Rebirth Of The Heiress And The Tycoon's Lover (Alina) novel Chapter 271

AUTHOR’S POV.

The park melted away like a watercolor bleeding into darkness. The laughter of children faded first, then the sound of the wind, then the light itself…until Alina found herself standing on the edge of a gravel road shrouded by trees. The air was cold, eerily still.

She recognized the car immediately, a dark sedan, the same one she’d seen Elena lead her younger toward. The back door opened, and Elena’s delicate hand guided four–year–old Dahlia inside.

Her little body looked limp, her head resting against the seat, eyes unfocused, like she was trapped somewhere between consciousness and hypnosis.

On the driver’s side, a man turned slightly, his face much younger but unmistakable. Silas.

self

His sharp jawline was softer now, his hair darker and free of the silver strands that would later mark him. Yet even then, his eyes carried that same glint of obedience and restraint, like a man born to serve, not question.

He glanced at the rearview mirror, his voice low and urgent. “Did anyone see you?”

Elena adjusted her hair, her tone casual, almost proud. “No one.” She smiled faintly, her reflection glimmering in the glass. “The driver’s attention was on the boy. Everything went perfectly.”

“Perfectly?” Silas’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “You call this-” He looked at the small figure in the back seat, the words dying in his throat. “She’s just a child.”

Elena’s expression hardened. “A child with power. You of all people should understand what that means, Silas.”

He looked away, his jaw tense. “Power or not, she doesn’t deserve this.”

As Alina watched, she was surprised that Silas had been reluctant. He was always so strict she would think he would be the one happy about the whole plan.

Elena’s lips curved faintly. “Deserve?” She gave a quiet laugh… not cruel, but empty, the sound of someone who’d already buried her conscience long ago. “You think the world runs on what people deserve?”

Silas didn’t respond. His fingers drummed against the wheel as the car rolled forward, headlights slicing through the fog.

From her spectral vantage, Alina followed beside them like a drifting shadow, her pulse hammering. “Stop the car,” she whispered to no one. “Please, just stop…”

But the car didn’t stop.

After several long minutes, they slowed beside another vehicle, a sleek black car parked on the side of the road. Its windows were tinted so dark, it looked like a piece of night itself.

Silas’s engine idled. The world around them was silent except for the rhythmic hum of the two cars. Then, with a faint mechanical whine, the backseat window of the black car began to lower, only halfway, just enough

to reveal a portion of a man’s face.

Or rather, just his mouth.

Pale lips curved into the faintest, most deliberate smile.

Alina instinctively took a step forward, her heart pounding. Who is he? she thought. But the shadows clung too tightly, veiling his identity.

The man’s voice came smooth and quiet, every syllable coated in authority. “Do you have her?”

Elena inclined her head. “Yes,” she said evenly, glancing toward the back seat. “She’s here.”

Alina followed her gaze… her little self lay there, still under the spell, her head lolling gently as the car shifted.

The man’s tone didn’t change. “Alive?”

“Yes,” Silas answered this time, his voice restrained. “She’s under deep hypnosis. The child will remember nothing once it’s complete.”

There was a pause. Then the man’s hand, gloved and immaculate, extended a small white card through the narrow opening.

“Take her here,” he said. “A doctor will be waiting. He’ll handle the rest.”

Elena reached out and took the card delicately, her eyes flickering over the address before tucking it into her coat pocket. “And after?” She asked, her voice softer now.

The man chuckled,a chilling, hollow sound that made Alina’s stomach twist. “After?” he repeated, the word curling like smoke. “You’ll receive your payment, as agreed and wait for further instructions.”

Then the window rolled up without another word.

The black car pulled away, disappearing into the night like a phantom.

Alina’s breath hitched. “No… who was that? Show me his face,” she pleaded, her voice trembling as if she could somehow bend the memory to her will. “Please, show me.”

But the shadows refused to yield.

Silas exhaled shakily, staring at the spot where the car had vanished. “Payment,” he muttered, his tone laced with disgust. “Is that all we are to them? Tools?”

Elena didn’t answer right away. She turned to look at Dahlia’s unconscious face. For a brief moment…brief but unmistakable, something like regret flickered in her eyes.

Then she blinked it away. “Drive, Silas,” she said softly. “We don’t have time to waste.”

He hesitated, but the soldier in him obeyed before the man could protest. The car started again, gliding through the forest road until they reached an old manor hidden behind ivy–covered gates.

Alina followed, her chest tight, her eyes wide with disbelief. “No… this can’t be real. This isn’t-”

But it was.

The manor loomed large and silent. Its windows glowed faintly from within, and as Silas and Elena stepped out of the car, a tall man in a white coat appeared at the door.

“Doctor,” Elena greeted coolly, the wind lifting strands of her hair. “She’s here.”

The doctor nodded once, his expression unreadable. “Bring her inside.”

Silas carried Dahlia in his arms. The child’s small hand hung limp against his chest.

Inside, the manor was sterile, dimly lit. The smell of chemicals and something metallic filled the air, antiseptic and faintly like blood.

Elena followed them into a room lined with old medical equipment. A single cot sat at the center, draped with a white sheet.

Silas laid the little girl down gently, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. “She’s too young,” he said under his breath. “You’ll destroy her mind.”

The doctor looked at him coldly. “That is the point.”

Alina flinched at the words. Her throat tightened. “Stop…” she whispered, though her voice cracked on the sound. “Please stop…”

The doctor pulled out a small vial and syringe, speaking clinically. “We’ll reinforce the hypnotic state with sedation. Over the next week, her memory will be reconstructed. She will believe she was abandoned, that her parents died and that no one came for her.”

Elena’s jaw tensed. “And when she wakes?”

“She’ll be someone else,” the doctor said simply. “A blank slate. The orphanage has already been arranged.”

Silas’s hands curled into fists. He turned away sharply, his voice low. “And you expect her to survive that?”

“She will,” Elena replied quietly. “Children always do. They forget. They adapt.”

Her tone trembled slightly at the end, betraying something fragile… something almost human.

Silas looked at her, searching for the woman he once knew, but whatever softness she had left was buried beneath obedience.

The doctor injected the serum into Dahlia’s arm, and her body twitched faintly. Her breathing deepened, then steadied.

Alina watched every second, her own breath uneven. “They erased me,” she whispered. “They took everything.”

The days flickered past her in fragments… Dahlia lying still, her eyelids fluttering under the weight of

suggestion. The doctor’s voice echoing through the room.

“You’re alone now, Dahlia… no family… no home… only the orphanage…”

Over and over again, until the truth she once knew faded completely.

By the end of the week, her eyes opened… blank, hollow, lost with only one name in mind.

Alina.

And Alina,the woman she had become stood frozen in the corner of that memory, her entire being shaking as realization tore through her.

“No wonder…” she whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks. “No wonder I couldn’t remember anything past the orphanage. They didn’t just take me. They rewrote me.”

Her voice broke on the last word, a sound of grief and fury entwined.

The lights dimmed, the memory dissolving into mist, but the weight of what she had seen stayed with her, carving itself into her soul like a scar newly reopened.

Chapter 272