"What in God's name was that?" Ava lashed out on Flynn during recess, her voice a furious, hissed whisper, with all professional polish scorched away. "You just torched our case! You torched Julia! Do you have any idea what you've done?"Flynn couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at the scuffed linoleum floor, his body trembling with a fine, constant vibration.Gerald moved between them, a wall of calm authority. He placed a steadying hand on Ava’s arm, his gaze locked on Flynn. His security instincts, honed over decades, were screaming one word: Coercion. This wasn't cowardice. This was the behavior of a man who had seen the abyss."Flynn," Gerald said, his voice low and even, devoid of accusation. "Look at me."With a monumental effort, Flynn raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, shattered."Something happened between the diner and that stand. What did they do?"The dam broke. A ragged sob tore from Flynn’s throat, and he slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor as his

The news of the adjournment reverberated through the very foundations of Robert O’Connor’s world, carrying on a current of cold rage.“A fortnight,” he said, the words a low rasp that scraped the walls. “He bought them a fortnight. With a sob story and a witness who looks like he’s seen a ghost.“The judge smelled coercion,” Christopher replied, his tone carefully analytical. “Ava Rennet is too clever by half. She didn’t try to fix the testimony; she made it the issue.”“The issue,” Robert spat, shoving his chair back to stare out at the manicured grounds, “is a loose end that should have been severed! That girl should have been a message, not a bargaining chip!” He turned, his eyes pinning Christopher. “You had her. You broke the brother. The purpose was served, and now she is a liability and a living witness to your involvement. She is now, nothing more but a lever they will try to find and use against us.”A cold knot formed in Christopher’s gut. Janelle was not just a person to h

A heavy silence filled the dark cell after Wilfreda's agreement, and the expression of regret over her actions. Even if she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to get out of that place anytime soon, or even ever, a part of her now felt relieved knowing that she had been able to say the things that have been weighing down heavily upon her."You know, mine was the pictures," Janelle whispered into the blackness, the confession spilling out as if the darkness itself was drawing it from her. "My twin brother Flynn took them for a different reason..And I... I gave them to Christopher. I thought I was helping him build a case. I never imagined he'd twist it, that he'd push the narrative they were having an affair to discredit them, to make Chance's whole team look corrupt and unstable." A sob hitched in her chest. "I betrayed my brother's trust. But Flynn never hated me. As a matter of fact he still protected me even after finding out about what I did. Chance couldn't be any different." Jane

A hundred miles away, in the soundproofed penthouse of the Laurent Hotel in Monaco, three screens glowed on the wall, each displaying a face that represented a kingdom Chance O’Connor had once bent to his will.These were the four kings according to how they presented themselves who had been enemies and rivals of the O' Connor empire but had retreated for a while seeing how indomitable the O' Connor empire was.But now, seeing that it was falling apart from within, they saw it as the perfect opportunity to regroup and relaunch an attack.On Screen One was Charles Bernard, his face a roadmap of old-world pride and newer, bitter lines of humiliation. He watched a news feed on a separate monitor—a chaotic clip outside the courthouse, the headline “O’Connor Trial Adjourned Amid Witness Tampering Allegations.”“The giant is stumbling,” Bernard murmured, his voice gravelly with vindication. “Look at them. They're scrambling. The mother on trial, the son playing detective for some nobody gi

"Chance. You must have seen the news." Gerald's voice was its usual gravelly calm hard tension vibrating beneath the surface, like a bowstring pulled taut."We're looking at it now," Chance confirmed, moving with Chloe toward the study. "It's a fabrication."“Obviously,” Gerald said, the word clipped. “But that doesn't matter in the court of public opinion, and it’s starting not to matter in the actual court, either. I just got off the line with Ava.”Chance’s grip tightened on the phone. “And?”“And it’s bad. This scandal doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It directly contaminates the Bruce Lincoln case. Ava says the prosecution will argue that the source of Julia’s defense fund is now in question, implying she had access to—and was possibly aligned with—unscrupulous, violent international elements. It paints a motive where there wasn’t one before. A narrative of a woman entangled in dark dealings, capable of anything.”Chloe’s hand found Chance’s arm, her fingers pressing in a silent warnin