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Home / Mafia / Divorce Clause: Heir Included / Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

All Chapters of Divorce Clause: Heir Included: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

129 Chapters

41

Nathan’s POV"You were about to mark me!"The words cut through the haze of heat like a splash of cold water. I stumbled back, my breath coming in jagged hitches. She was right. I was a second away from sinking my teeth into the junction of his neck and shoulder, claiming him in the only way the Underworld understood.My instincts were screaming. Three years of believing Zack was a ghost had eroded my restraint. If I branded him now—left that permanent, jagged scar that signaled he was property of the Durand empire—he could never slip into the shadows again.I watched him. He looked wrecked, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and shimmering with a mix of terror and a hunger he couldn't hide. My inner demon roared. He’s calling for it. He needs the weight of your name to keep him grounded.I studied the sharp lines of his face. I saw the fury, the years of resentment, but I also saw the longing."Tell me to stop," I ordered, my voice a rough, gravelly rasp."What?" Zack faltered, his bac

42

The beige envelope hit the mahogany desk with the weight of a coffin lid.Confidential.The word was stamped in blood-red ink across the seal. Nathan didn’t look away from Zack. He didn't blink. His jaw was a ridge of jagged granite, muscles bunching as he tracked the way the color drained from Zack's face."You want to keep lying, Zack?" Nathan’s voice was a low, lethal vibration. "Or do we let the ink do the talking?"Zack stood frozen. The air in Julian Wright’s office had turned to pressurized lead. Two minutes ago, he’d been pulled into a tearful, suffocating embrace by Nathan’s mother, Eliza. She had whispered blessings and apologies, acting as a human shield against the tension. Now, the shield was gone. Nathan had reached into Eliza’s bag and pulled out the one thing Zack had spent three years running from."I told you," Zack’s voice was a thin, dry rasp. "He isn’t yours. Ethan is his father.""Is that right?" Nathan took a step forward. The floorboards didn't even creak under

43

Nathan stared at the document, the expensive linen paper mocking him.The conclusion was a serrated blade to the gut. Unmistakable. Impossible. He’d scoured the lines of text a dozen times, hunting for a typo, a botched sample, a shadow of hope that the laboratory had fumbled the chemistry. The ink remained dry and damning. Beneath columns of genetic markers that looked like gibberish, the bottom line screamed in bold:Probability of Paternity: 0%Liar. The word echoed in his skull, but he couldn't tell if it was aimed at the paper or the man standing across from him.Zack had gone the color of parched bone the second the envelope appeared. Now, he simply tightened his grip on the boy. Nathan couldn't see the kid's face—Leo was tucked against Zack’s shoulder, his small, rhythmic huffs of breath the only sound in a room that had turned into a vacuum.Zack’s mouth thinned into a hard, defensive line. His eyes were wide, wary, and glowing with that violet-tinted defiance Nathan had spent

44

Eliza didn’t reach for her holster much these days.The steel felt cold against her hip, a weight that hadn’t sat right since Julian Wright took a bullet meant for the family legacy. The streets of Havenfall were a meat grinder, and while her instincts remained sharp, the cost of the life was written in the lines around her eyes. She moved with a silent, predatory grace, trailing Nathan’s tire tracks into the industrial outskirts.Nathan had torn out of the safehouse like a man possessed, a live wire looking for a socket. Lucas and Marcus were on his tail, but they were soldiers. They’d offer him a gun or a distraction, but they wouldn't offer him the truth.Eliza followed the scent of burnt rubber to a jagged cliffside overlooking the black sprawl of the docks. Nathan stood at the edge, his silhouette a dark rift against the city lights. Lucas and Marcus stood ten paces back, hands on their pieces, guarding a perimeter their boss didn't want.Eliza stepped past them. Marcus tried to

45

Nathan pulled the bedroom door shut with a click that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet suite. Zack was already there, arms wrapped tight around his ribs, eyes darting toward the floor as if looking for an exit that didn't exist. The air in the narrow hallway turned heavy, charged with the static of three years of unspoken wreckage."Still a fan of the shadows, Zack?" Nathan stepped forward, his massive frame eating up the space until Zack was forced to back into the wall to keep from being touched.Zack didn't look up, but his jaw was set hard. "Why the hell did you tell him those things?""The kid wanted a story. I gave him one." Nathan leaned one hand against the wallpaper above Zack's head, pinning him in."It was a fairy tale," Zack spat, finally meeting his gaze with eyes that were a messy swirl of violet and defiance. "Fairy tales are for people who don't live in the real world. They aren't real.""So?" Nathan took a slow, predatory step closer, his voice dropping to a gravel

46

The kitchen was a slaughterhouse of shattered porcelain and splintered mahogany. Nathan didn’t see the mess; he saw the crimson blooming on Zack’s pale shoulder.Ethan Cole had lunged in a frantic, uncoordinated fit of rage, and his personal guard—five shadows in tailored suits—had followed like a pack of starving dogs. Nathan didn’t wait. He didn’t hesitate. He intercepted Ethan mid-air, a guttural snarl ripping from his throat as he drove his shoulder into the man’s solar plexus."Zack, get to the boy!" Nathan roared, his voice cracking with a raw, jagged authority.Zack didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled off the counter, his legs shaking, and bolted toward the bedroom. He didn't see the suit moving for him with a serrated blade. He only heard the sickening crunch of bone as Nathan’s fist met the man’s nose, senting him spiraling into the drywall.The room exploded into a blur of silver and red. Nathan was a hurricane of calculated violence. He didn't fight like a man; he fo

47

Nathan didn’t just walk; he stalked.The low hum of the hospital wing’s ventilation was the only sound besides the heavy thud of his boots. He pushed the door open, finding Zack already upright, legs swung over the side of the clinical bed. Zack’s skin, usually a porcelain map of old scars and new stress, looked flushed. The jagged violet bruising along his ribs from the Cocolink fallout had faded into dull yellow shadows."Back in bed, Zack. Now." Nathan’s voice was a low vibration that seemed to rattle the windowpanes.Zack didn't budge. He gripped the edge of the mattress, his knuckles white. "I’m done rotting in here, Nathan. I can breathe without wheezing. I’m fine.""The medic said forty-eight hours of observation. You took a hit to the chest that would’ve caved in a normal man's lungs." Nathan stepped into the sliver of light from the hallway, his shadow swallowing the bed. "Don't make me pin you down."Zack’s jaw tightened. He stood up, though he swayed for a fraction of a sec

48

Nathan didn’t look away from the faint purple blooming on Zack’s ribs."Nathan, quit staring. I’m fine!" Zack threw his arms out, the hospital gown slipping dangerously low on his hips. "Look. Scars are practically gone. See?"It was a lie. The jagged edge of a knife wound from the Cocolink hit was still a raw, angry line against his pale skin, though the Wright blood in his veins was knitting the flesh back together at an unnatural speed. Nathan didn't care about the speed. He cared about the risk."Back on the pillows. Now." Nathan’s voice was a low vibration, the kind that usually preceded a gunshot. He stepped into Zack’s space, nudging him toward the center of the mattress. Zack had been clawing at the walls of this private infirmary since dawn, his nerves frayed by the silence. Wrangling him was like trying to hold a handful of smoke.Zack crossed his arms, his jaw setting in that stubborn line that always made Nathan’s pulse skip. "I’m not the weak kid you married three years a

49

The air in the suite was thick, a cloying mix of iron, expensive cologne, and the salt of sweat. Nathan looked down at the man beneath him, and for the first time in three years, the predator in his chest stopped snarling and started to purr.Zack was a wreck. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his chest heaving in jagged, broken rhythms. He looked drugged, his eyes unfocused and swimming with the kind of raw, carnal static that only hit a Wright heir when their blood peaked. Nathan had spent a thousand nights picturing this—the high-stakes runner of the Cocolink underground finally broken open and yielding."You're making a mess of my sheets, Zack," Nathan rasped. His voice was a low, jagged friction that made Zack’s toes curl into the high-thread-count linen.Nathan didn't just see a beautiful man. He saw a legacy. Zack wasn't some fragile trophy; he was the hidden pulse of Havenfall. But right now, under the weight of Nathan’s body, he was just skin and bone and desperate, gas

50

Nathan’s heavy, scarred hand trailed a slow, burning path down Zack’s spine. The early light from the Havenfall skyline cut through the blinds, painting jagged amber stripes across the pale expanse of Zack’s back. Nathan traced the curve of a rib, his thumb lingering on the fresh purple bloom of a bruise before hooking the silk sheet bunched at Zack’s waist and tugging it down to the floor.Zack let out a jagged, broken sigh. He was facedown, his cheek pressed into the black pillowcase, but he shivered as Nathan’s mouth replaced his hand. Nathan nipped at the sensitive skin of his lower back, a sharp, proprietary sting that finally forced Zack to wake.He rolled over, his eyes heavy and red-rimmed, glaring up at the man looming over him. "Seriously? How am I supposed to sleep with you doing that?"Nathan let out a low, gravelly chuckle. He lunged forward, capturing Zack’s mouth in a kiss that tasted of salt and possessive hunger. "You’re missing the point, Zack."Zack’s breath hitched

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