Chapter Seventy-Five: The Price of a Choice

The silence in the penthouse was a physical thing. It pressed in on my ears, a low hum of electricity and recycled air that was somehow heavier than any noise. I stood at the window, the city lights a blur of cold, distant fire. They weren’t beautiful tonight. They were just… there. A reminder of a world that kept spinning, oblivious.

The glass of whiskey in my hand was for him, but I’d taken a sip. The burn of it was grounding. Macallan 18. It tasted like smoke and money and bad decisions. I was waiting. Not like the scared girl I used to be, pacing and chewing my nails down to the quick. This was a different kind of waiting. The coiled stillness before a strike. My fight wasn’t with him. It was with what he was walking back from.

You don’t just walk away from a woman like Lydia Blackwood. She wasn't just his mother; she was the architect of his DNA, the ghost in his machine. Defying her was an act of self-immolation. And he was doing it for me. The thought didn't make me feel powerful. It filled my mouth with the metallic taste of rage.

The ding of the elevator was unnervingly soft. A whisper of arrival. My muscles went rigid. The click of the door was the only other sound.

He stepped inside. And the air left my lungs.

It wasn’t defeat. Dominic didn’t know the meaning of the word. It was… absence. He looked like a man who’d had something vital carved out of him, leaving a gaping, hollow space behind. The bespoke suit that usually made him look like a king now just looked like a costume, the shoulders slumping with a weight no fabric could hide. His eyes found mine, and they weren't stormy. They were empty. Blasted.

He didn't move. He just stood there, a statue of a man I almost didn't recognize. He reached for his tie, his fingers fumbling with the knot like a stranger trying to solve a puzzle. He couldn't get it.

I put my glass down, the clink of it against the marble bar unnaturally loud. I walked toward him, my heels clicking out a rhythm that sounded like a countdown. I stopped in front of him, close enough to smell the faint, clean scent of his cologne being suffocated by the stale scent of conflict.

“Dominic.” My voice was a thread.

A muscle in his jaw jumped. He shook his head once, a tiny, jerky motion. Then he was moving, his arms coming around me in a crushing grip that knocked the air from my lungs. He buried his face in my hair, and I felt a tremor run through his entire body. This wasn’t a hug. This was a man holding onto the last solid thing in a world that had just dissolved into smoke. I held him back, my fingers digging into the expensive wool of his jacket, trying to anchor him.

He finally pulled away, his hands gripping my shoulders like he was afraid I’d disappear.

“She admitted it,” he said. His voice was a rasp, raw and torn. “All of it. Blake. The poison. She was… proud of it.”

I guided him to the couch. He sank into it, his body moving with a leaden exhaustion. I retrieved the waiting whiskey and pressed it into his hand. His fingers were cold.

He drank, a deep, desperate swallow that seemed to cause him physical pain. He stared at the opposite wall, his eyes unfocused. “She gave me a choice.”

“What choice?” My voice was flat. I needed it to be.

“An envelope.” He let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “A fucking manila envelope. Full of pictures of you. From before. Business meetings, lunches… anything she could twist. She’s built a story. That you faked everything. That you played the victim to get to a fortune.” He finally looked at me, his empty eyes now filling with a self-loathing that made me want to scream. “She said I had to divorce you. End it. If I did, she’d bury the envelope. If I didn’t…”

He didn’t need to finish. I could see the rest of the sentence in the clenching of his jaw. She’ll destroy you.

A cold, clean fury washed through me. It was so pure, so absolute, it felt like clarity. My fear was gone. My concern for my own reputation was a speck of dust. All that existed was the man in front of me, who was being asked to carve out his own heart by the woman who gave it to him.

“The things she would do to her own son,” I said, the words low and venomous. “Just to keep her hands on the puppet strings.”

He looked up, startled by the ice in my tone. He’d expected me to be scared. He’d expected tears.

“What did you tell her?” I asked, my gaze boring into his.

He put the glass down. He leaned forward, his hands coming up to cup my face, his palms rough against my skin. His thumbs traced my cheekbones, a gesture of such aching tenderness it almost broke me.

“I told her there was no choice,” he said, his voice thick, breaking on the words. “I told her I choose you. I told her I choose… this.”

This. The word was everything. It was us. It was the mess and the fire and the fragile, beautiful thing we were building in the ruins. It was the most valuable thing he owned, and he had just defended it with the only thing he had left to sacrifice: his own past.

And my control snapped.

I launched myself at him, my mouth crashing against his. It wasn't a kiss; it was a collision. It was frantic and clumsy, our teeth clicking together before I angled my head and deepened it, pouring every ounce of my rage, my love, my desperation into it. It was a promise. It was a war cry. It was a brand.