All Chapters of The Secret Billionaire's Return : Chapter 71
- Chapter 80
202 chapters
Act jealous
The hidden room under the mall felt different now. Before, it was a place of wonder. Now, it felt urgent. A tool for survival.They went straight to the red leather book about demons. They flipped through the pages. They were looking for something about white eyes. About violence between lovers.They found it. A section titled ‘The Heartsick.’ It described a demon born from a terrible, jealous love. A love that turned to hate at the moment of betrayal. If a person was filled with that rage at the exact moment of their death, their spirit could become a ‘Heartsick.’ It would seek out new people feeling that same jealous rage. It would enter them. It would feed on the feeling. And it would make them act it out. In the worst way possible.“A wronged lover,” Chloe read aloud. “Left for someone else. That’s what that couple was fighting about. She was breaking up with him.”“So the demon found him,” Leo said. “It found a man feeling exactly what it felt when it died. It jumped into him. An
Separate Iden from Leo
Leo stepped out. He held the locket up, the silver catching the moonlight. “Peter,” Leo said, loud and clear.The man’s head snapped up. His eyes were solid white.The man’s face twisted. It wasn’t his own face anymore. It was a mask of pain and hate. “That name,” the demon hissed through the man’s mouth. “She said that name when she left me!”“It’s over, Peter,” Chloe said, stepping out next to Leo. Her voice was calm but strong. “Grace is gone. The pain is old. You’re holding onto a ghost.”“She betrayed me!” the creature screamed. It took a step toward them, the man’s hands curling into claws.“And you became the betrayal,” Leo said. He didn’t move back. “You’re doing to others what was done to you. Doesn’t that feel hollow? Doesn’t that feel empty?”The creature stopped. For a second, the white eyes seemed to flicker. The man’s own confused, scared brown eyes showed through. Then the white flooded back. “It’s all I have! The rage is warm. The love was cold.”“It’s a lie,” Chloe sa
Find Iden's grave
The air in Darwin’s lair was cold and still. It didn’t feel like a room in the modern world. It was a huge, dark space. It looked like an ancient throne room from a forgotten kingdom. Stone pillars rose into shadows. The floor was made of big, uneven slabs of rock.At the far end, on a raised platform, was a throne. It wasn’t a fancy chair. It was carved from a single piece of black stone, shiny like a beetle’s shell. Darwin wasn’t sitting on it. Not yet.He walked across the silent floor. His footsteps echoed. He stopped in front of a statue.The statue was taller than a man. It was made of the same black stone as the throne. It was shaped like a knight in old armor, but its face was a smooth, blank sheet. No eyes. No mouth. In its stone hands, it held a large, round bowl.Darwin reached out. He touched the statue’s arm. The stone was freezing.“Any time now,” he whispered. His voice was full of hungry excitement.He looked into the bowl the statue held. It wasn’t empty. Inside was a
Demon of greed
The creature Darwin released did not attack with claws or teeth. It attacked with want.It found its home in a man named Robert, a loan manager at a big bank. Robert already thought about money all day. He liked nice suits. He dreamed of a bigger house. The purple smoke, filled with those tiny red eyes, drifted into his office air vent. He breathed it in with a sigh about his low bonus.The change was slow. Greed is a quiet demon.By the next day, Robert wasn’t just thinking about money. He was hungry for it. It felt like a physical ache. He looked at his clients and didn’t see people. He saw wallets. He saw dollar signs where their eyes should be.He approved a bad loan for a sweet old lady, knowing she would lose her home. It made the hunger ease for a second. Then it came back, worse.That night, he walked home through the city’s old financial district. He passed a young couple counting their change for a coffee. Their small coins jingled. The sound was like a dinner bell to the th
We want a new leader
The hidden library was quiet. The only sound was the soft rustle of pages. Leo and Chloe sat at the stone table, surrounded by towers of books. They were looking for two things now: more about the 'watchers,' and more about the old symbol on the pottery shard.Leo’s eyes were tired. He rubbed them. "It says here the watchers were supposed to be guides. Not warriors. They were meant to see the truth and show it to others. To make people remember what they forgot.""Remember what?" Chloe asked, looking up from a crumbling scroll."Magic," Leo said simply. "The old world. The balance. Before things like the Void started breaking through."Chloe was about to answer when Leo’s phone buzzed on the stone. It was a loud, jarring sound in the quiet room. He looked at the screen and sighed, a deep, tired sound."It’s the office. The board of directors. They want to see me. Now."Chloe made a face. "You’re kidding. Now? With everything happening?""I know," Leo said, running a hand through his h
Let's ask Liana
The car ride back to Leo’s apartment was a quiet one. That fiery feeling from staring down Darwin and the whole board had fizzled out. Now they were just tired. A deep-down, bone-aching kind of tired that made everything feel heavy.Walking into his apartment was a relief. It was like stepping into a quiet cave after being in a hurricane. They both just stopped inside the door for a second, breathing in the stillness.Leo toed off his shoes. They landed with two soft thumps by the door. He yanked at the knot of his tie, finally pulling the silk loose and dragging it over his head. He looked at the thing, all expensive and sleek, and just tossed it onto a chair. It felt like a costume. One he was glad to be out of.Chloe padded into the kitchen in her socks. The click of the kettle, the shuffle of mugs—they were normal sounds. Good sounds. For a little while, they just… existed. Leo sank into the couch, scrolling through news on his phone. The “greed attack” was already being explained
Where is his body?
The road to the cabin was just dirt and potholes. Leo’s car bumped along. He was gripping the wheel too tight. Next to him, Chloe stared out the window. She was chewing on her thumbnail. A bad habit she thought she’d quit.No music played. The quiet was full of everything they weren’t saying.When the cabin came into view, it looked dark. Just one window had a light on. A soft, yellow glow. It didn’t look welcoming. It looked like a single eye watching the woods.They got out of the car. The air out here was colder. It smelled like pine needles and wet dirt.Leo knocked on the door. Once, twice.It opened pretty quick. Victoria was there. She looked surprised to see them. Tired, too. She had a smudge of something dark, maybe ash, on her forearm.“Hey,” she said. She moved to let them in. “Wasn’t expecting a visit. It’s… good you’re both okay.”The main room was warm from a wood stove. It was messy. A blanket was rumpled on the couch. Two mugs sat on the small table.And Liana was ther
What's the truth
The woods up north were dense. The path Liana led them on wasn’t a path at all. Just animal trails and gaps between trees. They had to duck under branches. Chloe’s jacket got snagged on a thorny vine.No one talked. The only sounds were their breathing and the crunch of leaves under their feet.Finally, Liana stopped. They were in a small clearing where a giant oak tree had fallen long ago. Its rotting trunk was a home for mushrooms and bugs. She pointed to a spot near its massive roots. The ground was just a slight dip, covered in moss.“Here,” she said. Her voice was empty. “I dug it deep.”Leo and Chloe had brought shovels from the cabin shed. They started digging. The dirt was dark and full of fat, wriggling worms. The work was hard. Sweat stuck Leo’s shirt to his back in minutes. His shoulders burned.After what felt like forever, his shovel hit something solid. Not a rock. A dull, hollow thump.They cleared the dirt with their hands, frantic now. It was a coffin. But not a nice
It worked
The air in the woods was dead still. The only sound was their own breathing, loud in the quiet. Iden’s old body lay on the moss between them, pale and strange in the fading light.The ritual from the book was simple. Too simple. It felt like they’d done nothing. Leo had spoken the “Truth”—the admission of Iden’s regret over Liana. He’d felt that internal click, that sudden hollow emptiness in his mind where Iden’s presence had been.For a long moment, nothing happened. Just three people and a very old corpse.Then, the body on the ground drew in a sudden, ragged gasp.It wasn’t a gentle waking. It was a violent, choking return. Iden’s back arched off the ground, his mouth open, sucking in air like a drowning man. His eyes flew open—wide, disoriented, deep brown eyes, not Leo’s, not anyone else’s. His own.He rolled onto his side, coughing, his body shaking. He pushed himself up on trembling arms. He looked at his own hands—real, solid, living hands—with pure, uncomprehending shock. He
what sorcery is This!
The guest room in Leo’s apartment was small. Just a bed, a dresser, a lamp. To Iden, it was a palace of mysteries.Leo showed him the light switch. Iden flipped it three times, watching the lamp obediently light up and die. “A obedient sun,” he nodded, satisfied.Then he saw the bed. He walked around it, poked the thick comforter, then sat on the edge. He bounced, slightly. His eyebrows shot up.“It is a cloud,” he declared. “You sleep on a captured cloud.” He laid back, arms straight at his sides, staring at the ceiling. “It is too soft. Where is the straw? The firm support for the spine?”“You get used to it,” Leo said from the doorway. “Get some sleep.”“Sleep,” Iden repeated, as if it were a complex spell. He was still lying stiff as a board when Leo shut the door.---Morning came. Leo was in the kitchen, boiling water. He heard the guest room door open. Iden emerged, looking rumpled and deeply confused. He was still wearing his ancient tunic and trousers.“The cloud… it tried to