All Chapters of Lovely Little Liar : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

61 Chapters

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

ARIANNA My grip on Noah tightened and I took a deep breath to calm my nerves as she stood across, dressed in a fitted black gown hinting at the quiet elegance I've always heard about her.Her hair was tied into a sleek bun, two strands dropping off her face with her lips painted in red. “We meet again,” her words came out with a suspicious calm while I shut my eyes in a bid to stop my heart from racing.“It isn't what you think it is,” I said as soon as I found my voice. Then I took a step, “we were just leaving.”“We?” The word dangled off her tongue as her eyes roamed Noah. “That is surprising. I never knew Nikolai to be attracted to a woman with a kid. Even more surprising he would bring you home,” she scoffed as she stepped forward, “must be a really sweet honeypot, huh?”My jaw tightened and I instinctively blocked Noah's ears, “watch your words. A child is here!” I warned and shook my head. “I don't know whatever it is you have with your husband and I think it's very degrading

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

NIKOLAI For a second, I thought the five years was going to happen again. For a moment, I thought another five years of being unable to watch her grave, being unable to just grief was going to replay.For one split moment in the office, I thought Arianna was going to put me through the same torture she had put me through. When I received the call of that guard, Drev's call was the next to enter, where he claimed Arianna was nowhere to be found.It clicked in an instant. She was trying to escape. “How did you get help?” I asked as I held her to the wall. “I would have been notified if the swipe card had been used. You used an external source.”“That's none of your business,” she seethed as she struggled against my hold. “You're sick and I want nothing to do with this, Nikolai. Go back to your wife, you don't want her to be jealous.”“You've met her.”I nodded. “And guess what she said,” I let out a small laugh. “That you aren't a man of honour.”“Arianna—” my voice was low with quiet

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

NIKOLAI “He would find out soon,” with a kick, the door burst open and Mrs Kate's eyes widened as she froze on the phone. Then like nothing, she ended the call. “Give me a second.”As the call ended, I dashed towards her, pulling the phone from her grip. “You were suspicious. That was certain.”“I only cared for her,” she protested as I reached for the phone, and at the digits on the screen, my eyes narrowed.I inputted it on my phone next and when the owner appeared, I froze.I blinked hard, trying to see if the name would change. But it didn't. It never did. Because it was real.Silence settled around me like a storm.Him.He knew she was alive.He knew she wasn't dead and he kept the secret.My jaw flexed with explosive anger as I took my eyes to Mrs Kate then headed for the door. “Stay with her. Make sure she tells no one,” I dashed outside but as I reached the car, a silent scream escaped my lips.He knew everything.He knew she lived.He knew her death was fake yet he watched m

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

NIKOLAI My eyes never left Deleux yet his expression didn't waver, his face didn't twitch, he only stared into space while I struggled to believe his words.There's no way. Absolutely no way she didn't know.There's no way he would have punished himself, staying away from her for five years while watching her from afar, while knowing she lived.“You're lying,” the words left my mouth quietly, more like I was trying to convince myself of the words I had just heard. “You are saying this to relieve her of what I would feel towards her.”I let out a dry laugh. “Father and daughter. You both are pathetic liars.”“She doesn't know,” he repeated as he glanced at me. “She believes I mourned her. She believes she broke my heart and that… that breaks my heart, Nikolai.”I shook my head before I stopped. Let's say for a second I believe. Let's admit I believe he didn't plan it with her. “Why?” I asked. “Why didn't you let her know?”His jaw twitched briefly. “She was safer not knowing.”“Safe f

CHAPTER 25

ARIANNA POV My thumb hit the end call button so fast I almost dropped the phone.Nikolai's eyes were already on my face when I looked up. He hadn't moved. He just stood there at the bottom of the staircase with that stillness he used when he wanted you to feel like the room was closing in.It worked. I hated that it worked."Who was that?" He asked, not as a question."None of your business." I tried to keep my expression neutral.He crossed the room in four steps and held out his hand. I looked at it, then I looked at him."Give me the phone, Arianna." He said, his voice calm.I didn't move fast enough and he took it anyway, his fingers closing around it before I could pull it back. I let him because fighting over a phone wasn't worth it. He was going to look regardless.I watched his eyes drop to the screen. I watched him study the number. It wasn't saved — I had been careful about that — so all he had was the digits and whatever story he was going to build around them."Who is thi

CHAPTER 26

NIKOLAI POV:The bar was the kind of place that cost enough to feel quiet even when it wasn't.Crystal glasses with low lighting. The soft murmur of men who had enough money to speak without raising their voices and knew it. I had been in rooms like this my whole life and had never once found them comfortable.I drank and let everyone else do the talking.My phone sat face-down on my thigh. I had checked it four times in the last hour. Four times and nothing useful — just variations of the same message. My men saying they were unable to trace, routing through multiple servers. No clean source.Whoever owned that number had built a wall around it before I ever thought to look.That was what sat in my chest like a splinter. Not just that the number was untraceable. But that it had been made untraceable. That meant preparation. That meant someone had sat down at some point and thought: if Nikolai ever gets this number, I don't want him to find me.Which meant they knew about me.Which me

CHAPTER 27

ARIANNA PovI couldn't sit down.I had tried twice and both times I was back on my feet within seconds, moving from the window to the wall and back again, my arms crossed over my chest like I could hold myself together by force.Noah was asleep on the bed behind me. I had pulled the blanket up around him twenty minutes ago and he hadn't stirred since. His breathing was still a little rough but it had evened out, and the fever felt lower than yesterday. Small mercies.I stopped at the window and looked out at nothing.I pressed my fingers to my mouth.The fire hadn't been an accident. I had felt that from the moment the smoke started pouring under the door, something in my gut telling me that this was deliberate, that someone had made a decision. I just hadn't had a face to put on it.Now I did.I thought about what would have happened if I hadn't woken up when I did. If Noah had slept through the smoke for ten more minutes. If no one had been close enough to hear.My chest tightened s

CHAPTER 28

ARIANNA POV:"How would you even know that?" I asked. What did he mean by that?Nikolai looked at me. "Just trust me."I stared at him."Trust you?." I let the words sit in the air for a second so we could both hear how they sounded. "You kidnapped me and my son. You took my phone. You have men watching every door in this building. And you're standing here telling me to trust you."He said nothing.I almost laughed. I would have, if Noah wasn't pressed against my side with his eyes moving between us.Nikolai's gaze shifted. Away from me, toward the trolley, toward the plates. Something was working behind his eyes."The man who brought the food," he said carefully. "Do you remember what he looked like? Aside from what you just described?""Hard to forget." I kept one hand on Noah's shoulder. "I think he's bald and built like a wall. I remember seeing a mole here." I touched the side of my jaw.Nikolai went very still. The kind that happened when a person got information they weren't p

CHAPTER 29

NIKOLAII drove too fast. I knew it and I didn't slow down. I moved through the city with my hands tight on the wheel and my jaw tighter, and I let the rage sit in my chest and burn because it was the one thing I wasn't going to try to manage right now.A man nobody recognised had walked into a room in my building. Past my men. Through my security. And he had left food that would have killed them both.Both of them.Noah's face surfaced without permission. The way he had reached for that spoon with the hunger of a child who had no idea. The way his eyes had gone wide when I knocked it away.I pressed harder on the accelerator.I had done a lot of things I wasn't proud of. I had made decisions that were ruthless and cold and entirely deliberate. But there was a line. There had always been a line. And whoever had drawn up the plan to put poison in front of a four-year-old boy had just shown me exactly who they were.The gates of the house opened before I reached them. Someone had seen m

CHAPTER 30

NIKOLAI POV:My father was on his feet before he could process what was happening.He went straight to her, with both hands coming up to hold her face, tilting it toward the light, like he needed to see something clearly and didn't trust what he was seeing from a distance. His eyes moved over the mark on her cheek and his mouth went tight."What happened to your face?""Nothing." Arande's voice was warm and dismissive at once. She covered his hands with hers and gently lowered them. "I walked into a wall in the dark this morning. I've been meaning to have the light in the hallway fixed.""A wall.""Konstantin." She smiled at him. It was the right kind of smile, like she was slightly embarrassed. "I'm clumsy. You know this."My father looked at her for a moment longer than was comfortable. Then he looked at me.The expression on his face was not a question. It was an answer he had already arrived at and was waiting for me to confirm or deny.I said nothing."Nikolai." His voice dropped

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