?Chapter 1470:


    The doctor finished his examination and excused himself quietly.


    Though Chris’s condition had stabilized, the sight of his injuries still unsettled everyone present. Bandages wrapped his forehead. His chest was bound tightly,yers of white concealing how close death hade. The bullet had missed his heart by the narrowest margin. Too close.


    Chris lowered his gaze to his chest.


    The memory surged back without warning. In that instant, there had been only one thought in his mind — if he had to die, then so be it, as long as Maia lived. The instinct had been raw and overwhelming, and recalling it now sent a chill through him.


    Was it because she was his wife?


    Since waking up, Chris had found it difficult toprehend his own actions. Within those blurred fragments of memory, it felt as though he had already fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with Maia — so deeply that there had been no turning back. Yet the mysterious woman who appeared in his dreams, the girl whose face remained indistinct, lingered like a thorn embedded in his heart. He still had not found the girl who had once saved his life.


    He pushed the tangled thoughts aside and closed his eyes briefly, forcing the noise in his mind into silence.


    Another face emerged — clearer, colder. The instigator of tonight’s chaos. The woman who had betrayed The Mask. The woman who had nearly cost both him and Maia their lives.


    After a long moment of silence, he opened his eyes. They locked onto Grayson with a gaze sharp enough to cut steel, and his voice dropped — icy and absolute.


    “Bring Raegan to me.”


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    Grayson snapped to attention instantly, his right hand clenching into a fist and pressing firmly against his chest in a precise, knight-style salute. “Yes, sir.”


    The basement was dark, damp, and suffocating.


    Moisture clung to the walls, the air thick with decay and neglect. Inside a cramped cell, Raegany sprawled across the cold cement floor, unmoving. The chill seeped through her clothes, but she did not react.


    Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Click-ck. Click-ck. Slow. Deliberate. Then came the turn of a key.


    Click.


    She should have felt something — fear, anticipation, relief — but there was nothing. Her body remained still, her mind hollow, like a shell long emptied.


    The cell door creaked open. A tall figure stood framed in the doorway, blocking the weak light behind him.


    “Raegan.” Grayson’s voice sliced through the stale air, cold and merciless. “The leader wants to see you.”


    At those words, Raegan’s lifeless eyes flew open. Her body shuddered violently, as though struck by lightning.


    The leader… was still alive?


    Slowly, she turned her head. Tears spilled freely, streaming down her face as herposure finally shattered.


    Inside Kyle’s secret vi, at the heart of the living room, Chris fitted the metallic mask back over his face.


    The surface caught the light with a cold sheen, concealing his pale, unreadable features and leaving only his deep-set eyes exposed. Authority clung to him — edged with chill and secrecy.


    Raegan approached on unsteady feet, hesitation dragging at every step as panic churned inside her. She saw it. That mask she knew all too well. And beneath it, the man she had once worshipped like a god.


    In that moment, guilt surged violently through her chest.


    Raegan cursed her own foolishness again and again. Her thoughts dragged her back to the alleyway fight, when her people had nearly killed him — then to the charity event, where her subordinate had fired at him once more. Twice. Twice she had attacked the man she loved above all others.


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