All Chapters of The invisible Groom: Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
114 chapters
Chapter sixty-one
Lila didn’t sleep.She tried—closed her eyes, breathed slowly, buried herself under the blanket—but her mind wouldn’t stop replaying Ethan’s words.Her mother’s death.The promise.The warning.And the terrible, suffocating feeling that her entire childhood was built on secrets she never knew existed.By the time morning touched the window, her eyes were dry but burning.She forced herself up, washed her face, and stepped out of the room.Hale and Riker were already awake, reviewing surveillance feeds on the central table. Neither spoke when she approached; both simply straightened, concern flickering across their faces.Lila glanced around.“Where’s Ethan?”Riker answered calmly, “In the east wing. He didn’t sleep either.”She didn’t respond.Instead, she walked past them, down the hallway toward another reinforced door.Her parents’ door.Hale stepped forward slightly.“You sure you’re ready for this?”“No,” Lila said honestly.“But I need answers.”She knocked once.Her father open
Chapter sixty-two
Ethan didn’t burst into the room.He didn’t shout.He didn’t demand answers.He just opened the door quietly and stepped inside, closing it behind him with a soft click.And somehow—that silence was more terrifying than any rage.Lila turned, startled.Carl and Emily froze, as if the Ghost himself had walked in.Ethan scanned the room once.His eyes landed on Lila.Red-rimmed eyes.Trembling hands.Trying so hard to stay strong.Something inside him snapped.But he masked it so perfectly that no one—not even Riker—could have guessed the storm building beneath his calm.“Ethan,” Lila whispered, voice unsteady. “They told me everything.”He looked at her parents first.Carl swallowed.Emily shrank into herself.Ethan didn’t raise his voice, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop.“What exactly,” he asked softly, “did they tell you?”Lila hesitated—and that hesitation alone made Ethan’s jaw tighten.She stepped closer to him.“My mother was connected to the Ghost Program.”Ethan’
Chapter sixty-three
The safehouse war room was alive with movement.Holo-screens flickered.Riker and Hale barked orders.Eli and the tactical medics loaded supplies.But through all the motion, one thing remained still—Ethan.He stood in front of the main table, hands braced against the surface, staring at a map of District Nine so intently it looked like he could burn a hole through it.Lila walked up beside him.He didn’t look up.He didn’t need to.He felt her presence instantly.“What did Hale find?” she asked quietly.Ethan exhaled—slow, controlled, too controlled.“Miles resurfaced in District Nine. Abandoned telecom tunnels.”His voice was flat.“He wants us to come to him.”Lila frowned. “A trap?”“Absolutely.”She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.Instead, he stared at a blinking red dot labeled MT-13.Lila finally said softly, “You’re tense.”“I’m focused.”“You’re angry.”“No.”“Ethan.”He looked at her then.And there it was—the edge of fear he refused to name.“He didn’t lure me,”
Chapter sixty-four
The Cole Estate was never quiet, but tonight its silence felt heavy.Ethan stood on the balcony overlooking the lit gardens, the city twinkling far beyond. His mind raced—between Lila’s hidden connection to his past, the betrayals piling around them, and the shadowy “Council” tightening its net.Behind him, the doors slid open.Lila stepped out slowly, wrapped in a soft robe, eyes tired but watching him carefully.“You didn’t come to bed,” she murmured.Ethan didn’t turn at first. “Couldn’t sleep.”She moved beside him, hands gripping the railing. “Is it about my family?”“It’s everything,” he admitted quietly. “Nothing fits anymore. Too many secrets… too many threads linking back to the same people.”Lila swallowed. “Then let’s unravel them together.”He finally looked at her. “As long as you don’t keep anything from me.”Her gaze faltered—but before she could answer, Ethan’s phone buzzed sharply.A single coded alert flashed on screen.His pupils narrowed.PRIORITY RED. UNKNOWN SOUR
Chapter sixty-five
The ride to the underground operations bay felt longer than it was.Ethan didn’t sit.He paced.Silent.Focused.Deadly.Lila sat on the edge of the armored bench, her fingers twisting together.She kept replaying the headline in her mind:THE DAWSON FAMILY KNEELING BEFORE THE IMPOSTOR ETHAN.Her parents.Kneeling to a stranger wearing Ethan’s face.“Hale has men on the perimeter,” Riker said, tapping rapidly at his wrist console. “But the impostor walked in like he owned the place. No forced entry. The Dawsons let him in.”Ethan paused—lifting his head with a sharp, cold movement.Lila looked up at him immediately.“What does that mean?” she asked.Ethan’s voice was low but unshaking.“It means he didn’t threaten them.”A beat.“He didn’t need to.”The doors slid open and the three stepped into the dim-lit tactical chamber. Holo-screens projected live feeds around them: angles of the Dawson house, the surrounding street, and a faint outline of the Impostor’s silhouette still inside.
Chapter sixty-six
The night was cold inside the safehouse.Not because of the temperature—but because of the silence.Lila sat at the metal table, hands trembling around a untouched glass of water.Her parents were resting in the back room under Hale’s watch, sedated and exhausted after the emotional breakdown.Ethan stood at the far wall, arms crossed, eyes locked on nothing.Riker worked at the holo-screen, scanning footage, trying to make sense of an old symbol that should never have resurfaced.But the room was centered around one person.Lila.And the question no one wanted to ask.Finally, she spoke—barely above a whisper.“If I saw something when I was a child… why don’t I remember?”Ethan turned his head slowly.“We don’t know that you don’t. You might have… just buried it.”Lila’s voice cracked.“How do I un-bury it?”Riker looked up.“You sure you want to do that? Memories from childhood—especially traumatic ones—are unpredictable.”Hale walked in from the hallway, closing the door behind hi
Chapter sixty-seven
The safehouse felt too small.Too tight.Too full of truths Lila wasn’t ready to hold.Hale, Riker, and Ethan stood around her—but the silence between them was razor-sharp.Riker was the first to break it.“We need a controlled trigger.”Lila blinked.“A… what?”Hale nodded reluctantly.“A method to help you remember without forcing it. Something from that night—something familiar—might bring the memory back on its own.”Ethan’s jaw clenched.“Not happening.”Riker raised an eyebrow. “Ethan—”“No.” Ethan’s voice was ice. “I am not recreating a trauma for her.”“It wouldn’t be trauma,” Hale said slowly. “Just a setting. A sound. A scent. Something from the gala she attended.”Lila whispered, “The gala…”Ethan’s eyes snapped to her, instantly alert.She swallowed hard, fingers curling on the table.“There were lights. Music. People in white gloves. My father holding my hand too tightly.”Her voice trembled.“I remember… being told to stay close. To smile. To not touch anything.”Riker e
Chapter sixty-eight
Ethan didn’t move.Didn’t blink.Didn’t breathe.The room felt too small, too tight, too loud—yet completely silent at the same time.Slate.Prototype Zero.A child dragged through a door he never chose.An experiment before Ethan ever entered the program.Ethan’s voice finally came out, low and strained:“Why didn’t I know this?”No one answered.Riker’s jaw locked.Hale’s stare dropped to the floor.Even Lila stood frozen, watching Ethan with a mix of fear, guilt, and something deeper—something that recognized the way his world was now breaking apart.He took a step back from all of them.Then another.His hands curled slowly into fists.Lila reached for him.“Ethan—”He lifted a hand slightly—enough to stop her without touching her.Not rejecting her.Just holding himself together.Barely.Hale cleared his throat. “Ethan… none of us knew. The Ghost files were wiped when the program shut down. We didn’t even know Zero existed.”Riker added, “The earliest prototype record is you.”Et
Chapter sixty-nine
The safehouse alarms blared before anyone could speak.A sharp, pulsing tone.Red lights slashing across the walls.Riker cursed.Hale sprinted to the control panel.Lila jerked around, heart racing.“What’s happening?!”Ethan’s expression changed instantly—controlled, icy, lethal.“Perimeter breach,” Hale growled.“West entrance. Someone’s trying to override the external lock.”Riker checked the console.“Not just someone. It’s a Ghost-level code. Signature obscured—meaning it’s one of Slate’s people.”Lila froze.“They found us?”“Not possible,” Hale snapped. “This location is dead-air. Off-grid. No digital footprint.”Ethan didn’t blink.“They didn’t trace us.”He stepped forward.“They followed her.”The words hit Lila like a strike to the chest.Ethan moved past them, fast, grabbing a holster from the wall and snapping a sidearm into place.Hale read the incoming code, eyes widening.“Ethan… we have another problem.”Ethan didn’t stop.“What now?”Hale turned the screen so he cou
Chapter seventy
Preparations moved fast—too fast for Lila’s racing mind to keep up.The safehouse, usually quiet and controlled, had turned into a storm of movement. Hale was loading tactical gear. Riker was calibrating the decoy unit. Ethan was issuing commands with a precision that made even the air feel sharper.But under the chaos, one truth pulsed like a heartbeat:Slate had her mother.And Slate wanted her.Ethan was about to give him neither.THE DECOYRiker powered up the synthetic frame.The unit blinked to life—blank-faced, motionless.Hale adjusted its height, then its skin tone, then the hair.Piece by piece, the mannequin transformed.Into her.Lila watched the process with a sinking feeling in her gut. The decoy looked eerily real, like a hollow echo of herself—something that could fool a camera, maybe even a guard.“Once it’s cloaked and dressed,” Riker said, “it’ll pass in low light. Slate’s people won’t inspect closely until they feel safe.”“They won’t get the chance,” Ethan said fl