The Ultimatum Wife のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 231 - チャプター 237

Meanwhile, time had stopped meaning anything.Elena leaned back against the desk, bare skin warm against cool glass, Roman’s hands moving over her like he was relearning her all over again.They’d been at it for hours. Screens dimmed. Systems paused mid process. A rare truce between urgency and want.“This isn’t a break,” Elena murmured, breathless.Roman smiled against her shoulder. “It’s maintenance.”She laughed softly before the sound dissolved into something lower, something unguarded.They moved together without thinking, drifting from the chair to the couch, then further, pressed against walls that had heard more secrets than confessions ever could.Nothing else existed.Just heat.Just closeness.Just the illusion that the world could wait.Roman’s forehead rested against hers, their breathing uneven, hands still tracing familiar paths as if grounding each other.And then...Beep.Sharp. Artificial. Out of place.Elena froze.Another beep followed, more insistent this time, sl

Roman’s breath went shallow. “Elena…”Marcus’s voice sharpened. “I save you. That’s the point. I give you a way out. I always have.”Elena’s eyes opened, cold and steady. “You’re not saving me. You’re proving you never knew me.”A pause.“You always did this,” Marcus said. “Turned my worst instincts into villains so you didn’t have to face what we were.”“We were never ‘we,’” Elena replied. “You were possession pretending to be love.”Roman took her hand, squeezing once. Not to stop her. To anchor her.“Elena,” he said quietly, “we can do this together.”She looked at him, and the moment held everything they didn’t need to say. Then she turned back to the call.“I’ll come,” Elena said. “You’ll release Jace first.”Marcus smiled into the line. She could hear it. “No. You come. I show you. You disarm it. He walks.”“And if you lie?”“I don’t lie about exits,” Marcus said. “I build them.”Elena ended the call.For a beat, no one spoke.Roman’s voice broke the silence, controlled fury und

Marcus stared at her, rage and grief and longing colliding until none of it made sense anymore.“Choose,” he said again, weaker now. “Me. Or him.”Elena met his eyes.“I choose,” she said, each word deliberate, “to end this.”Marcus’s face twisted, the last threads of control unraveling as the truth finally reached him. That no matter how tight his grip on the detonator was… He had already lost her.Marcus didn’t know the clock had started running against him.Elena stood perfectly still, every breath measured, every expression carefully chosen. To him, it looked like hesitation. Like conflict. Like a woman cornered into making the hardest decision of her life.In truth, she was buying time.Miles away, Roman was already moving.The door to the locked room exploded inward with controlled force, Roman’s men flooding in before the sound could finish echoing. Jace barely had time to look up before hands were on him, steady and firm, cutting restraints, dragging him away from the center o