All Chapters of HIS FORBIDDEN SURROGATE BRIDE : Chapter 51 - Chapter 59

DAMIENThe living room was dark, lit only by the low blue light of the security monitors on the floor. "Damien, why on earth are you still up?" The soft sound of her voice made me stop instantly. Anastasia was standing at the edge of the shadow, wrapped tight in her black silk robe. Her arms were locked across her chest, her fingers clutching the silk as if she were trying to hold herself together. In the dim light, her face was completely pale, her dark eyes wide, glassy, and fixed on the dark hallway behind her. She looked so small, fragile, and utterly exhausted."You need to stop," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "Please. The guards are in the hall. You are running a fever, and you're actively bleeding through your shirt again. Let me just call the doctor up.""Nobody is coming up tonight, Anastasia," I said softly, my voice rough and gravelly."They were right outside our bedroom," she breathed, a single tear finally slipping over her lashes. She looked up at me, h

DAMIEN"Lock the doors from the outside, Viktor. Nobody leaves the executive floor until I say so," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet hum of the front office."The board members are already calling my cell, Boss," Viktor replied, stepping into the conference room with two heavy leather lockboxes in his arms. He set them down on the center table with a loud thud. "Marcus’s personal assistant tried to clear out his filing cabinet twenty minutes ago in the West Wing. My boys stopped her at the elevator.""Did she have the ledger?" I asked, walking over to the glass wall that overlooked the empty row of desks. My right shoulder was still stiff under my suit jacket, but the throbbing pain had dulled into a steady burn."She had three flash drives and a stack of shredded travel receipts," Viktor said. He gestured toward the door, where six men in sharp charcoal suits were walking in, each carrying heavy leather briefcases and high-speed encrypted laptops. "This is Miller’s forensic

DAMIENMy phone was buzzing against my leg before I even reached the top of the stairwell. I yanked it out and put it to my ear, my boots pounding hard against the concrete steps."Talk to me, Viktor," I growled into the mic."The garage is cleared out," Viktor said, his heavy voice breaking through static. "We towed the last civilian car out five minutes ago. The city parking authority is blowing my phone up. They say we're breaking the stadium lease agreement.""Fuck the city," I said, hitting the heavy push bar on the door and tearing into the main executive hallway. "Cancel the contract right now. Tear the lease up. Effective five seconds ago, the lower levels belong to us. Tell the gate guards if any car comes down that ramp without my personal clearance, put a bullet through the engine block.""Understood," Viktor said. "What about the stadium parking staff? The guys working the booths?""Fire every single one of them. Right now," I said, pacing fast down the carpeted hallway. "

DAMIENThe clock on the wall read past three in the morning The rest of the penthouse was dead quiet, but a single strip of warm yellow light spilled out from under the cracked door of the study. I pushed it open without making a sound.Anastasia was slouched sideways in my heavy leather armchair, her head resting flat against the edge of the mahogany desk. Her left arm was stretched out over a pile of printed financial audits, her fingers still holding a black pen that had leaked a tiny dot of ink onto the corner of a page. Her breathing was slow, heavy, and completely exhausted.I stood in the doorway for a long moment, my jaw tight.She had been running on three hours of sleep a night for a week straight, fighting Marcus's legal team line by line, burning herself out to keep her father's name on the front of the building. Seeing her like this—tiny, pale, and completely drained, lying in the dark under a single desk lamp—made a dark, restless anger churn in my chest.I walked acros

DamienEvery major investor, league official, and city politician was packed into the room for the pre-season gala. I stood near the bar on the east side of the room, trapped in a circle of four heavy-hitting team investors."The payroll clearance this morning was a smooth move, Damien," Arthur Vance said, swirling the dark amber liquid in his glass. He was one of our oldest board members, a guy who usually backed Marcus until the money started moving. "Converting the ownership shares to Anastasia's trust kept the team on the ice tonight, I'll give you that. But people are talking about the court order. The rumors about your health aren't good for season ticket sales.""My health is fine, Arthur," I said, my voice low, flat, and calm. I kept my hands in the pockets of my tailored black trousers, my eyes scanning the crowd over his shoulder. "And the ticket sales are already sold out for the first three months. You got your quarterly dividend check this morning, didn't you?""That's n