Chapter Twenty: The Real Story

AVA

Liam's words hung in the air between us. "You think I didn't need saving too?"

I stared at him, seeing something raw and vulnerable in his eyes that I'd never seen before. For the first time since I'd known him, his perfect control was cracking.

"What do you mean?"

He ran his hands through his hair, pacing to the window. "That night at the club. You remember it differently than I do."

"I remember you were drunk. Angry about something."

"I was destroyed." His voice was barely above a whisper. "Completely destroyed."

"Why?"

Liam was quiet for a long moment, staring out at the city lights. "I'd just come from my lawyer's office. Isabella's lawyer, actually."

"I don't understand."

"Three weeks before she died, Isabella filed for divorce."

I felt my heart stop. "She what?"

"She'd been planning to leave me for months. Working with lawyers, hiding money, making arrangements."

"But you said she left that night because of a fight.."

"The fight was about the divorce papers. I'd just found out about them that afternoon."

Liam turned back to face me, and I could see pain etched in every line of his face.

"She'd been cheating on me, Ava. For over a year. With her personal trainer, with a colleague from her charity work, with God knows who else."

"Liam..."

"The baby she was carrying might not have even been mine."

The words hit me like physical blows. "Did you know that when you married me?"

"I suspected. The timeline was close, but not certain."

"So you married me thinking I might be carrying another man's child?"

"I married you because you were carrying the only child I might ever have. And because that night at the club, you were the first person in months who looked at me like I was worth something."

I remembered that night differently now. Not a powerful man using his wealth to impress a struggling woman, but two broken people finding comfort in each other.

"You never told me any of this."

"What was I supposed to say? That my first wife spent our entire marriage lying to me? That I was so desperate for genuine affection that I latched onto a stranger in a nightclub?"

"You could have told me the truth."

"The truth would have changed everything. You would have seen me as pathetic instead of powerful."

"I would have seen you as human."

Liam laughed bitterly. "Humans don't run a billion-dollar company. Humans don't survive in my world."

"But humans connect with other people. Humans build real relationships."

"Real relationships destroy you. I learned that the hard way."

I stood up and moved closer to him. "Not all relationships. Not if they're built on honesty."

"Honesty? You want honesty?"

"Yes."

"The honest truth is that I've been terrified every single day since you moved in here. Terrified that you'll leave, terrified that you'll stay, terrified that I'll destroy you the way I destroyed Isabella."

"You didn't destroy Isabella."

"Didn't I? My need to control her, to keep her safe, drove her into the arms of other men. It made her so desperate to escape that she died trying to get away from me."

"That wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it? Because everyone keeps telling me it wasn't, but I can't shake the feeling that if I'd been different, better, more trusting..."

"She would have stayed?"

"She would have lived."

I could see the guilt eating him alive, the way it had twisted his grief into something toxic and controlling.

"So you decided to never let that happen again."

"I decided to never be vulnerable again. To never trust anyone completely. To always maintain control."

"Even if it meant becoming the kind of man you hate."

"My father was a controlling bastard who made my mother's life miserable. But she never left him, and she never died trying to escape."

"She also never lived. Not really."

Liam looked at me sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she survived, but did she ever laugh? Did she ever feel joy? Did she ever feel truly loved?"

"Love is a luxury for people who can afford to lose everything."

"Love is what makes life worth living."

"Love killed Isabella."

"Control killed Isabella. Your love for her might have saved her if you'd trusted it instead of trying to manage it."

For a moment, something shifted in Liam's expression. Like he was seeing himself clearly for the first time.

"That night at the club," he said quietly, "you didn't know who I was. You didn't want anything from me except company."

"You seemed so sad. So alone."

"I was. I'd just realized that my wife had been lying to me for over a year. That our entire marriage was built on deception."

"So you came to the club to what? Forget?"

"To feel something real, even if it was just for one night."

I remembered his hands shaking as he bought me drinks, the way he'd listened when I talked about my job and my dreams like they actually mattered.

"You weren't performing that night. You were just being yourself."

"I was being the man I used to be before I learned that vulnerability gets you destroyed."

"And I was being myself before I learned that poverty could cost me my child."

We looked at each other across the room, two people who'd been broken by life and had somehow found each other in the wreckage.

"Ava," Liam said softly, "what if we tried again? What if we started over, with honesty this time?"

"What about Victoria? What about Elena?"

"I'll send them both away. Today."

"And the surveillance? Control?"

"Gone. All of it."

"You really mean that?"

"I mean it. I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of pushing away the people I..."

He stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

"The people you what?"

"The people I care about."

Hope bloomed in my chest. "Liam.."

The door burst open, and Victoria strode in, her expression triumphant. Behind her came two men in expensive suits and a woman with a clipboard.

"Perfect timing," Victoria announced. "Dr. Morrison, this is the patient we discussed."

"Patient?" I looked between them, confused.

One of the suited men stepped forward. "Mrs. Blackwood, I'm Dr. Morrison. I'm here to conduct a psychiatric evaluation."

"What? No. I don't need a psychiatric evaluation."

"I'm afraid you do," the other man said, pulling out official-looking papers. "This is a court order for immediate evaluation based on concerns for your mental stability and the safety of your minor child."

Liam looked stunned. "Victoria, what is this?"

"This is protection for your family," Victoria said smoothly. "After yesterday's kidnapping attempt and today's obvious breakdown, something had to be done."

"I didn't authorize this."

"You didn't need to. I filed the paperwork as a concerned family friend with evidence of Mrs. Blackwood's deteriorating mental state."

"What evidence?"

Victoria pulled out a folder. "Paranoid delusions about being watched. Accusations against staff members. Violent outbursts. Attempted kidnapping. Really, Liam, the signs have been there for weeks."

"Those aren't signs of mental illness," I protested. "Those are normal reactions to abuse!"

Dr. Morrison made a note on his clipboard. "Classic deflection. Blaming external factors rather than accepting responsibility for erratic behavior."

"I'm not being erratic! I'm being rational!"

"Mrs. Blackwood," the woman with the clipboard said, "I'm from Child Protective Services. We need to remove your son from this environment immediately while you receive proper care."

"No!" I backed away from them. "You can't take him!"

"Ava," Liam said, and I could hear confusion in his voice. "Just cooperate. Let them help you."

"Help me? They're destroying me!"

"See?" Victoria said. "More paranoid thinking. She believes everyone is conspiring against her."

"Because you are!"

Dr. Morrison nodded to the other man. "I think we have enough for an emergency hold."

"Emergency hold?" Liam stepped forward. "What does that mean?"

"It means Mrs. Blackwood will be hospitalized for seventy-two hours while we complete a full evaluation," Dr. Morrison explained.

"And during those seventy-two hours," the CPS woman added, "the child will remain in his father's custody for his own safety."

I watched the trap close around me completely. Victoria had orchestrated everything perfectly.

"You planned this," I said to her. "All of it."

Victoria smiled. "I planned to protect this family from a dangerous woman who was clearly becoming unhinged."

"Liam, please. Don't let them do this."

But when I looked at him, I could see the doubt creeping back into his eyes. Victoria's poison was working again.

"Mrs. Blackwood," Dr. Morrison said, "are you going to come voluntarily, or do we need to involve additional security?”