All Chapters of THE VENGEFUL HEIR: Chapter 371
- Chapter 380
389 chapters
Waking Into a Nightmare
AriaI woke up a few hours later to the sound of someone breathing like the world was slipping out of their hands. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. The room felt too bright and cold. My chest felt tight, wrapped in something stiff. My throat tasted like metal and everything inside me was heavy, like I’d just been dragged out of the bottom of a lake.Then I turned my head, and the world snapped into focus. Zion was sitting beside my bed… sobbing quietly.My heart lurched so violently I almost ripped a stitch.“Z… Zion?” My voice came out thin and rough, like it had been sanded down.His head shot up instantly and his eyes were red, swollen, and panicked. “Aria, Aria, you’re awake. Oh my God.” His chair screeched against the floor as he leaned over me, cupping my face gently, afraid he’d break me with the slightest pressure. “I thought, I thought…”I swallowed, but the pain hit like fire spreading under my ribs. “What… what happened? Did she…?”“You were shot.” His voice cracked
Prison Bargain
ZionThe moment Detective Marlowe said Ellen wanted to see me, something cold crawled up the back of my spine. I didn’t say anything at first. I just stared at her, trying to figure out if this was some kind of sick joke or if Ellen had truly lost whatever scraps of sanity she had left.Aria was watching me carefully, her fingers limp but still threaded with mine. I felt her eyes on me like a question; What are you going to do?“I’m not seeing her,” I finally said. My voice came out low and flat, leaving no room for argument.Marlowe didn’t look surprised. If anything, she looked like she’d been waiting for that answer.“She anticipated that,” the detective said.I blinked in confusion. “What?”“She told her lawyer to give you something. A letter.”My stomach dropped. “A letter?”Marlowe didn’t say anything else, she just reached into her folder and pulled out a sealed envelope, sliding it across the small table beside Aria’s hospital bed. My name was written on the front in handwriti
The Unwanted Truth
ZionDetective Marlowe walked beside me through the narrow hall that led to the holding cells, the rubber soles of her shoes clicking sharply against the concrete floor. The building always smelled like every bad decision ever made inside it had soaked into the air.I kept my hands clenched as we walked. Every step brought me closer to her. I didn’t want to be here. Every instinct in my body screamed that this was a trap, that Ellen thrived on attention the way oxygen thrived on fire, but Aria’s safety was reason enough. If Ellen had any information, any threat, anything hidden that could hurt her, then I needed to deal with it before it reached Aria’s ears.“Remember,” Marlowe said as we approached the reinforced glass window facing the cell, “she’s refused to talk to anyone but you. Not her lawyer, not the officers. If she says anything incriminating, I need you to keep her talking. We need her statement on the record.”I nodded stiffly. “I’ll get it.”When I stepped up to the glass
Doubt and Desperation
ZionAfter I stepped out of the holding room, Marlowe and I reconvened. She asked me if Ellen had said anything useful, and I told her that I was in no mood to listen to the rants of a mad woman. However, after a lot of back and forth, Marlowe finally convinced me to go back inside, and this time to try and keep my calm until she gave us something we could use against her.I’d reluctantly agreed, but the second I stepped back into the holding room, Ellen’s smile returned like it had been waiting on the door hinge. The smugness slid back onto her face the moment she saw me, like she’d never lost it.“Back so soon?” she asked lightly. “I knew you wouldn’t walk away from that easily.”“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, pulling out the chair loud enough to scrape sharply across the floor. “We’re finishing this, that’s all.”She folded her hands on the table and leaned forward a little. “Then ask me the question. The one you’re scared to ask.”I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, but
The Attack in the Ward
AriaI’d gone back to sleep shortly after Zion left to go see Ellen. I didn’t intend to, but the morphine in my system wasn’t giving me a choice. After about an hour, I finally woke up to a deep quiet. The hospital room had always hummed with something: machines, distant footsteps, nurses whispering at the desk, but now, everything sat still. Too still.My body still ached, stitched and tender in places I didn’t want to think about, but I had gotten used to ignoring the pain. Zion hadn’t returned from the station yet, but he’d promised he would “fix everything” before the detective came back to take more statements. I didn’t know what that meant, and honestly, I didn’t have the strength to overthink it.I shifted and adjusted my pillow, and took a slow breath, searching for my phone. And just then, the door slammed open so hard it bounced against the stopper.I jerked upright instantly as the pain sliced through my side. “What is going on?” I asked but there was no reply. Instead, thr
Zion’s Breaking Point
ZionI didn’t realize how hard I was breathing until the room seemed to shrink around me. The walls of the holding cell felt too close, like they were waiting for me to break. Ellen sat across from me with that maddening calmness, and her legs crossed the whole time, her fingers tapping lightly on the metal table. She looked almost bored, despite me losing my mind here.My hands shook as I shoved them into my pockets, trying to look like I had any control left.“I don’t remember that conversation,” I told her, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “I don’t remember anything you just played.”Her smile twitched, like she enjoyed watching me struggle. “Of course you don’t. You were drunk. Completely useless. Honestly, it was a miracle you didn’t choke on your own tongue.”“Stop.” My voice cracked. I didn’t care. “Just stop! You talk like you know me, but I’m now convinced that you don’t.”“I do know you, Zi.” Her tone slid into something soft, familiar, yet horrifying. “More than an
The Hunter in the Dark
ZionBy the time I stepped out of Ellen’s holding room, my head felt like someone had been hammering against my skull from the inside. The fluorescent hallway lights were too bright, and every sound echoed in my bones. Detective Marlowe was waiting just outside with her arms folded.I exhaled shakily when I saw her. “She’s never going to talk,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I tried everything. She just… she’s gone, Marlowe. Completely gone.”The detective watched me for a long moment before letting out a tired sigh. “That’s alright,” she murmured. “We didn’t really expect her to give us anything now anyway.”I blinked at that. “So what happens to her now?”“We’re transferring her to a high-security holding facility overnight,” she said. “After that, the court will evaluate if she’s mentally stable enough to stand trial. If not…” she shrugged, “…she’ll likely be admitted into a psychiatric rehabilitation unit.”A hollow ache settled under my ribs when she said that. I didn’t wish all o
Ellen’s Return
Detective MarloweWhen the call came through, I was halfway through a lukewarm coffee and a stack of paperwork. The phone had buzzed twice, and my gut twisted before I even answered it. There was no reason for the Ops team to be calling me now, and I knew this could only mean one thing.“Detective Marlowe speaking.” I answered quickly, but the only sound I heard was the static on the other end, but then a tiny breathless voice cracking under panic sounded. “Ma’am, it’s Ops Team Seven. The transport has been hit.”My spine straightened so fast I nearly snapped something. “Repeat that.”“Transport van en route to Highwood Holding Facility… We were rammed off the service road. Multiple hostiles. Masks, tactical gear. We… we lost sight of the subject.”The room froze around me as soon as I heard that and my coffee slipped from my hand and splattered across my desk, but I barely noticed.“Are you telling me,” I said slowly, “that Ellen has been extracted?”There was a beat of silence on th
The Letter
ZionBy the time I reached the safehouse, my hands were still shaking and they wouldn’t stop, no matter how tightly I clenched the steering wheel, no matter how many times I tried to breathe freely. Ellen was out there, and she was free. Free out there somewhere with God knows who helping her, and the only thing echoing in my head was Aria. Aria. Aria.After a short while of driving, I pulled into the garage so fast one of the guards flinched. The door wasn’t even fully open before I shoved past them, nearly tripping over my own feet. My heart was pounding so violently it felt like it might burst through my ribs.“Where is she?” I barked.The guard pointed down the hall. “Living room, sir. She’s…”I didn’t wait for him to finish. I was halfway down the hallway when I heard her voice.“Zion?”She was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, with an IV line still taped to her arm. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were swollen from stress and medication, but when she saw me, her face li
Shadows Closing In
ZionThe moment the guard burst through the safehouse hallway, breathless and pale, I already knew something was wrong. His eyes landed straight on me, then flicked to Aria behind me, and the tension in his shoulders tightened even more.Aria’s fingers curled around my arm instantly. She didn’t say a word, but I could feel how cold her hand was, how her breath stuttered in her chest. She was still recovering, still fragile, and still trying to piece herself together after everything that had been ripped apart. And now this, another threat, another shadow creeping in.I straightened, and stared at the guard deeply. “What is this about?” I demanded.The guard didn’t answer. He only motioned for us to follow and stepped briskly down the hall. I could tell it was a bad sign. Regardless, Aria stayed close, closer than she had in days. I could feel her heartbeat against my arm, quick and uneven and tried not to let her see how my own pulse matched it.The hallway lights flickered as we walk