All Chapters of The invisible Groom: Chapter 91
- Chapter 100
114 chapters
Chapter Ninety-One
The safehouse lights dimmed to emergency mode, casting the concrete halls in a faint red glow as the team gathered around the central table.The world hadn’t just been alerted.It had been weaponized.Against them.Against her.Slate’s broadcast continued looping on every holographic station across the city, Ethan and Lila’s faces plastered like they were fugitives of the highest order.Riker slammed a tablet onto the table.“Great. Fantastic. We’re officially the world’s favorite monsters.”Hale rubbed his temples.“Slate played this perfectly. He built a narrative before we could even understand the full picture.”Ethan said nothing.He was too still.Too calm.That was what scared Lila most.Because Ethan Cole calm was more dangerous than any fury.He stared at the holo-screen, Slate’s smiling face reflecting in his eyes like a target marked for death.Lila finally stepped closer.“What do we do now?”Ethan didn’t turn.“We move.”Riker blinked. “Move? Move where? The second we lea
Chapter ninety-two
The safehouse went so silent that even the hum of the ventilation unit seemed to die.Slate’s broadcast still echoed faintly across the screens—his smug smile frozen mid-sentence.But all of that faded the moment Ethan opened the red Omega-clearance folder.PROJECT ORIGIN.The program that didn’t officially exist.The one wiped from Cole records fifteen years ago.The one Slate wasn’t supposed to know about.The one that created Ethan.Lila took a slow step closer, eyes locked on the glowing red symbols across the hologram.“Ethan…”Her voice trembled.“You were the first Ghost?”Ethan didn’t answer immediately.He didn’t look away from the folder.But his silence was confirmation enough.Hale spoke first, voice low.“You said the Ghost Program began after Slate was recruited.”Ethan’s jaw tightened.“That’s the lie the Cole family told everyone.”Riker muttered under his breath.“Oh, this is going to be fun.”Ethan finally turned—to Lila.But his expression wasn’t cold.It wasn’t dis
Chapter ninety-three
The house was too quiet.Lila felt it the moment she walked in—an unsettling, heavy quiet that didn’t belong in a home that usually buzzed with the distant hum of Ethan’s staff, security chatter, or his own sharp voice echoing from somewhere.She dropped her bag on the counter and frowned.“Ethan?” she called out.No reply.She checked the living room. Empty. His office. Empty. The balcony. Empty.Her chest tightened.He never left without telling her. Not anymore.Just when worry began to claw at her ribs, the elevator to the private lower floor slid open with a soft beep.Ethan stepped out.His shirt sleeves were rolled up, the usually perfect tie abandoned. His hair was disheveled—as if he’d run his hands through it too many times—and his jaw was locked tight enough to crack teeth. His eyes held that look she only saw on rare, terrifying days: cold determination wrapped around quiet fury.Lila froze.“Ethan… what happened?”He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he walked past her,
Chapter ninety- four
The photo burned in Lila’s mind long after Ethan locked his phone and set it aside.Someone had been close enough to watch them. Close enough to send a warning. Close enough to make her skin crawl.“Where was that taken from?” Lila whispered.Ethan already knew. She could see it in the stiffness of his jaw.“The tower opposite ours,” he said. “South-facing. Levels 44 to 46.”“That close?”“Close enough that they wanted me to know they could get closer.”A shiver ran through her.“Ethan… this doesn’t feel like a boardroom game anymore.”“It’s not.” He stepped toward her, his voice low and edged with steel. “They broke the line. Now I’ll break theirs.”Lila swallowed. “What are you going to do?”He inhaled slowly, like someone steadying himself before a blow.“I’m meeting someone tonight.”“Who?”“A friend,” he said—though the word didn’t sound friendly at all. “Someone who owes me, and someone whose silence is very expensive. They know things about the Board. Things the Board doesn’t w
Chapter ninety-five
The moment Ethan stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut, silence poured into the penthouse like a slow flooding wave.Lila stood there, breathing unevenly.She hated this part.Not the danger.Not the enemy.Not even the threat.She hated the waiting.Waiting for Ethan to come back.Waiting to hear if he was safe.Waiting to find out if the world had tilted again.She moved to the window, arms crossed tightly, staring out over the glittering city. Somewhere out there, Ethan was walking straight into a meeting with someone shady enough to make the Board nervous.Someone who knew things.Someone who might be desperate enough to kill to protect those things.Lila swallowed hard.She tried to distract herself—but her mind kept circling back to the photo.The angle. The timing. The message.WHY send it now?Why point a camera at them doing something so… normal?Because normal made them vulnerable.A soft vibration echoed from the counter.Lila turned.Ethan’s phone was lighting
Chapter ninety- six
The apartment lights cut out entirely.One second Lila stood frozen in the half-lit penthouse, clutching the silver drive.The next—Darkness.Pitch-black.Total.Stifling.The alarms stopped abruptly too, leaving a ringing silence behind.Lila’s pulse thundered in her ears.This wasn’t a power failure.This was deliberate.A system override.She forced herself to breathe slowly, sliding her hand along the counter until her fingers found her phone. She tapped the flashlight on, casting a narrow beam through the apartment.“Talia?” she whispered into the darkness.Nothing.The woman was gone—vanished like smoke.Lila’s phone vibrated violently in her hand.Hale:“Lila—answer now. What’s happening in the penthouse? We lost all internal feeds.”She typed quickly, fingers trembling.Lila:“Someone breached the floor. Power is out. I’m okay but—”She hesitated.How did she even begin to explain Talia?Lila:“—but someone else was here.”Hale sent three messages back to back:Hale:“Who?!”
Chapter ninety-seven
The audio buzzed through the laptop speakers, distorted but unmistakable.Slate stood in the video—ten years younger, but with that same cold, calculating stare. He faced the camera, not Ethan. Almost as if documenting what he was about to do.Lila leaned in, breath shallow, unable to tear her eyes away.In the footage, Ethan was on his knees—no armor, no weapons, no expression. Not because he was calm.Because he was drugged.His pupils huge.Body trembling.Wrists chained to steel anchors bolted into the floor.Slate walked behind him.“Subject Zero is resisting the wipe,” a clinical voice said off-screen. “Begin Phase Two.”Slate grabbed Ethan’s head and forced it upright.“You weren’t supposed to survive this long, Cole,” Slate said, younger voice crueler, sharper. “But you made it interesting.”Lila felt her stomach twist.Slate knelt in front of Ethan, face inches from his.“You’ll forget what you saw. You’ll forget who you saw.”He leaned closer, whispering almost lovingly:“Yo
Chapter ninety-eight
Red warning lights flashed across the safehouse screens, casting the room in a pulsing crimson glow.Hale paced behind Riker, both of them locked on the scrambled satellite feed of the facility Ethan entered—now completely dark. No thermal readings. No movement. No sound.A blackout.Not electrical.Tactical.Hale slammed his palm onto the table.“Damn it, Slate knew. He knew Ethan would come alone.”Riker didn’t look away from the screen.“He prepared for this. This blackout isn’t just a power cut—it’s electromagnetic suppression. Nothing gets in or out.”That meant one thing:Ethan was trapped inside with no comms.Lila burst into the main room, grabbing her jacket, boots half-tied, hands shaking but determined.“I’m going after him.”Hale turned sharply.“No. Absolutely not.”Riker stood, folding his arms.“You walking in there alone is suicide. That place was designed to break Ghost operatives.”Lila grabbed the helmet from the gear rack anyway.“And Ethan was designed to survive
Chapter ninety-nine
The house felt colder that morning.Not because the weather had changed, but because the silence between them stretched like a wall neither knew how to climb. She could hear him downstairs—moving, pacing, stopping, pacing again. He only did that when he was bothered. And today, he was bothered beyond words.She stood at the top of the stairs, fingers curled around the railing, watching him from above. He hadn’t noticed her yet. He was staring at the window, jaw clenched, breathing too slow, the way he did when trying to force himself not to explode.“Are you going to keep avoiding me?” she finally asked.He turned. Just once. Slowly.His eyes softened for a moment—barely—but enough for her to catch it.“I’m not avoiding you,” he said. “I’m thinking.”“That’s worse. When you think, you build walls.”“And when you talk,” he said, “you break them.”She came down the stairs, each step deliberate, her heart knocking loudly against her ribs. She stopped in front of him, close enough to feel
Chapter one hundred
The hallway fell into a thick, breathless silence as the second figure stepped forward.Her entire body went cold.“Dad…?” she whispered.Not a memory.Not a hallucination.Not the version of him she last saw—furious, disappointed, walking away from her like she was a mistake he couldn’t bear to look at.This was him now—older, sharper, eyes harder, and carrying a presence that filled the entire doorway.Her brother stiffened immediately.He hadn’t expected this either.Her father’s gaze passed over her like a quick assessment—checking for bruises, fear, signs. His attention lasted only seconds before shifting to the man behind her.And then the air turned deadly.“So it is you,” her father said quietly. “I warned you the last time. I expected you to understand boundaries.”He didn’t move, didn’t speak—he only stared back with a stillness that carried far more danger than anger ever could.“You don’t get to walk into her life again,” her father continued. “Not after everything. Not af