2024-08-21 09:43:49As Alex approached the house entrance, Sophia noticed that Alex
was behind her."Haven’t you had enough?"
"Believe me," Alex replied, "running into you is the last thing I wanted today."
Sophia stepped out, blocking his path.
"So, what is it then? Are you here to remind me of the biggest mistake of my life?"
"Mistake?" Alex’s tone grew colder.
"I could say the same. You think I enjoyed waking up and realizing I’d wasted my time with someone so shallow?"
"Shallow?" Sophia’s eyes flashed with anger.
"You’re just bitter because you know I’m right. You’re nothing but a loser, a gold-digger."
Alex laughed, shaking his head.
"You’re delusional. I don’t need anything from you, least of your money."
Sophia stepped even closer, her finger jabbing the air between them.
"Then what do you want? To ruin my life even more?"
"No, I’m not here to ruin anything." Alex locked his eyes with hers. "I’m meeting my fiancée."
"Your fiancée? You have a fiancée?" Sophia shocked.
"I’m here to meet someone named Sophia Lancaster at this address," Alex’s patience wearing thin.
"I’m not looking for you. So, if you can help me out, call her, and I’ll leave as soon as possible."
WTF?!
Sophia paused, her expression shifting from shock to realization.
"Wait... you're here for that Sophia Lancaster?"
Alex coldly replied.
"Yes! Can you please just get her? I don't have time for games."
Sophia bit her lip, trying to mask the confusion swirling inside her.
"There’s no need to call anyone. I’m... I’m Sophia Lancaster."
They stood there, staring at each other in stunned silence.
Just then, a voice called out from inside the mansion.
"Alexander Leonhart!"
An old man stepped out, his face lighting up with a wide smile.
"Master told me you would come today! What are you doing out there?"
"Grandfather," Sophia called.
The old man, Abraham Lancaster, turned towards them, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
He looked between them, his smile growing even wider as if he had been waiting for this moment.
"So, you've met Alex, your fiancé. It’s great to know you both know each other."
Sophia quickly interjected, "We are not—"
"Call your parents, Sophia," Abraham said, cutting her off.
"Gather everyone in the Great Hall. I have an announcement. You both are going to get married today."
Sophia stood, shocked.
"Finally, my long-held wish can be fulfilled today," Abraham’s voice trembled with happiness.
He walked over to Alex, his hand reaching out to grasp Alex’s.
"Come, let’s go to the Great Hall. You’ll meet your in-laws."
Sophia watched them walk away, disbelief and anger surging through her.
She had lost her virginity to that man, and now she was supposed to lose her future too.
"This can't be happening!"
She had dreamed of an extraordinary fiancé, someone worthy, someone heroic, not any rubbish!
Instead, she was now being handed to a man she could have picked off the street.
As CEO of Lancaster Group, known for her beauty and bright future, how could she marry such a man?
What would people think?
"No," she decided. "I'll stop this marriage, no matter the cost."
***
In the Great Hall, Abraham guided Alex to an honored seat.
"How is Master?"
"Still healthy after a hundred years," Alex replied.
"You’re young, successful, and humble. I’m fortunate to have a grandson-in-law like you. Sophia is a good person; please give her a chance to get to know you better."
Alex nodded politely, but he doubt the possibility.
Sophia didn’t look like she wanted the chance.
"Wonderful, wonderf—" Abraham laugh joyfully.
However, just then, an angry voice cut in.
"Are you insane?! Sophia cannot marry him!"
Lady Lancaster, Abraham's wife, angrily stormed into the Great Hall.
She was flanked by their two sons and two daughters-in-law, with Sophia trailing behind them.
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Chapter 736
New Avalon hadn't changed.Same glass towers. Same clean streets. Same money smell in the air.Alex walked into the Regent Group lobby at nine in the morning and nobody stopped him.That was the first wrong thing.The second wrong thing was the front desk. Empty. No guard. No clerk.The third wrong thing was the elevator. It was already coming down.A young woman stepped out of it. Regent Group badge. Grey suit. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to hold one with the other."Are you Mr. Alexander?" she said.Alex stopped walking."Where is Beatrix?""They took her at seven." The woman's voice cracked."Who took her?""Her uncle.""Cornelius.""Yes." She pulled a folded paper from her jacket and held it out. Her whole arm trembled. "He left this. He said to give it only to you. He said you'd know what it meant."Alex unfolded it.An address. Nothing else."It's the storage works. West of the city." She was crying now and trying not to. "We hold new product there. It's ours. It's Re
Chapter 735
Varan offered a cold, dead-eyed smile."Here’s the deal," he said. "Get on your knees. Right there, in front of the lens. Confess to murdering my brother, beg for forgiveness, and hit the floor in a ten-count kowtow.""And then?""Then it's quick. One clean cut on your neck. You won't feel it." He shrugged."And if I don't?"Varan's voice didn't change at all."Then I start with your fingers," he said. "One at a time. Then your hands. Then your arms. And I keep going until you confess. Until you beg. Until you try to kneel and find out you don't have knees anymore."Behind him, three hundred soldiers stood and listened.Six hundred thousand people watched at home.Alex looked at him. He looked almost bored."You'll die in one move," Alex said. "Why would I kneel to a dead man?"The whole factory went still.Varan let out a dry laugh. "You have no idea who you're dealing with—or the nightmare waiting for you.""Quiet," Alex said flatly. "You get one warning, and this is it. Clear out o
Chapter 734
Vesper came out of the pen.He shouldn't have been able to. Poisoned twice in a week. Four days flat on his side under Alex's needles. But a bonded guardian doesn't get a vote when his house is dying.For half a minute, House Calder had a chance.He flipped a vehicle onto its side. Threw two men through a wall. Thirty Line troops gave ground, and up on the landing, something wild and stupid rose in Wren's chest. Hope."Cable teams," a voice said below. Calm. Bored. Like a man calling a card game.They stopped fighting him. They started processing him.Three teams, three sides. Stakes hammered into Calder stone. Steel line thrown over him like a net over a bird, men leaning back on the ropes in ranks while others put round after round into his legs.Never the skull. Nothing about it was angry. They'd done this before.His forelegs buckled. Then his hindquarters. Then all of him.They left him alive. Pinned under eleven cables, two men standing on his neck.Lord Calder came down his own
Chapter 733
"Get up," Alex commanded.Rowan got up.Alex wiped his blade once and put it away. "Listen carefully, because I'm going to say all of this exactly once.""I am listening." Rowan straightened."Lord Draven died today by his own son's hand. A family matter. A grievance twenty years old. There was no outsider in this house — no outsider at the gate, no outsider on the grounds, no outsider in this hall." Alex's voice didn't change at all. "That's the only version of today that exists. Can you hold it?""In front of who, sir?""The district magistrate. The Wardens. Everyone."Something moved across Rowan's face. It might have been the closest he'd come to a smile in a year."Then yes, sir. I can hold it." Rowan's voice went flat and certain. "Can you let me command the Draven house?"Alex nodded slowly. "It is yours.""Forty-one holdings across three districts," Rowan said. "I've kept the books on all of them since I was fifteen, because my father didn't trust a clerk and didn't consider m
Chapter 732
The front doors of House Draven stood nine feet tall, oak banded in iron, built for a siege that never came.Nobody had shut them against an enemy in four generations.Alex shut them now.He dropped the iron bar across the frame one-handed — a beam three grown men were supposed to need — and set it in its cradle like he was latching a gate behind livestock.No ceremony. No effort.The sound rolled down every hallway in the house.Somewhere in the east corridor, a voice called out, asking who'd closed the doors.Nobody answered.Alex rolled his shoulders once and started walking.In the great hall, Lord Draven wasn't worried yet. “So, the man you called has come?”Wren sat bound in a chair at the center of the floor, two guards behind her. Draven stood at the window, hands folded behind his back."You should understand what's about to happen," he said, "so you don't waste the next hour hoping."Wren said nothing. Her wrists were raw from the rope. Her jaw stayed locked.“Look around yo
Chapter 731
The car didn't stop at the gatehouse.Every noble estate Wren had ever visited stopped guests there — logged them, walked them in on foot.House Draven's driver didn't even slow down. The grounds kept unfolding after that, the way grounds only do when a house wants you to know exactly how small you are.Beasts lined the drive. Not chained. Stationed — the way soldiers stand post.Horned things the size of draft horses flanked a fountain. Something long and scaled coiled along a garden wall, one eye open, watching her pass. Further back, near the trees, shapes she didn't have names for and didn't want to guess at.House Draven didn't just have a guardian bond. House Draven had an army wearing fur and scales, standing at attention.A steward met her — not at the front doors. A side entrance. Past a hallway of portraits she didn't recognize, the air gone hushed and wrong, the kind of quiet built to remind visitors they'd already gone somewhere they weren't invited.Wrong. Something in he
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Reader Comments
but he doubted the possibility
good novel
like seriously