The Billionaire's Bought Bride and Instant Mom Chapter 234

Devan

For three days, I'd been living in a state of mounting dread. Dwayne had vanished from the house without a word, leaving behind only his abandoned breakfast and that infuriating sense of smugness he'd been carrying lately. Every phone call that went to voicemail, every hour that passed without contact, tightened the knot of anxiety in my chest.

But nothing could have prepared me for this moment.

The headline screamed from my laptop screen with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: "Blackwell PLAYBOY HEIR FOUND BRUTALLY MURDERED" Below it, a grainy police photo showed a tree line cordoned off with yellow tape, investigators gathered around what the article clinically described as "one of the most savage crime scenes in NYPD history."

My hands trembled as I scrolled through the details. Multiple fractures. Systematic mutilation. Hours of prolonged suffering before death. The words blurred together as my vision swam with disbelief and horror.

This couldn't be real. Not my son. Not Dwayne.

But then my phone rang—a number I didn't recognize but with an official-sounding voice that made my blood turn to ice.

"Mr. Blackwell? This is Detective Morrison with the NYPD. I'm calling about your son, Dwayne Blackwell. We need you to come down to identify the body."

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering to the marble floor of my study. The sound seemed to come from very far away, as if I were hearing it through water.

My legs gave out completely. I collapsed onto the Persian rug, the expensive wool rough against my face as I curled into myself. When my housekeeper Maria rushed in, concerned by the noise, I screamed at her to get away from me—my voice raw and broken in a way I didn't recognize.

She retreated, closing the door behind her with gentle firmness, leaving me alone with the crushing weight of reality.

Dwayne was dead. My only child, my heir, my entire legacy—gone. Tortured to death by monsters who had made him suffer before they killed him.

I don't know how long I lay there on the floor, waves of grief and rage crashing over me in alternating cycles. The ambitious young man who'd built an empire from nothing felt reduced to a broken animal, keening soundlessly into the carpet.

When the phone rang again, I almost didn't answer. But something made me reach for it—perhaps the desperate hope that this was all some horrible mistake.

"Mr. Blackwell?" The voice was unfamiliar, tinged with what sounded like practiced sympathy. "This is Zara Tucker from Tucker Investigations. I want to extend my deepest condolences for your loss."

My throat felt like sandpaper. "I don't know who you are."

"I'm a private investigator. Your son recently hired my services, and there's still an outstanding balance on his account. I know this is a terrible time to discuss business matters, but my agency has policies about—"

White-hot rage cut through my grief like a blade. "Are you fucking kidding me right now? My son is dead, and you're calling about money?"

"Sir, please understand—I think the work your son commissioned might be directly related to what happened to him."

That stopped my fury cold. "What are you talking about?"

"Your son hired me to conduct surveillance on a woman named Vivian Hartwell. We tracked her movements for a full week, documented her routine, identified vulnerabilities in her security." Zara's voice took on a more businesslike tone. "The strange thing is, when your son finally moved to confront her at the location we'd identified, he simply... disappeared. The next thing we heard was the news about his murder."

The name hit me like a physical blow. Vivian. That manipulative bitch who'd been playing all sides, who'd somehow wormed her way into Orion's inner circle after betraying us.

"That fucking whore," I whispered, the words scraping out of my damaged throat. "It was her. She killed my boy."

"I can't make assumptions about causation," Zara said carefully, "but the timing is certainly suspicious. About that balance—"

"I'll pay you," I snarled. "Every goddamn penny. And if you have any additional information about what happened to my son, there's a bonus in it for you."

"Thank you for understanding, Mr. Blackwell. You're clearly a man who respects professional obligations."

After I hung up, the grief began transforming into something else—something harder and infinitely more dangerous. Vivian's face swam in my memory: those calculated smiles, the way she'd played the innocent victim while manipulating everyone around her.

But Vivian was just a pawn. She didn't have the resources or connections to orchestrate something this sophisticated. This had Orion's fingerprints all over it—him and that precious wife of his, using their pet killer to eliminate threats.

The only question was who had actually carried out the execution. The brutality described in the news suggested professionals, but even Victor Kozlov's people weren't known for this level of sadistic theater.

There was only one way to find out.

I dialed a number I hadn't called in months—a man whose services came with a reputation for reliability and complete discretion.

"Dmitri Petrov," came the cold voice after three rings.

"Dmitri, it's Devan Blackwell. I need information about my son's murder. Who did Vivian hire to kill him?"

There was a pause—and I could swear I heard the bastard chuckling.

"Ah, Mr. Blackwell. I was wondering when you might call."

"Just answer the fucking question. Was it the Kozlovs? Their style is usually cleaner than this, but maybe they wanted to send a message."

"You're right about their usual methods," Dmitri said, and there was definitely amusement in his voice now. "This particular job was... more artistic than their typical work. The client specifically requested a more personal approach."

Something ice-cold crawled up my spine. "What client?"

"Miss Vivian Hartwell, of course. We concluded our business arrangement just a few days ago. Your son was the agreed-upon target."

The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't process what I'd just heard.

"You're telling me," I said slowly, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "that you and your psychotic crew murdered my son?"

"That's correct. Miss Hartwell proved to be a very... motivated client. The specifics of how your son died were entirely her design. We simply provided the execution."

Rage exploded through me like napalm. I shot to my feet, the phone pressed so hard against my ear it hurt.

"You piece of shit! You know who my brother-in-law is, don't you? Nikolai Volkov of the Crimson Brotherhood—the man who taught you everything you know about this business 

before you ever set foot in America!"

For the first time, Dmitri's voice lost some of its casual confidence. "I... may have acted somewhat impulsively in this matter."

"Somewhat impulsively?" I was screaming now, my voice echoing off the study walls. "You tortured my only son to death because some vengeful bitch paid you to do it!"

"Look, Devan, I understand your anger—"

"You understand nothing! Nikolai is going to skin you alive for this betrayal. He's going to make what you did to Dwayne look like mercy!"

There was a longer pause this time. When Dmitri spoke again, he sounded almost... philosophical.

"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps I've made an enemy I can't afford. But here's the thing, old friend—I was bored. Desperately, soul-crushingly bored with the predictable jobs, the routine violence, the same tired power games."

I stared at the phone in disbelief. "You killed my son because you were bored?"

"Miss Hartwell offered me something I hadn't experienced in years—genuine surprise. Unpredictability. A client who wanted something darker and more personal than the usual business arrangements." His voice carried a disturbing note of satisfaction. "It reminded me why I got into this line of work in the first place."

"You're fucking insane."

"Probably. But insanity is preferable to the alternative."

I was shaking with fury now, my free hand clenched into a fist. "Mark my words, you psychotic bastard—this isn't over. Nikolai won't let this stand. You've just declared war on the most dangerous man in Eastern Europe."

"Then I suppose I'd better prepare accordingly."

The line went dead.

I stood there in my empty study, phone still pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone. Around me, the trappings of my success—the leather-bound books, the oil paintings, the antique furniture—seemed to mock me with their uselessness.

All the money in the world couldn't bring back my son. All the power I'd accumulated over decades meant nothing if I couldn't protect the one person who mattered most.

But I still had one card left to play. One man whose reputation made even the most hardened criminals wake up screaming.

With trembling fingers, I dialed a number I'd hoped never to use. The phone rang once, twice—

"Devan."

Nikolai Volkov's voice was like grinding stone, even through the phone. "You don't call at this hour unless someone is dead or about to be. Talk to me." He was my late wife's brother, a man who'd built an empire on other people's bones, who'd taken a starving boy from the streets of Kiev and taught him that power was the only currency that mattered.

I couldn't breathe. I could only manage to choke out the one name that could move a mountain like him. "Kolya," I whispered, using the childhood nickname only family was permitted. "I need your help."

A dead silence hung on the line. I knew he was waiting, listening not just to my words but to the shattered spaces between them.

"They murdered my son."