All Chapters of The Billionaire's Contract Wife: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The black car came at them like a bullet.Its headlights tore through the rain, turning the narrow alley into a tunnel of white and shadow. The engine roared louder with every second."Move!" Daniel shouted again.Alexander reacted first.He grabbed Sophia by the waist and threw both of them sideways behind a stack of old delivery crates. Daniel dragged Elizabeth toward the wall, while Hayes let out a panicked cry and dove behind a dumpster with far more speed than anyone expected from a banker.The car slammed through the alley, missing them by inches.Its tires screeched over wet pavement. Metal clipped one of the bins hard enough to send it spinning across the ground.Sophia hit the concrete shoulder-first, pain flaring up her arm. Before she could think, Alexander's body was over hers, shielding her completely.Glass shattered somewhere behind them.Then gunfire.Not from the car this time.From the loading bay door.The men inside the bank had found another way out.Daniel fired

For one long, impossible moment, no one spoke.The rain against the greenhouse roof sounded deafening.Sophia stared at her sister as if she had stopped understanding language."You what?"Emily looked like she wanted to disappear into the earth beneath the greenhouse floor.Her hands trembled at her sides. Her face was pale, streaked with tears she either hadn't noticed or hadn't bothered wiping away."I married him," she repeated, so quietly it almost vanished under the rain.Sophia's entire body went cold."No."The denial came instantly, instinctively.Alexander's expression had hardened into something dangerous and unreadable. Daniel took one step closer to the table, eyes moving between the gun, the envelope, and Emily's face.Sophia barely noticed him.All she could see was her sister.The girl she thought she knew.The sister she had spent the last hour trying to defend."When?" Sophia asked.Emily swallowed. "Four months ago."Four months.The number hit like a physical blow.

The house was too quiet.Not peaceful.Never peaceful.Just the kind of quiet that comes after shock, when everyone is inside the same walls but no one knows where to put what they feel.The old Carter property had become a fortress before midnight.Extra security stood outside.Every entrance was locked.Every window checked.Every room assigned with careful urgency.But none of that touched the real danger.Because the danger had already entered the house in the form of truth.Emily sat curled into the far corner of the upstairs sitting room, wrapped in a blanket she clearly wasn't feeling. Her face was pale, her ankle bandaged, her hair still damp from the rain. She looked younger than twenty-four now. Not because she was childlike.Because fear had stripped everything else away.Sophia stood near the fireplace, arms folded tightly across herself, trying and failing to quiet the storm in her chest.William paced.Of course he paced.He had been doing it for nearly fifteen minutes.

The alarm tore through the house like a knife.A sharp, pulsing sound echoed down the hallways, through the old wood and stone, turning every nerve in Sophia's body to ice.For half a second, no one moved.Then everyone moved at once.Daniel was already on his feet, phone in one hand, weapon in the other.Alexander reached Sophia before he even looked at anyone else.William swore under his breath and crossed to the study door.Emily went white in the armchair.Elizabeth rose too quickly from her seat and caught the edge of the desk with her good hand.Charles, incredibly, only set down his glass and sighed."I really was hoping for one dramatic event at a time."Daniel ignored him and checked the security feed on the nearest screen.His expression changed immediately."Two perimeter breaches."William turned. "Where?""Rear garden wall and east service gate."Alexander's voice became cold steel. "How many?"Daniel tapped quickly through another camera feed."At least six visible. Mas

Sophia ran.The corridor blurred past in streaks of lamplight and shadow, her pulse pounding louder than her footsteps. Behind her came Alexander, Daniel, and William, with two security men moving fast at their sides.Somewhere deeper in the house, the alarm had finally fallen silent.That made everything worse.Because now every sound stood out sharply—the slap of shoes against polished wood,the clipped voices through earpieces,the creak of old walls settling,the ragged pull of Sophia's breath.Simon was inside.Not outside giving orders.Not waiting in a car.Not speaking through walls like some polished ghost.Inside.Close to Emily.Sophia turned the corner toward the old chapel wing and nearly slipped on the runner rug. Alexander's hand caught her elbow for half a second, steadying her without breaking stride."This way," William snapped, taking the narrower passage left of the gallery hall.The old Carter house had too many corridors, too many hidden sections, too many gener