Semua Bab His To Ruin: Bab 41 - Bab 50

The car was waiting outside.I stood at the window, arms wrapped around myself as if I could hold together the pieces that had been slowly splintering since last night. I hadn’t spoken to anyone since my father locked me in. He hadn’t returned. My mother hadn’t come by. Even Andrew had gone quiet. I know he might have ordered them not to. It didn’t feel like a house anymore. It felt like a cage.The click of the lock made my heart stutter.The door swung open.My mother.“Elena is outside,” she said quietly. “She came to pick you up.”I blinked. “Elena Wolfe?”She nodded.“She came here?”“Yes. She asked that I give you space. But she’s waiting, Ivy. She won’t leave until you come out. She said you have to come out on your own."My pulse flickered. My mother lingered in the doorway, like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. She turned and left without another word.I moved in slow, fractured steps. My suitcase sat by the door. I hadn’t zipped it up. I stared at it for too long before f

I wasn’t expecting anyone.I’d made that clear with every call I ignored, every message I left unread. After the party, after that night, I needed the silence more than I needed any person. I needed the space to think, to breathe, to not be looked at like I was something broken or cruel or god forbid, pitied.So when the knock came, three soft raps against the heavy door of my apartment, it pulled something taut in my chest.I didn’t move right away. I watched the door like it might open on its own, or better, go away.But the knock came again. Then her voice.“Killian. It’s me.”Elena. My mom. I shut my eyes and took a slow, sharp breath. For a second, I considered not opening it. Just letting her stand there until she got tired and left. That’s what I’d done before, when I was seventeen and started locking my door every time she tried to come in and tell me the world wasn’t as unfair as I thought it was. When I realized that the soft smiles and quiet apologies didn’t mean anything i

I heard him.Victor’s voice tore through the halls like a storm, loud, unrelenting, and ugly. It ricocheted off the high ceilings, sharp with fury, demanding to be heard.“Let me in!”“You want to be loyal? Be loyal to the one who signs your paycheck!”“She’s my mother!”Each shout grew more volatile than the last. I froze in the upstairs corridor, heart lurching with every cruel word. For a second, I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My body rooted itself in place as though it instinctively knew something was wrong. Something worse than I’d realized.I thought I knew Victor.Even after what happened at the engagement party, even after the humiliation and the hurtful words, I still thought he was just wounded. Angry, yes, but not dangerous. Not like this.But this voice? This version of him?It chilled me.I moved cautiously down the stairs, keeping to the shadows of the railing. I didn’t want him to see me, didn’t want to draw his fury toward myself. He wasn’t the man who’d kissed my hand in the

The sun had long since dipped beyond the edge of my penthouse, but the sky still held that cold, colorless blue that comes just before full dark. I stood alone on the balcony, a cigarette burning slowly between my fingers, untouched.The silence was thick. Too still. Like the world knew something was about to crack open.My phone buzzed on the table behind me. Once. Twice.Ivy.My chest tightened before I even touched the screen.She never called without a reason. And I already knew what this one would be.I picked up. “Ivy?”Her voice hit me like a bruise.“Killian,” she breathed, soft, cracked. “I… I didn’t know who else to call.”I shut my eyes. The cigarette dropped from my hand, forgotten.“What’s wrong?”“I saw him.”Her words came jagged, like glass dragged across skin. “Victor. Not the version he shows everyone. The real him.”Silence settled between us for a second. I could hear her breathing, fragile, trembling, barely holding on.“He screamed at a staff member,” she said. “O

The study was too quiet.Too still.It reeked of silence. Heavy, expectant silence, the kind that didn’t comfort, didn’t cradle. The kind that sharpened itself against the walls like a knife.Robert Wolfe sat in the armchair beside the fireplace, though no fire had been lit. The late afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows through the tall windows, stretching across the polished wood floors like spilled blood. His phone, sleek and black as a blade, lay untouched beside a half full tumbler of whiskey. His cigar had long since gone cold, the ash crumbling in the tray beside him.He hadn’t noticed.His mind was elsewhere, calculating, dissecting, rearranging.Killian hadn’t answered his call.Not the first. Not the second. Not the third.Three attempts in forty eight hours. And Killian, cunning, cold, infuriatingly consistent, had never ignored him before. The boy who understood the chain of command better than anyone. The one who knew who fed the wolves.Now? Silence. Deliberate, defiant