Semua Bab THE CEO'S SECRET WIFE: Bab 71 - Bab 80

Patrick's POVMy heart pounded in my ears as I stepped out of the private train in Miami. The storm brewed in the air, ready to unleash itself upon the city. My mother followed me, her expression a mask under the brimmed hat that shaded her from the sun.I had to keep my head in business, but my head was not there.Giselle.Something didn't feel right. I could sense it in my bones.My phone vibrated. I glanced down. Message from an unknown number."Your girl is in trouble. Yacht Club. Come alone."My stomach twisting. Was it a setup?I clenched my fists. It didn't matter. If Giselle was in trouble, I'd charge into hell itself for her.The ArrivalI sped to the Yacht Club, my knuckles pale and white on the steering wheel. When I got there, it was pandemonium. Sirens blared in the distance, red and blue lights flashing.Nicholas stood outside an ambulance, his shirt smeared with blood. My stomach fell.I pushed my way through to him. "Where is she?!"He turned to me, face enraged. "She'

Giselle's POVI trembled so violently that I relived what I had seen. My mother's face—breathtakingly and wondrously familiar yet several years older—calling to me from behind that SUV window. Her voice. That voice. Her enigmatic warning destroying everything I believed I knew, its very essence.She was alive.Her words struck my chest with physical strength.Nicholas paced back and forth across the living room, jaw set, eyes thoughtful with secrets he wasn't going to tell. "We have to be careful about this," he said at last. "If she's alive, then someone went to a great deal of trouble to make us believe that she had died. Someone with authority."I swallowed. "You think it's a trap?"He halted his pacing and turned to me. "I think it's dangerous."Fatal. That was a mild option.If my mother had been running for a decade, that indicated there were forces—forces beyond Victor and the Shadow Syndicate—who did not want her discovered.Nicholas's knuckles were white. "Why now? Why come u

Giselle's POVThe atmosphere in the grand ballroom seemed to grow heavy all at once. My hands curled tightly around my champagne flute as I kept watching across the room at the man. The Dominion emblem glinted on his ring finger, a subtle declaration that I already belonged to him.I moved quietly, my voice low as I addressed Nicholas. "We have a problem."His body stiffened immediately. "Where?"I tilted my head slightly towards the man on the balcony. "There. He's tagged."Nicholas looked where I'd looked, his expression darkening. "How many do you think?"I quickly counted heads in the room. Any joke, any sociable conversation, any raised glass—could be exploited by The Dominion."Minimum a few," I breathed. "Perhaps more."Victor stepped closer, his usual smugness overruled by something sinister. "We have to go."I shook my head. "We leave now, we make it a guarantee that we know. They'll come no matter what."Nicholas took a hard breath. "Then we will have to turn the tables on t

Giselle's POVThe message scribbled on the hotel door stuck with me. My photo stabbed with a knife and "Checkmate" in blood-red ink. It was not a threat—it was a threat because it was a promise. The Dominion would be coming for me, and they would keep coming.But I'd never been a turn-tail-and-run kind of girl.Nicholas, Victor, Luca, and my mom were in the room, each of us plotting something. The air was thick and I could feel my heart racing against the column of my neck."We have to move fast," Nicholas paced back and forth in front of the window. "They are already tracking us. We have to take control before them."Luca nodded, calculating eyes. "The question is—how? We can't just charge at their base."Victor leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. "Technically, we could. But we'd likely get ourselves killed, so. let's not."I rolled my eyes at his usual sarcasm, but I liked the effort to defuse the tension within me.My mother hacked, and the room swung around to f

Giselle's POVAs I stepped out of the café, I knew my decision hung over me like a cloud ready to pour rain on me. War. A war I never intended to wage. A war I never thought I would ever have to wage for my own mother.The dark SUV parked at the curb with tinted windows did not conceal Nicholas' figure within. I got in, closing the door behind me as the vehicle accelerated from the drop-off location.Nicholas sat across from me on the bench, arms crossed, expressionless face. Victor drove, grasping the wheel."Talk," Nicholas told me curtly.I swallowed thickly in my throat, my mother's words ringing within my mind."They don't want me killed," I finally said. "They want me to be their leader."Nicholas's jaw snapped shut. "And you said no."I glared him down. "Of course I did."Victor snorted in a quick laugh. "Well, isn't that just peachy. We're all toast."I glared at him. "What was I supposed to do, Victor? Say yes? Become the thing that we've been trying to blow up?Nicholas push