Chase Sterling always felt like furniture. The kind you don't notice, the kind that's easy to shove in a corner and forget. He was used to it: people looked right through him, brushed him off like lint. But it only takes one phone call to erase a lifetime of being overlooked. When his estranged family meets a tragic end, Chase suddenly finds himself in charge of the sprawling Sterling fortune. Turns out, riches aren't the only thing the family left him. There's a curse running through his blood, warping love into something hungry and dangerous, impossible to escape.

Vivian Ashford never set out to blow Chase's life to smithereens. Just one decision (a sharp, ruthless move at graduation) was all it took to set their worlds spinning out of control. While Vivian soaks up the Hollywood limelight and collects red-carpet headlines, Chase slips into his new role as Manhattan's most intimidating heir. But no matter how far they run, something keeps yanking them back together, like a stitch in an old wound that refuses to heal.

Helena confronts me the morning after intervention failure, after shadows poured from my eyes proving curse integration is complete, after she failed to strip supernatural elements she created through cursing Dominic twenty-six years ago, appearing in my penthouse without invitation because supernatural beings don't require normal entry permission when confronting people who've become exactly what they shouldn't.


She's furious. Not the cold strategic anger I've seen before. Actual rage that proves my transformation into curse itself offends her in ways normal Sterling family disasters didn't.


Chapter 170 - Helena's Disappointment