Confrontation at Reed corp

Chapter 10

Isabella's POV

I did not drive home that night. I drove straight to Reed Corp, my knuckles pale against the steering wheel, Marcus's threat still echoing in my ears long after the call had ended.

You will regret walking away from me before this is over.

Seven years of swallowing my voice, of shrinking myself smaller and smaller so he could stand taller, had finally reached their end. I was done being afraid of that man.

The building rose ahead of me, glass and steel catching the last of the streetlights, and I parked without bothering to consider whether visitors were permitted at that hour. Let the security guards try to stop me. I had built this rage in my chest slowly over the entire drive, and by the time I stepped out of my car, I felt as though I might combust if I did not release it somewhere.

The lobby smelled of polished marble and the particular chill of an air conditioner left running long after everyone sensible had gone home. My heels struck the floor sharply as I crossed it, and the security guard at the front desk barely lifted his head before recognizing me.

"Mrs. Reed, good evening, but Mr. Reed did not mention—"

"He knows I am coming." I did not slow my pace, and something in my expression must have convinced him this was not a night to argue with me, because he simply nodded and let me pass toward the elevators.

My reflection stared back at me in the polished steel doors as I waited, pale, hollow-eyed, my white hair falling loose and wild from the bun I had pinned that morning in a different lifetime entirely. I barely recognized the woman looking back at me. Perhaps that was the point. The old Isabella, the one who begged for scraps of affection and made herself invisible to keep peace in her own home, had died somewhere in that hospital corridor tonight, alongside every lie she had believed for seven years.

The elevator doors opened onto the executive floor, and I marched straight past his startled assistant toward the double doors of his office, pushing them open without knocking.

Marcus sat behind his desk, his shirt collar still undone, a spilled drink staining the polished wood in front of him, papers scattered as though he had been distracted mid-thought. He looked up sharply at the intrusion, and something flickered across his face when he saw it was me, surprise, quickly masked beneath his usual arrogance.

"Isabella. I did not expect you to come crawling back so soon." He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms, though I noticed the faint tremor in his hand as he reached for his glass.

"I am not crawling anywhere." My voice came out steadier than I felt, though my heart pounded so violently I feared he might hear it from across the room. "I want the truth, Marcus. All of it. Why did you let me raise a child that was never mine? Why did you let me love her, sacrifice for her, break myself for her, while you knew the entire time she was not my daughter?"

He studied me for a long moment, and then, to my utter disgust, he smiled. Slow, condescending, the same smile he used whenever he believed himself the smartest man in any room.

"Because it was easier that way." He said it so plainly, so without remorse, that the air seemed to leave my lungs entirely. "Selena did not want the burden of raising a sickly child while building her career. You, however, wanted a family desperately enough to accept anything I gave you, no questions asked. It solved everyone's problem rather neatly, did it not?"

"Everyone's problem except mine." My hands curled into fists at my sides, my nails biting sharply into my palms. "You let me believe my own daughter had died. You let me grieve her, alone, while you handed me another woman's child to raise as my own."

"Grief passes." He shrugged, entirely unbothered, reaching for his glass again. "You had a comfortable life, a beautiful home, a husband who provided for you. What more did you truly need to know?"

The sheer audacity of it struck me speechless for a moment, my chest heaving with a fury so complete I could taste it, bitter and metallic, at the back of my throat. Seven years. Seven years of my life handed over to a lie so casually constructed that he could not even summon the decency to look ashamed of it now.

"You are a monster." My voice cracked on the words, tears burning hot and unwelcome behind my eyes, though I refused to let them fall in front of him.

"I am a realist." He rose from his chair, unhurried, circling the desk toward me with the same predatory calm he used in every negotiation I had ever watched him conduct. "And you, my dear wife, are far too emotional to see reason, even now."

The office door opened behind me before I could respond, and the sharp, familiar scent of lavender perfume drifted into the room ahead of her, unmistakable, cloying, the very same fragrance I had caught clinging to Marcus's collar the night Chloe was hospitalized.

Selena stepped inside as though she owned the space entirely, her heels clicking confidently against the floor, her red hair swept elegantly over one shoulder, her eyes flickering toward me with something between amusement and challenge.

"Isabella. What a surprise." Her voice dripped with false sweetness, and she moved to stand beside Marcus, entirely too comfortable, entirely too familiar, her hand settling possessively against his arm.

That was when I saw it.

The bracelet.

Delicate gold links wrapped around her slender wrist, a small sapphire stone catching the light, exactly, precisely, the engagement gift Marcus had given me in our third year of marriage, the one I had searched for frantically after losing it, or so I believed, at the dry cleaners, the one Marcus had told me, with real sympathy in his voice, not to trouble myself over.

My mouth went dry.

That is my bracelet. My bracelet, on her wrist.

The room tilted slightly beneath me, every careful lie of the last seven years collapsing at once into one final, unbearable truth.