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Chapter Ten – Shadows in the Files

Author: Rukky

2025-09-08 23:41:35

The Carter family library was a fortress of leather-bound volumes and locked drawers, a place where secrets wore dust like armor. Selene Carter stood alone in it, the tick of the grandfather clock loud against the silence.

She had not planned to be here. She had planned to bury herself in work, to drown out the memory of Fowler’s eyes steady, unflinching, unbroken. Instead, she had found herself drifting here, to the one room in her father’s estate where answers might be buried.

Her hands were steady as she slid open the drawer of her father’s desk. Steady, but her heart hammered. She had never snooped in Charles Carter’s domain before. To do so was to trespass against the iron rule of her family.

But doubt gnawed like acid. Damon’s smirk. Charles’s slip. The word “treason” said too deliberately. The shadow in her father’s eyes when she questioned him.

Something was wrong. She sifted through neatly arranged files ledgers, contracts, corporate memoranda. Nothing unusual. Her father’s e

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Chapter Twenty-Two – The Storm Breaks
The Carter estate was a fortress, its stone walls rising high against the storm. But even fortresses had cracks and Fowler Reddington had always known where to strike.Rain soaked his torn shirt and streaked through the blood on his face, but he pressed forward, rifle steady, eyes locked on the mansion glowing against the night.Raven moved beside him, silent and precise, her pistol raised, her body language coiled with lethal intent. Behind them, Marcus Hale limped heavily, every step drenched in pain, yet his presence was immovable.Lightning seared across the sky, illuminating the rows of guards fanning out on the estate grounds. Their rifles glinted as they took aim, orders barked above the storm.Fowler didn’t slow. The first burst of gunfire tore through the rain. Bullets screamed past, striking mud and stone.Fowler dove forward, rolling into cover behind a low stone wall as Raven returned fire, her shots snapping through the dark with terrifying precision. Two guards dropped b
Chapter Twenty-One – Daggers in the Dark
The storm raged against the estate, rain hammering the tall windows as though the heavens themselves sought entry.Inside the study, three figures stood in silent collision, Selene behind her father’s desk, Damon by the fire, Vivienne Hale at the door.It was Vivienne who moved first. She closed the study door with a click, her crimson lips curving into something between a smile and a snarl.Her drenched dress clung to her curves, the rain glistening on her skin. But there was no softness in her posture; her eyes burned with intent.“Quite the family gathering,” she purred, though her voice was sharp as broken glass. “I can practically smell the betrayal in the air.”Damon’s smile didn’t waver. “Vivienne. You really should knock before entering private conversations.”“Private?” Vivienne scoffed, stepping forward. “You mean your little confessional about destroying Fowler? About framing him? About betraying the one man who could have carried this family into a future worth a damn?”Se
Chapter Twenty – Masks Off
The Carter estate loomed in silence, rain dripping from its marble cornices. Lightning forked across the night sky, illuminating its walls like a stage for judgment.Inside, the storm was quieter, no thunder, no rain only the whispers of betrayal echoing through polished halls.Selene Carter paced her father’s study, every nerve raw. The conversation with Vivienne Hale replayed in her mind with poisonous clarity. Damon. Her brother.The boy she had once defended from boarding school bullies, the man she had trusted to stand at her side… plotting, destroying, deceiving.Her gaze fell to the folder on her father’s desk. The one she had unearthed weeks ago. The one that had cracked the first seam in her certainty.She opened it again.Fowler’s file stared back at her stamped with words like traitor and espionage. Evidence stacked like bricks, neat and damning. But Selene’s eyes, sharpened now, caught what she had missed before.Dates that didn’t align. Signatures forged by hands she reco
Chapter Nineteen – Escape Through Fire
The chamber reeked of smoke and cordite, a tomb littered with bodies and blood. Fowler’s grip tightened on the rifle, his knuckles white, every sense straining for the echo of Damon’s laughter.But the snake was gone, vanished into the maze of corridors beneath the Carter estate. The mysterious woman, his phantom savior moved first.“Move,” she snapped, her tone cutting, brooking no hesitation.She slid a fresh magazine into her sidearm, holstered it, and strode toward the corridor, her steps silent despite the chaos around them. Fowler followed, dragging Marcus Hale up with one arm.The older man’s weight was heavy, his body failing him, but Marcus still had enough fire in his eyes to keep moving. “You’re not leaving me behind, Reddington,” Marcus rasped.“Not planning on it,” Fowler muttered, slinging him against his side as they stumbled into the corridor.The hallway stretched long and narrow, lit only by the faint glow of failing emergency lights. Shadows shifted along the walls,
Chapter Eighteen – The Phantom in the Dark
Bullets tore through the chamber, sparks erupting where metal met lead. The air reeked of gunpowder and blood, thick and suffocating. Fowler moved with practiced instinct, rolling low, snatching the nearest mercenary’s fallen body as cover.Rounds slammed into the corpse, thudding wetly, but he kept moving, dragging himself into the corner shadows. His muscles screamed, his ribs burned with every breath, but freedom coursed through him like fire.The hand that had freed him pressed briefly against his shoulder again, pushing him deeper into cover. Then she was gone moving with lethal grace through the chaos.Mercenaries fell one by one, their cries sharp and short. Damon shouted over the chaos, voice breaking with fury. “Find them! FIND HIM!”But fear had infected his men. In the black, their bullets struck nothing but walls and each other.Fowler caught only fragments of her silhouette slender, deliberate, her motions swift as lightning. She wasn’t panicked, wasn’t flailing. She was
Chapter Seventeen – The Blackout
The chamber dissolved into shadow. The humming of the bulb died, leaving behind only silence and the distant drip of water through corroded pipes.For a moment, no one moved. Even the mercenaries froze, caught between orders and uncertainty. Fowler Reddington’s head lifted slowly. His vision, though blurred with blood, adjusted quickly to the dark.Blackouts were no stranger to him battlefields, ambushes, covert missions often unfolded in half light or none at all. Darkness was not his enemy. It was his ally.The mercenaries weren’t so fortunate. Their mutters rose, harsh and disoriented, boots scuffing as they tried to reorient themselves in the pitch black chamber.“Lights out? What the hell?” one muttered. “Stay sharp!” another barked, his rifle cocking with nervous haste.Fowler heard every movement, every shuffle, every breath. His chains rattled softly as he shifted, testing their give. Still strong. Still unyielding. But steel was never eternal, it had weaknesses.Damon Carter’

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Latest Chapter

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Storm Breaks

Chapter Twenty-One – Daggers in the Dark

Chapter Twenty – Masks Off

Chapter Nineteen – Escape Through Fire

Chapter Eighteen – The Phantom in the Dark

Chapter Seventeen – The Blackout