisha let out another sharp, mocking laugh, taking a step back out of my reach. “Oh, wow. Look at you. Completely unhinged.”“You’re pathetic, you know that?” I snapped back, my chest heaving as I strained against the guards, pus
ZURIABy the time I finally reached the villa, my knuckles were white against the steering wheel. The long drive had completely shot my nerves, leaving a bitter taste of irritation in the back of my throat.But the moment I pushed through the heavy front door and stepped into the suffocating quiet of the house, that irritation instantly morphed into cold, sharp dread.“Val?” I called out, my voice echoing off the high ceilings.Nothing. No footsteps, no voice answering back.I didn't wait. I moved fast, tearing through every single room like a woman possessed. I checked the kitchen, the counters were clean, the air completely still. I sprinted to the living room, checked the patio, and threw open the bedroom doors one by one. Still, absolutely nothing. There was no luggage scattered across the floor indicating she had fled, and there was no crying blondie curled into a blanket on the couch.A suffocating panic clawed its way up my chest. I stood dead in the center of the massive, emp
VALENTINAI stared at her, my heart beating so loud.“Every single day, he would compare flowers to her,” she continued, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Isn't that completely ridiculous? He’d compare sunsets to her. He’d compare songs to her. And worst of all, every single time he looked at you... he saw her.”Her manicured fingers suddenly tightened around the delicate teacup. She gripped it so hard I could see her knuckles turning white, and for a second, I thought the fragile clay would actually shatter into a million pieces right in her hand.“He never loved me the way he loved her,” she sneered, the mask of elegance slipping just enough to reveal the rotting envy underneath. “He married me, yes, but he never belonged to me. And honestly, that wasn't even the worst part. I married his wealth, so I could tolerate a lot. But still... eventually, I simply got tired of being compared to a dead woman.”The room felt like it dropped twenty degrees in a single second. The cold w
VALENTINA Waking up felt like drowning in pure agony. It wasn’t a surface-level sting or a sharp burn, it was a heavy, suffocating throb pulsing directly behind my eyes. With every single beat of my panicked heart, the pain hammered against the inside of my skull, dull and brutal, as if someone had cracked my head open with a lead pipe and left the raw, throbbing wound to fester in the dark. My tongue clung to the roof of my mouth, dry as desert sand, and a fierce, fiery friction flared around my wrists and ankles. I tried to move, but the sudden heat of coarse rope biting into my flesh forced a low, ragged groan from my throat. I tried to lift my chin, but the second I did, the entire room tilted violently on its axis, dissolving into a dizzying, nauseating spin. I clamped my eyelids shut tight, swallowing down the bitter, sour taste of bile rising in my throat. Think. Where am I? My thoughts were sluggish, tangled in a fog. The last clear memory I had was sitting in
VALENTINAThe hotel room went completely silent, except for the sound of my heavy breathing. I was totally furious, practically shaking from head to toe with an explosive mix of adrenaline and hatred. I stared at the dark phone screen, then at the blank wall, then at the phone again. For one crazy
HORACEThe sound of skates carving across the ice echoed through the arena like gunshots. Practice had started two hours ago and should have ended thirty minutes ago, but nobody dared to mention it. I stood at center ice, my stick clenched so tightly my gloves creaked, watching the team run the sa
VALENTINA I could practically hear her pacing back and forth on the other end of the line, her footsteps echoing through the speaker. "I thought both of you were inside that burning building, Val!" "No, we were somewhere else when it started," I said, trying to force my voice to sound calm, thou
VALENTINA"I was so scared," Harold's voice had trembled against my neck all those months ago, his body shaking."So was I," I whispered back, my heart aching for him."I'm sorry, Val. I'm so sorry."I had hugged him even tighter, burying my face in his chest. "You don't have to apologize. You're s







