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All Chapters of FORGOTTEN IDENTITY: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

47 Chapters

Chapter 11

"I do," they said in unison.The sync was creepy. It was that twin thing they did that usually made me want to hide under my duvet, but today I just raised an eyebrow and pointed to the paper."Only one date per weekend," I reminded them."Figure it out. Preferably somewhere that doesn't involve my office. Now, if you'll excuse me, sirs," I dragged out the syllable. “I have actual work to do. So we can keep this company you just bought from tanking. They lingered for a second — Kade with a look of impressed amusement and Killian with a brooding intensity that suggested he was already looking for a loophole — before they finally retreated.As the door clicked shut, the mask I'd been wearing slipped. I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and slumped into my chair. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped animal.That was so hard.It was like being threatened by all the bosses I had ever worked for. No. It was even worse. The creepy stare downs from two pairs o

Chapter 12

The week that followed was surprisingly... quiet.Well, as quiet as life can be when you've essentially told two billionaire predators to go balance some checkbooks while you enjoy your weekend in peace. I had expected a retaliatory strike, maybe that they’d schedule a mandatory board meeting at 3:00 AM or maybe they’d order that my office be turned into a ball pit in retaliation for my rejection, but the twins actually listened. Or, more likely, they were genuinely preoccupied with the $2 million hole l'd pointed out.I always knew that Carter industries was such a powerful force because they were hardworkers, but this was the biggest confirmation I could get.I spent my days actually doing my job, which was a refreshing change from being a human tug-of-war rope between two overgrown toddlers. I even managed to have a lunch with Clover where we didn't mention the words "Carter" or "twins" once, though she did spend ten minutes trying to convince me that my skin was glowing, implyin

Chapter 13

Kade’s gaze locked onto the screen, his jaw tightening into a hard, dangerous line. The laidback, handsome problem look he was giving at first quickly vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, calculating predator that ran a global empire, and was one of my company’s CEOs.He took the phone from my hand, his thumb scrolling to zoom in on the grainy silhouette hunched over my safe."That’s an IV descrambler," Kade muttered, his voice dropping an octave. "You don't pick those up at a hardware store. That’s serious tech."I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. "There’s nothing in there, nothing worthwhile—""There’ll be something in there in a few minutes, I believe,” Kade said, his eyes narrowing as he watched the burglar. Did it count as a burglar if they were stealing company secrets and not household items?What I was truly curious about was the person who had decided to invest so much time and energy into breaking into a relatively empty safe.I dealt with litigation, there were count

Chapter 14

Kade's phone kept buzzing on the counter, and he just kept slicing a pepper like the apocalypse hadn't personally called his cell. "You're insane," I told him. "A man is being apprehended in my office and you're making guacamole." "He's not being apprehended. Killian doesn't apprehend. He intimidates until people apprehend themselves." I texted Killian myself. ARE YOU OKAY. WHO IS IT. Killian: Handled. One word. Seven letters. Zero useful information. Kade finally checked his own phone, and whatever warmth had been sitting on his face all evening drained out of it in real time. "They got away," he said. "Through the service elevator behind records. The one that isn't on the blueprint." My stomach dropped. "Nobody knows about that elevator. I only know because of a fire audit two years ago." "Which means whoever did this works here," Kade said quietly, "or has access to someone who does." We drove to the office at eleven that night. Killian was waiting in my office looking n

Chapter 15

I didn't go back downstairs immediately. I stood at that railing until the cold worked its way past my jacket and into my bones, because going back down meant deciding, and deciding meant lying to two men who had just dismantled five years of careful obsession in a single evening.I wasn't good at lying. Not the smooth, practiced kind Killian produced like breathing. Mine came out stiff, riddled with pauses. So I decided I simply wouldn't mention it yet. A thin distinction, morally bankrupt probably, but it was the only thing standing between me and a panic room with armed guards.Killian was waiting by the stairwell when I came back through. "You look like you saw a ghost.""I saw a city. From a very tall building. It's disorienting."He studied me a beat too long. Whatever he saw, or didn't see, seemed to satisfy him.Kade drove me home an hour later, after Killian lost the argument over whose car I'd take. I sat with my phone in my lap the entire ride, the unknown number's messages

Chapter 16

The car ride back to the office felt longer than it actually was, every red light an insult, every block a fresh chance for my nerve to fail me. I kept Eloise's words running on a loop in my head. Trust my sons. Trust no one else. Including her.It was an impossible thing to ask of a person, trusting two billionaires and nobody else, while standing in the wreckage of a friendship that had apparently been a performance from the start.Killian met me at the elevator, his face tight in a way that had nothing to do with his usual brooding. "Where have you been? Kade said you went quiet for two hours.""I needed air," I said, which wasn't technically a lie, just an old lie reused.He studied me, the same way he had the night before, and I held his gaze with my best courtroom face until he let it go, apparently deciding that whatever was wrong with me could wait until after the bigger disaster currently unfolding three floors up.Kade was waiting in a small conference room I didn't recogniz

Chapter 17

"Someone explain it to me," I said, when the silence had stretched long enough that I thought I might scream just to break it. "Right now. In small words, because apparently I'm the only person in this building who doesn't already understand what's happening."Kade dragged a hand down his face, the gesture so uncharacteristically human that it scared me more than his stillness had. "Vivienne wasn't just my fiancée. Her family's holding company was one of three that bid against my father for a controlling stake in a shipping conglomerate eight years ago. We won. They lost badly enough that two board members resigned and her father's reputation never recovered.""And you married into that family anyway?""I didn't know the full history when we got engaged," Kade said. "I found out later. By then it didn't seem to matter. She seemed to genuinely not care about the business at all." His jaw tightened. "I was wrong about that, apparently."Killian had started pacing, a slow, contained trac

Chapter 18

The twins wanted to deny the request outright. Kade actually had his thumb hovering over the reply button before I snatched the phone out of his hand."No," I said. "I'm done having things decided around me. If she wants to meet, I'm meeting her. On my terms this time, not hers.""Mia." Killian's voice had an edge of genuine alarm in it, rare enough that it stopped me mid-sentence. "This is the woman who just tried to put you in federal prison.""Which is exactly why I'm not doing it alone in some abandoned location," I said. "Public restaurant. Daylight. Both of you sitting at a table fifteen feet away pretending you're not listening to every word."It took twenty minutes of arguing, but eventually they agreed, mostly because Kade pointed out that refusing would only buy Vivienne time to plan something worse, and at least this way they could control the setting.We met her three days later at a restaurant downtown known for its glass walls and its inability to hide anyone from anyone

Chapters 19

Two weeks passed before anything started to feel ordinary again.The charges against Vivienne and her father's company moved slower than I expected, the kind of grinding, bureaucratic slowness that made Killian pace my office like a caged animal every time his lawyer called with another delay. Clover resigned before HR could even finish the paperwork on her termination, leaving a note on my desk that I still hadn't been able to bring myself to read past the first line.Eloise came to see me once more, this time at my apartment instead of an abandoned pier, bringing a bottle of wine and an apology that sounded considerably more sincere than the one she'd delivered on the East River."I should have told them years ago," she said, sitting at my small kitchen table like she belonged there, like she hadn't spent six months watching my life from a careful, deliberate distance. "I told myself I was protecting them. I think, if I'm honest, I was protecting myself from watching them go to war

Chapter 20

Kade picked the restaurant the way he picked everything, with a quiet, unshowy precision that somehow felt more thoughtful than Killian's grand gestures ever had. Small, tucked into a side street I'd never noticed despite walking past it a hundred times, the kind of place that didn't advertise and didn't need to.He was already seated when I arrived, no entourage, no security hovering at the door, just a man in a simple navy sweater who stood the moment he saw me, like some old-fashioned instinct he'd never quite shaken."You came," he said, echoing his mother's words from the pier without realizing it, and the small, involuntary flinch I gave at the phrase made his brow furrow slightly. "Did I say something wrong?""No. Just a strange echo." I sat, smoothing my dress, suddenly aware of how badly I wanted this dinner to be simple, uncomplicated, the way he'd promised. "Sorry. Long few weeks.""The longest," he agreed, and for a moment we just sat there, two people who had been through

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