Lahat ng Kabanata ng Beneath His Cold Vows: Kabanata 421 - Kabanata 430

Edward’s POV The masks were the first problem. I knew this floor. Sight lines, acoustics, the bar positioned the same way it had been for many years. What changed was the faces. Every familiar feature sitting just behind a surface that wouldn't resolve. A room full of people I knew had become a ro

Alicia's POV Two points. Both fixed. Edward at distance. Adrian closing. I ran both lines and moved toward neither. Adrian reached conversational distance. I used the remaining seconds before I turned. Then I turned, far enough to acknowledge, close enough to the original position to keep what w

From the stage the south end resolved into something clearer. The shape of the group was readable from here in a way it hadn't been from the floor, the ring sealed, the interior compressed. Volkov's head had turned toward her. Her chin was up once. What I could read at this distance was not enough t

Edward’s POV I had not been to the office. It was Monday. The schedule existed. Leo had sent it at seven the way Leo always sent it, the day already arranged before I had finished my first cup of coffee, calls and meetings and follow-ups stacked in the order someone had been given before anyone kn

He had never touched me like that before. Three years. A marriage with its terms, its versions, its careful distances. And then one night in Zurich where all of it was gone, and what remained was only the two of us in a room, with no version of ourselves we had agreed to perform for the other. His