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Chapter 23
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2025-05-17 16:43:41Chapter 23: Confrontation
The screen dimmed, but Isla didn’t blink.
The email’s contents were still scorched into her mind. The images. The timestamp. The audio file.
And then—his name, tied to her past in ways that made her stomach twist.
Christopher had known her before she became Isla—before she changed her name, before she stepped into the nightmare of her late husband’s world. Before the accident that was never truly an accident.
He knew.
He’d watched from a distance.
Waited.
And then pretended not to recognize her.
She dropped the phone.
It hit the marble floor with a shattering crack, but the noise barely registered. She was already halfway out the door.
---
She didn’t knock when she entered his private suite. The guards didn’t stop her. They never did.
Christopher was standing shirtless in front of the large window, the city blazing behind him like a guilty mirror. A glass of whiskey sat untouched on the table beside him.
“I got your message,” he said without turning.
“Did you now?” Her voice was clipped. Controlled. But beneath it, a storm gathered.
He turned at the edge of her rage. The moment their eyes met, she knew he felt it too.
“You knew me,” she whispered. “Long before we met.”
He didn’t deny it.
Didn’t even flinch.
“I did.”
The honesty cracked her more than any lie.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His chest rose and fell. “Because I didn’t want that to be why you loved me.”
She took a slow, shaky step forward. “What are you talking about?”
Christopher moved to the bar, poured himself a drink with deliberate calm, but didn’t drink it.
“I saw you at the courthouse three years ago. Testifying against your father’s business partner. You were scared. Determined. Beautiful. You stood there with your hands shaking but your voice didn’t crack once. And I knew—right then—I would either save you or destroy you.”
Her heart thundered.
“You were watching me?”
“I was sent to watch you,” he said, eyes heavy. “By Victor.”
The name was a slap.
“He was afraid you knew something. Something that could link him to the laundering your father was caught up in. But when I followed you… I started to care.”
Isla staggered back, the room spinning. “So I was a job?”
“At first.”
He stepped closer, voice low. “But it stopped being that when I saw how broken you were, how much of yourself you tried to bury to survive.”
“You should’ve told me!” she shouted, shoving him hard. “You made me believe you were the only person I could trust.”
“I am,” he rasped.
She laughed—bitter and trembling. “No. You’re just the best liar.”
A long silence stretched between them.
He didn’t move. Didn’t argue.
He just looked at her like he was watching the last good thing in his life fall apart.
“I wanted to be someone else when I met you,” he finally said. “I wanted to be worthy.”
“But you’re not,” she whispered.
That made him flinch.
And something in her cracked.
“You broke something in me, Christopher.”
“I know.”
He reached for her, and this time she didn’t pull away. His fingers cupped her jaw, trembling, uncertain. Her breath hitched at the heat of his skin, the pull of something dangerous and devastating.
“I love you,” he murmured. “But I also destroyed you. I know that.”
She let the silence speak for her.
And then she stepped back.
“This isn’t love. Not yet. Love doesn’t survive on lies. It survives on truth and pain and choice. And you took that choice from me.”
He lowered his hand slowly. “So what happens now?”
She looked at him with eyes no longer fragile, no longer seeking salvation.
“We burn it all down,” she said. “Victor. The lies. The past. And then maybe, just maybe—we see what’s left of us.”
---
That night, Isla didn’t return to his bed.
She sat on the rooftop alone, watching the city shimmer with secrets, and listened to the echo of her own heartbeat—steady, strong, and no longer afraid.
Tomorrow, the war would begin.
But tonight, she found herself again.
And this time, she wouldn’t run.
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