2026-04-24 11:44:28Ace
Just the wrong person I needed to talk to. I cleared my throat and swiped to answer. “Hi, Mom.” “Jesus, Ace. You sound like a frog.” Pots clattered faintly behind her. “Are you alright?” My eyes burned. God, I missed her lasagna and her apple pie. “I’m fine, Mom. Remember? Ace always aces it.” She paused on the other end. “My boy. You always say that when you’re down. Are you sure?” I nodded vigorously like she could see me. “Yeah.” “Alright.” She sighed. “Guess who I bumped into at the tuck shop? Our own dear Lena Vilosvasky. She said she ran into you recently, said you looked so gloomy… but she managed to cheer you up.” I almost choked on my spit. The fuck? “Is there something you want to tell me?” Samantha asked softly. “She—she said that?” My voice wobbled. Surely she hadn’t told my mother anything else, right? Samantha hummed. “Yes. Why?” I let my breath out in a rush. “Nothing, Mom. Thanks for checking in. I’ve got to go.” I ended the call before she could ask more. Jesus, Lena. First it was the hickey, and now it’s the fucking ‘cheering me up’ news. What more was she going to do? I had clearly underestimated her comeback. I scrolled through my favourite contacts and pressed the dial. The phone rang once, then a sultry voice answered. “As I live and breathe. Ace?” It was Lena. Fucking hell. I glanced at the dark screen. Even I couldn’t believe she still used this number. “What did you tell my mother?” I grated out. Lena’s laugh crackled through the line. “Calm down, my love. I ran into her at the market, and she was the one who called me over. I guess she hasn’t forgotten I was supposed to be the real daughter-in-law. You still have my number, Ace.” There was a sadness in her voice. I scoffed. “And I told you I am married to Clara. Whatever happened between us is not happening again.” It was silent on the other end of the phone. “Really?” Lena’s voice sounded unhinged. “I abandoned you once, my love, and I won’t do it again. Now that I’ve tasted your cock, I remember how good it was, and I am never letting go.” Fuck. My cock twitched to life. Why did that sound so hot? Stop it, Ace. Get a grip. You shouldn’t feel this way. Still, I almost slipped my hand into my trousers to relieve myself. “I bet you’ve got a boner just from listening to me talk dirty, baby.” I bit down on my lower lip. “You’ve always been so responsive to me, ready to fuck even when you could barely keep your eyes—” I ended the call before I could humiliate myself any further. _____________________________ I barely slept. By four in the morning I was staring at the ceiling, running the same loop in my head. Clara in my study, the stranger's hands on her hips… and underneath it all, Lena's voice sitting in the back of my head like a song I couldn't shake. At six, I gave up and got dressed. The house was quiet when I came down. There was no sign of Clara. Good. I grabbed my keys, poured coffee into a travel mug, and was nearly at the door when I heard her hiss. "Leaving without saying goodbye?" I stopped. Shit. Clara was at the kitchen island, dressed like she had somewhere important to be. Her hair was done, had red lipstick on… the shade she only wore when she wanted someone's attention. She was holding a mug in both hands and watching me like I was mildly entertaining. The image of her taking that large cock, flashed through my mind. "Don't," I said. "Don't what?" She tilted her head. "I just asked a question." "I'm going to work." "Mm." She sipped her coffee. "Daniel called, by the way. He wants to have dinner with us this weekend. The three of us." Her eyes stayed on mine. "I told him we'd be there." Uneasiness crept up my neck. "You told him we'd be there," I repeated slowly. "Is that a problem?" I stared at the woman I had chosen, and iciness coiled around my heart. "The man you had in my study last night," I said quietly. "Does Daniel know about him too? Or is that one yours alone?" Her expression didn't change. That was what scared me. "Have a good day at work, Ace. And don't take the car. I'm sure you can figure something out." She turned back to her coffee. Good talk. I walked out. _________________________ My firm was a twenty-minute drive, and for the first fifteen minutes the driver didn't turn the radio on. I rested my head on the window, trying to figure out how I'd let my life become this. The driver parked not so gently. I grabbed my bag, made sure to collect my change, and walked in. Nadia, my assistant, was already at her desk. She wore a ponytail with an unusually bright innocent— “Morning, Mr. Sinclair. You have a nine o'clock with the Morrison account, and Mr. Ellison moved his eleven to two." "Thanks." I moved past her toward my office. "Also," she called after me, "there's someone waiting for you inside." I paused. "Who cleared that?" She looked genuinely puzzled. "She said you were expecting her. I assumed it was your wife—" I pushed the door open. Lena was sitting in the chair across from my desk. She was wearing a cream blouse that hugged her busty tits so tightly and black shirts. Her hair was loose over her shoulders and brushing the tops of her hard nipples, and she had one red heel dangling lazily off her foot. She smiled when she saw me. "Morning, love." I shut the door behind me. "How did you get in here?" I asked dryly. How could I have forgotten how much of a stalker Lena was back then. She shrugged one shoulder. "Your assistant is very trusting." She glanced around the office, taking it in. "Nice place. Your wife set this up for you, didn't she?" There it was.
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Chapter 152
Ace’s POVThe investigator called while I was still sitting in the car outside the office.“Just say it,” I told him.“I’ve got more than those medical results now.” He sounded careful. “Two things. First one is that Clara went to a cash clinic about eight weeks ago under a slightly different name. It wasn’t a normal pregnancy visit.”“Well I’ll be dammed.”“It was a consult about faking early signs and controlling the story. The person who told me won’t go public for obvious reasons, but the timing matches when she started pushing the pregnancy hard.”My hand tightened on the steering wheel. “And the second?”“Messages but they were not signed with her name, but tied to a phone from her office. Talk about keeping the timeline useful and not letting you force her into real proof.”“Why am I not even surprised?”“Hold up, It’s not a full confession. But it sure as hell doesn’t sound like an innocent woman.”“So I’ve got enough to face her with.”“Enough to stop being gentle but not eno
Chapter 151
Lena’s POVThe window I had was only going to be open for ninety minutes.Karl had a meeting across the city, this was one of those rare times his schedule created distance without his ever watchful eyes on me. Natasha had marked the block two days ago and said, if you’re going to test anything, test it then. Not the full exit, just one piece and one route. I left the apartment with a grocery bag and the appearance of a woman running ordinary errands. At the market I bought items I did not need, then walked out through the side street instead of the front. The plan was simple, or close to it; No taxi from the nearest corner, two blocks down. A bus, not an app car. Then a transfer line we had chosen because the cameras were older and the crowd was thicker at this hour.My secondary phone stayed off in the bottom of the bag.The first stop was a short-term room above a laundry, paid in cash to avoid anyone tracing it. Natasha had refused to let me near it during setup. Today was th
Chapter 150
Clara’s POVMy father asked me to come to the house in the afternoon, which should have been ordinary but instead felt like being summoned to a verdict.He received me in the study with the door half open and his glasses already in his hand. Marcus, mercifully, was not there. His absence did not feel like relief, on the contrary, It felt like the damage had already been done thoroughly enough that he no longer needed to be present for whatever happens next.“Sit down, Clara.”I sat. “If this is about the panel clip, I already know what you’re going to say.”“It’s not only about the panel my child.” He set the glasses on the desk. “It’s about the calls you’re making Clara, the way every adjustment looks, from the outside, like a fight for survival rather than a demonstration of readiness.”My mouth went dry. “I am fighting for survival?! Is that your personal opinion or another one of Marcus’s words that has managed to get to you.”“Enough.” The word was quiet and absolute. “I am not
Chapter 149
Marcus’s POVThe morning panel had been billed as a modest industry breakfast on succession continuity in family-held enterprises. I accepted the invitation for the obvious reason: the room would contain exactly the kind of people who preferred their concerns confirmed by someone calm enough to make those concerns sound responsible.I arrived early, jacket unbuttoned, no entourage, and spent the first ten minutes greeting people by name. Helen Cho found me near the coffee.“Marcus. I thought you might be here.”“Helen.” I smiled. “I heard the youth program closed its funding round. Congratulations.”She looked pleased, then serious. “It’s a difficult climate for long-term commitments. People want competence, but they also want emotional stability, and you know that one without the other makes donors nervous.”“That’s true in more than philanthropy,” I said. I let the observation remain general. “Institutions feel safest when the person at the front doesn’t require constant temperatu
Chapter 148
Karl’s POVThe report on Sinclair was neat, thorough, and useless in the way that only competent failure could be.I finished reading it in the upper room above the warehouse and set the pages aside. Rafael stood on the other side of the table with the kind of stillness my people learned early.“He absorbed the perimeter action,” I said.“Yes.” Rafael didn’t dress it up. “Security tightened within hours. Vendor routes were rewritten before end of day. No public noise. No visible panic. He treated it like weather and kept moving.”I stared at the closed folder. “I didn’t authorize weather. I authorized a reminder.”“He received the reminder. He just didn’t break pattern.”That was the problem. Most men, once reached, started spending themselves on the reach. They became reactive, noisy, easier to predict. Sinclair kept converting pressure into schedule changes and harder edges. Adaptation without the courtesy of fear.“Say the rest,” I told Rafael.He nodded once. “Jonathan made conta
Chapter 147
Tamara’s POVJohnson closed the apartment door behind him like a man finishing a sentence he had been writing for weeks.No overnight bag this time. No soft promise about a few days and a clearer head. Just him, standing in the entryway with his hands empty and his face already halfway gone from the life we had built around other people’s emergencies.“You’re doing it,” I said.“Yes.”I stayed by the kitchen counter because moving closer would have turned the moment into a scene, and I was so tired of scenes. “Say the full version. Don’t leave me to translate.”Johnson nodded once. “I’m out of the Clara work. Officially. No more strategy calls. No more shared files. No more being the second mind in a crisis that never ends. I’m distancing from the operation and from the version of us that only functions when she’s sinking.”The words were clean. That made them worse.“And what am I supposed to do with that?” I asked. “Clap? Wish you well? Pretend this isn’t you handing me the whole bl
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