All Chapters of HIS REGRET MY REVENGE: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

72 Chapters

CHAPTER 29 : The secret partner

Marcus called on day eleven of his investigation. "I found something," he said. His voice was tight. Urgent. "You're going to want to see this in person. Not over the phone. Not through email. Face to face." Julian and I went to his office together. The drive was silent. The city blurred past the windows. I held Julian's hand the whole way. His palm was sweaty. So was mine. The office was smaller than I remembered. Tighter. The walls were covered in photographs connected by red string. It looked like something from a movie about a detective losing his mind. But Marcus wasn't losing his mind. He was finding something. "Victor didn't work alone," Marcus said, pointing to a photograph of a man I didn't recognize. The man was young. Dark hair. Expensive suit. Standing next to Victor at a charity gala, both of them smiling like they had just won a prize. "He had a partner. Someone who handled the things Victor couldn't handle himself. The dirty work. The jobs that required a diff

CHAPTER 30 : Elias attacks

We didn't have two weeks. We had four days. Elias struck on a Thursday afternoon. Lily was at school. The sun was shining. It was the kind of day that made you forget that terrible things existed in the world. Then my phone rang. It was Lily's school. "Ms. Vance, there's been an incident." My heart stopped. "What kind of incident?" "A man came to the front desk claiming to be Lily's uncle. He had identification. He knew her name. He knew her teacher's name. He knew everything." "Did you let him take her?" "No. Our security protocols prevented it. But he got aggressive. He threatened the front desk staff. By the time the police arrived, he was gone." Elias. I called Julian. Then Damian. Then I drove to the school faster than I had ever driven anywhere. Lily was in the principal's office, eating a cookie and drawing a picture. She looked up when I burst through the door. "Mommy! A strange man tried to take me." "I know, baby." I grabbed her and held her tight. "I'm here n

CHAPTER 31: The cabin

The cabin was deep in the woods. No neighbors. No roads. Just trees and darkness and the sound of wind through the pines. Julian parked the car a mile away. We walked the rest of the way. The ground was soft with fallen needles. The moon was hidden behind clouds. "Are you scared?" Julian whispered. "Yes." "Good. Me too." We reached the cabin. Lights were on inside. A car was parked out front. Elias's car. "He's here," I whispered. Julian pulled out his phone. "I'm calling the police." "Wait." I grabbed his arm. "If the police come, Elias will run. We need to talk to him first. Find out what Victor is planning." "Talking to Elias is dangerous." "Everything is dangerous." Julian stared at me for a long moment. Then he put his phone away. We approached the cabin. The front door was unlocked. Julian pushed it open. Elias was sitting at a table in the kitchen. A bottle of whiskey was in front of him. His eyes were red. "Took you long enough," he said. "You tried to take my

CHAPTER 32 :The pact

Elias talked for seven hours. The police recorded everything. The list of Victor's allies. The hidden accounts. The names of people who had been paid to keep secrets. The location of documents that could put Victor away for another lifetime. When it was over, Elias looked smaller somehow. Younger. Like a boy who had been playing a man's game and had finally lost. "What happens to me now?" he asked. "That depends," the detective said. "On how much of what you told us turns out to be true." "It's all true." "We'll see." They led him away. Julian and I stood in the hallway of the police station, watching through a window. "He's telling the truth," Julian said. "You believe him?" "I believe he believes it. Whether Victor actually planned to kill him or was just using fear to control him — that's different." We drove home in silence. The sun was rising. The world was waking up. Lily was still asleep when we got there. Damian was on the couch, his bruised face illuminated by th

CHAPTER 33: The ex-fiancée returns

Her name was Simone. Blonde. Tall. Beautiful in the way that expensive clothes and professional photographers can make anyone beautiful. She had been Julian's fiancée for six months — the woman on his arm at the gala where I had outbid him for Vantage Freight. Now she was standing on my doorstep. "I need to talk to you," she said. "How did you find this address?" "Julian's assistant. I made threats." She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Don't worry. They were empty threats. I just needed to see him." Julian appeared behind me. His face went pale. "Simone." "Julian." She tilted her head. "You look good. Happier." "What are you doing here?" "I'm pregnant." The words hung in the air like a guillotine. I stepped back. Julian stepped forward. "That's not possible." "Anything is possible, Julian. You know that." "We haven't been together in months." "Months is enough time." Julian looked at me. His eyes were desperate. "Elara, I swear —" "I know." My voice was calm. Calm

CHAPTER 34: The search for Marcus

Marcus Webb was not his real name. Of course it wasn't. Victor wouldn't send someone with a real name. He would send a ghost. Someone who didn't exist in any database. Someone who could disappear the moment the job was done. But ghosts leave traces. Damian's security team spent three days pulling surveillance footage from every street near Simone's apartment. They found him on a camera outside a bodega. Face half-hidden. Baseball cap. Sunglasses. "It's not enough," Julian said, staring at the grainy image. "It's a start." Damian zoomed in. "He has a tattoo. On his right hand. Between his thumb and index finger." "What kind of tattoo?" "A symbol. Looks like a snake wrapped around a dagger." I knew that symbol. I had seen it before. On Victor's desk. On the ring he wore. On the letter he had sent Julian from prison. "The Snake and Dagger," I said. "It's Victor's private symbol. Only his inner circle wears it." "So Marcus is inner circle," Julian said. "Which means he won't s

CHAPTER 35: The results

The doctor called on a Saturday morning. "The paternity test is negative," he said. "Mr. Thorne is not the father." Julian let out a breath he had been holding for days. I let out one too. Simone was in the guest room. We told her together. "The baby isn't mine," Julian said. She didn't look surprised. "I know." "You knew?" "I suspected. Marcus told me to say it was yours. He said it didn't matter if it was true. He just needed me to make you believe it." "Whose is it?" Simone looked down at her hands. "A man I used to date. He left when I told him I was pregnant. I haven't seen him since." "So you were just a pawn." "I was a desperate woman who needed money to protect her sister. The same sister who won't even talk to me." The room was quiet. Julian sat down across from her. "We're going to find Marcus. We're going to stop him. And then we're going to help you." "Why?" "Because that's what family does. Even broken family." Simone started crying. Real tears. The kind

CHAPTER 36 : The walls close in

The police found Marcus's car three hours after he died. Abandoned. Burned. Nothing left but a shell of metal and ash and melted plastic. The arson investigators said the fire had been started intentionally. Accelerant poured through the windows. A match. A whoosh. Then nothing. "No fingerprints," the detective said. He was a young man with a tired face and coffee stains on his tie. "No DNA. No evidence of any kind. Whoever did this knew what they were doing." "Professional," Julian said. "Very professional." "Victor's people." "Most likely." Marcus's phone was gone too. The one he had dropped in the parking lot. The one Detective Ross had bagged and labeled and sent to the lab. Someone had broken into the evidence room and taken it. No signs of forced entry. No alarms. Just a missing phone and a confused technician. "Victor has people everywhere," I said. "Victor has money everywhere," Julian corrected. "Money buys people. Money buys silence. Money buys anything." We went

CHAPTER 37 : The trap is set

Marcus had been hiding for three weeks. Three weeks of looking over our shoulders every time we walked down the street. Three weeks of jumping at every shadow that moved in the corner of our eyes. Three weeks of Lily asking why she couldn't play in the front yard anymore, why there were always guards at the door, why Mommy and Daddy looked so tired all the time. We couldn't live like this. Victor was in prison, but he had won anyway. He had taken our peace. He had turned our home into a cage. So Damian came up with a plan. "We use me as bait," he said. We were sitting in the living room. Julian, me, Damian, and Chloe. The television was off. The curtains were drawn. The house felt like a fortress, but fortresses can be breached. Every wall can be climbed. Every lock can be picked. "Absolutely not," Chloe said. Her voice was sharp. Final. "Chloe—" "No." She stood up. Her hands were shaking. "I just found you. I spent thirty-two years looking for someone like you. I'm not losi

CHAPTER 38: The chase

Marcus was fast. Not young. He was in his fifties, with gray hair and lines on his face that spoke of a hard life. But he was fast. He had the speed of a man who had been running his whole life. From the law. From his enemies. From himself. We hit the stairwell on the fourth floor. He was already on the third, his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. "Marcus! Stop! You're surrounded!" He didn't stop. He hit the ground floor and burst through the emergency exit. The alarm blared. Red lights flashed. The sound was deafening. We followed. The parking lot was dark. Rows of cars stretched out in every direction, shadows upon shadows. The only light came from the street beyond the fence. "Split up," Detective Ross ordered. Julian went left. I went right. The officers went straight. Marcus's footsteps echoed off the concrete. Then silence. He had stopped running. "Why did he stop?" I whispered. "Because he's cornered," Julian said. Or because he had found a weapon. I di

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