Chapter 152 Chapter One hundred and fifty-one
ARA
“Is she truly our cousin?” Millie asked for what felt like the thousandth time since we got back, throwing Lenora another curious glance.
“Yes,” I answered patiently, scratching my stomach again. Lately it had been itching like crazy, and it was starting to drive me mad.
“Nate is really cute though,” Mollie whispered, stealing glances at him by the window. “Maybe Uncle Thayne will hire him since he helped with the footage yesterday.”
Lenora still wasn’t speaking to him.
Meanwhile, Mollie clearly believed it was her personal mission to talk to Nate and determine whether he might also have a crush on her.
Teenagers. I was not in the mood for their romantic investigations on top of everything else.
We were waiting for feedback from our lawyer.
Thayne had decided he didn’t feel like torturing Neil for additional information, so he’d simply sent him straight to jail. Efficient, brutal and very, very, Thayne. You'd have to agree with me on this one.
He was yet to return since he left two hours ago
All of us were gathered in the room we’d used for the press release on the top floor. It looked like a conference room and the hotel management had rented it out exclusively to Thayne for use until we were finished.
Nick sat on the couch, flicking through television channels restlessly. Millie and Mollie stopped pestering him after he lied that stress was the major reason he was balding.
They immediately left him, because they didn't want their papa to go hairless so soon.
Lenora had taken up a seat near the coffee table and was knitting something for her little brother. I squinted at it for a moment.
It looked suspiciously like a woolen pair of boxer briefs. Was this boy's waist this fat?
Nate stood near the tall window, staring outside like a man contemplating every mistake he’d ever made.
He was probably still regretting not telling Lenora about her aunt’s belongings that had been sitting in his apartment longer than they'd both known each other.
Liliana had disappeared into the kitchen with the staff hours ago.
The last time I saw her, there had been flour in her hair and she smelled like she’d crawled directly out of an oven after baking herself.
She said she wasn't ready to face the media yet. She was giving it a month or two before announcing herself to the world again.
Despite everything… things were beginning to feel normal again. I could feel it.
The tension that had wrapped around us for weeks was loosening. Slowly. Like smoke fading into the air.
The moment shattered when the doors opened.
Sasha and Stuart stepped into the room. One look at their faces and the calm inside my chest vanished instantly. Something had happened.
“Just spill it, Stuart,” I sighed. There was no point pretending everything was fine when their faces clearly said otherwise.
“We need to press charges,” Sasha said immediately. “As soon as possible.”
Nick’s head snapped toward her so fast I heard his neck crack.
“What? Why?” he demanded.
“Because that’s what you do after releasing footage like that,” Stuart explained calmly. “Our lawyer says the next logical step is legal action. We’ve been advised to file suits against both Slade Corps and Ackerfield International.”
The room went quiet.
I scratched my head… then my stomach again. The itching had become impossible to ignore.
“Them or their companies?” I asked.
Sasha and Stuart answered at the exact same time.
“Both.”
Nick groaned loudly, throwing his head back against the couch.
“That just means more money,” he complained.
Stuart shot him a dry look. “I don't know what you know about lawsuits, but that’s usually how it works."
Nick rubbed his temples like the concept personally offended him.
“We’re already drowning in legal paperwork,” he muttered. “Now we’re adding two corporations and two egotistical billionaires to the pile.”
“Good.” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“What? If they want a war,” I said evenly, “we’ll give them one.”
Sasha nodded approvingly. The both of us had suffered more and longer than anyone present here. If they wanted fire, I'd sell everything I had to make sure we never ran out of gasoline or lighters.
“Our lawyer also said something else,” Sasha added.
“What?” I asked.
Her eyes moved slowly across the room.
“Once the charges are filed, this stops being a media scandal.”
She paused.
“It becomes a criminal investigation.”
Nick stopped complaining. Lenora stopped knitting.
Even Nate turned away from the window. And suddenly the room felt much smaller.
Because criminal investigations meant the feds who had been breathing down our necks since day one would finally have to start doing their jobs.
And with all the evidence we had now, Slade Senior and Jimmy Ackerfield were officially in trouble.
“Jimmy escaped a fire outbreak and a building collapse. I wonder if we can truly nail him down.” Nick admitted.
I kind of wanted to agree. Jimmy was fucking stubborn.
“Why are you all having a meeting without me?”
Thayne’s voice boomed from the doorway before I even saw him.
I smelled him first. That familiar mix of expensive cologne and the faint trace of cedar plus citrus that always seemed to cling to him after a long day.
Everyone turned. He stepped into the room like a man who owned not just the building, but the entire city outside it.
His gaze found mine instantly. Then he winked.
And just like that, my worries melted.
Unlike the rest of us, Thayne didn’t look like his problems. If anything, he looked energized, like chaos was the fuel he ran on.
Nick pointed the remote control at him accusingly.
“Your wife is suing half of New York,” he announced.
Thayne raised an eyebrow.
“Only half?” he asked dryly.
Sasha crossed her arms.
“The lawyer says we need to file charges immediately. Against Slade Corps and Ackerfield International. Both the companies and the men behind them.”
Thayne’s expression didn’t change. If anything, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
“Good,” he said simply.
I watched him carefully.
“Ara said the same thing.” Nick commented.
“You’re not worried?” I asked Thayne.
He walked over and rested a hand on the back of my chair, his fingers brushing my shoulder.
“Worried?” he repeated.
His eyes darkened slightly. “Ara, my father and your father teamed up to take us out multiple times. Even went as far as taking your sisters and trying to take my mother. Your own father wanted to take our baby.”
The room fell silent.
“So no,” he finished calmly. “I’m not worried.”
He leaned down slightly, his voice lowering near my ear.
“I’m excited.”
He straightened to his feet and nodded at Sasha.
“Arrange the paperwork and send the word out. I want it all set before midnight.”
Then he leaned over again and tickled my ear with his tongue.
“I think we're due for some alone time. Have you seen your boobs in this dress you're wearing? I want to stuff my face with them?” He slurred seductively in my ear.
If we weren't surrounded by friends and family right now I'd have jumped on him.
I let him pull me to my feet, but then I doubled over when I felt a sharp jolt in my underbelly.
I looked down and saw blood. I screamed.