flash
The grandfather clock in the master hallway chimed 2:00 AM. In the absolute silence of the Vale estate, I slipped out of my twin-sized guest bed—twenty feet away from Adrian’s sprawling king suite—and knelt beside the loose floorboard in the closet. / Chapter 6 / 10

Chapter 6 - Adrian’s World ShattersThe room spun.

Adrian snapped his head toward me, his face turning an eerie, ghost-like white. The name echoed in his ears like a sonic boom.

Lily.

He stood up so fast his executive chair crashed backward onto the floor. "What did you just call her?" Adrian’s voice cracked—for the first time in his life, the ruthless billionaire sounded utterly unhinged.

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The apartment on West Eighty-Ninth Street did not look like the home of a woman connected to New York’s most dangerous underground financial network.

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The neon lights of Queens buzzed with a harsh, flickering hum that matched the relentless ache in Clara Vance’s temples.

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“Are you a firefighter?” seven-year-old Lucia had asked, coughing into the smoke that was curling under the bathroom door like dark fingers.

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"Her name is Lily, Adrian," Charles said softly. "The girl you’ve spent fifteen years bleeding your soul to find. The girl you treated like trash for the past three months."

Adrian staggered backward, his hands trembling as he stared at me. "No... No, that's impossible. Lily died in the fire. She was..."

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