From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 433

Chapter 244: Don’t Be Late

Savannah

When the call with Lizzie ended, I stared down at my phone long

after the screen went dark.

For a moment, I just stood there, the night wind brushing against my skin, the distant thrum of helicopter blades still echoing in my bones. Guilt sat heavy in my chest, thick and suffocating, like something lodged there that refused to be swallowed.

I hope you’ll forgive me someday, Lizzie.

I hadn’t lied to her. Not really. But I hadn’t told her the full truth either. I just left it to Reese because he knew what to do. And

somehow, that felt worse.

I was protecting her. I knew that. I believed it with everything in me, If something happened to her–if she got pulled into this twisted, dangerous world Roman came from–I would never forgive myself.

And I knew, deep down, that this was exactly what Roman would have

1/6

Chapter 433

done.

He would’ve shut the door gently. He would’ve smiled, reassured, taken the burden onto his own shoulders without hesitation. He would’ve carried it alone if it meant keeping the people he loved safe.

That was who he was.

I closed my eyes briefly and exhaled. “I hope I’m doing the right thing,”

I whispered to no one.

When I opened my eyes again, Blackwood Manor loomed before me.

It was… unreal.

And suddenly, every ounce of stubbornness and fight I had inside me

earlier had disappeared.

I was in General Blackwood’s territory now. And I practically knew no

one in this huge place.

Huge didn’t even begin to cover it. Massive, Monstrous. This was the

kind of place that didn’t just exist–it completely dominated.

The manor rose out of the darkness like something alive, its

sprawling structure illuminated by hundreds–no, thousands–of

216

Chapter 433

carefully placed lights that cast long, sharp shadows across the

grounds.

It reminded me of a museum. Or a castle. Or one of those old estates

you only ever saw in movies–the kind where terrible secrets lived

behind locked doors and nothing good ever happened after sunset.

The haunted kind.

The helicopter had barely touched down before I felt it.

That wrongness.

It slid under my skin the second my feet hit the ground, prickling

along my spine, tightening my chest. My body reacted before my

mind could catch up, every instinct screaming that this was not a

place meant for warmth or comfort.

There was something rotten here. Something deeply, irrevocably

wrong that made me understand why Roman treated this place the

way he did.

I don’t know how to explain it.

There’s just something wrong here. Something very wrong. You can

just… feel it in the air.

3/6

Chapter 433

I hugged my arms around myself and forced my breathing to slow as I

took in the grounds properly. The first thing that caught my attention

was the rose garden.

God. It was breathtaking.

Row after row of massive rose bushes bloomed in perfect symmetry,

their petals a deep, violent red that almost looked black under the

night sky. They were meticulously maintained, not a single wilted leaf

in sight, the scent was faint but heayy in the air.

They were beautiful in the way sharp things often were. Then my gaze

drifted to the fountain. At its center stood a statue–tall, imposing.

That stature and cane are unmistakable.

General Blackwood.

Even carved from stone, he radiated authority. The sculptor hadn’t softened a single line. The sharp jaw, the unyielding posture, the

black and grey hair, the cold, distant expression. Water cascaded around him, but he remained untouched, elevated above it all. A man

immortalized exactly as he was.

And then there were the cars. There were so many of them that I was

scared of imagining what all that would have cost.

4/6

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify