Chapter 530:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

His voice, when he spoke, was stripped of its harsh edges, leaving only a raw, gentle urgency. “Allison. Look at me.”

She lifted her gaze, eyes swimming with a pain deeper than anything the media or Baker could inflict.

“I know what he said to you,” Adam continued, his voice a low, steady anchor. “Whatever it was, it’s meaningless, the words of a desperate, cornered animal. Forget them.”

He paused, then made a promise, each word delivered with the weight of an unbreakable vow. “Starting at eight a.m. tomorrow, Baker Montgomery will no longer have the authority to say a single word to you. I guarantee it.”

His certainty was a tangible force. It didn’t erase her pain, but it contained it. She took a shuddering breath, the tears subsiding, and managed a small, grateful nod.

𝘕е𝘸 𝘄𝗲𝘦𝘬𝗅𝘺 c𝗁аpt𝖾𝗿s о𝗻 𝘨𝗮𝘭𝗻𝗼v𝘦l𝗌.𝗰𝗼𝗺

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and deflected, her own concern pushing aside her sorrow. “How is your arm? What did the doctor say?”

“A minor injury,” he lied smoothly. “Healing fine.”

As he spoke, the tablet shifted slightly. For a split second, Allison caught a glimpse of his background, not the stark, modern safe house with its view of the ocean, but dark wood paneling, an ornate fireplace, what looked like a centuries-old tapestry.

A cold knot formed in her stomach. “You’re not at the safe house.”

Adam was silent for a moment. “I had to return to the Kensington estate. There were family matters to attend to.”

The blood drained from her face. The Kensington estate. The nest of vipers. The place where the people who most likely ordered his execution lived.

“Are you insane?” The words burst out of her, sharp with panic. “You’re injured. You can’t be there. That’s the most dangerous place on earth for you right now.”

Her fear for him was so pure, so instinctive, it eclipsed her own problems entirely.

A flicker of warmth entered Adam’s tired eyes. He saw not a business partner, but a woman terrified of losing him. “That’s precisely why I had to come back,” he said, his voice patient. “Showing up here, injured but defiant, is a sign of strength. Hiding would have been seen as weakness, my uncles and cousins would have started circling, smelling blood, trying to carve up my assets.”

His voice dropped, taking on a chilling edge. “I needed to remind them, personally, that even with one arm, I have more than enough strength to snap all their necks.”

The casual brutality sent a shiver down her spine. She was glimpsing his world, byzantine power plays and lethal consequences that made her struggles with Baker seem like a schoolyard squabble.

She stopped arguing. She understood.

Her fear didn’t vanish, but it transformed into a heavy, aching concern. “Take care of yourself, Adam. Please. Be safe.”

“I will be. I’ll be back as soon as this is done. Stay in the apartment. Don’t go anywhere until I return.”

They spoke for a few more minutes, the conversation strained by the thousands of unspoken fears between them, before ending the call.

.

.

.