Semua Bab HIS TO RUIN: Bab 111 - Bab 120

AIDEN.The moment the heavy door clicked shut, I stayed.I leaned my back against the polished mahogany, the cool wood pressing through the fabric of my tuxedo. My fingers remained curled loosely, as if they hadn’t quite decided whether to rip the door back open or walk away for good. I drew in a slow, jagged breath and forced it out through my teeth.This is unlike you.The thought was a sharp, unwelcome needle in my brain.I wasn’t a man of restraint. I was a man of results. "Nice" was a word for people with weak spines and shallow pockets. I didn't give two flying fucks about comfort, and I I gave even less about dignity. Yet, there I had been—measured, composed, almost… gentlemanly.I closed my eyes, and Victor’s voice echoed in the hollows of my mind.“You don’t need to respond to every primal impulse, Aiden.”“Anger is a tool. Lust is a distraction. Don’t let them become your identity.”“Practice restraint in low-risk situations.”Low-risk. My jaw tightened.Iris had been uncons

AIDEN.I slid the heavy platinum watch over my wrist, the clasp snapping shut with a sharp, metallic click. The weight of it was grounding. Cold. Familiar.I stared at the man in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. He looked exactly the same—sharp black shirt, tailored slacks, eyes like dead coal—but beneath the skin, something was rotting."Poison," I muttered to the empty room.That fucking shrink was poisoning me.He was softening the edges. Making me hesitate. Making me think before I reacted. In my world, the second you stop to think, someone else pulls the trigger.I was reaching for my jacket when the heavy oak door swung open without a knock.Jasper.He took one look at me—my jaw locked tight, the lethal stillness in my posture—and let out a long, exhausted sigh."Where the hell are you going?" he asked, leaning casually against the doorframe."To clear my head," I replied, my voice a flat, dead calm. "Before this therapist you hired turns my brain to mush."Jasper crossed his arms,

AIDEN.The ocean chewed at the jagged rocks below, a violent, foaming maw of black water.I stood at the absolute edge of the precipice, my hands buried deep in the pockets of my overcoat. The wind howled, whipping the heavy fabric against my legs like it was actively trying to drag me over the edge to join her.I stared down into the suffocating abyss."She’s probably dead," I said aloud.The wind instantly swallowed the words, offering no argument. It should have felt like a closed case. A loose end neatly severed by gravity. But the words didn't settle right. They sat in my gut like a block of cold iron, heavy and distinctly uncomfortable.If she had survived that drop, she was either defying the laws of physics or divinely protected. And I had never believed in divine intervention—unless I was the one pulling the trigger.I exhaled a slow, clouded breath into the freezing air and turned my back on the cliff.Thirty yards away, Orion was on his knees in the dirt.My men stood aroun

IRIS.The silence in the penthouse wasn’t peaceful; it was a vacuum, sucking the oxygen straight out of my lungs.I sat dead-center on the edge of the mattress, my legs crossed, tracing the frayed seam of my jeans with a trembling finger. The heavy blackout curtains were drawn halfway, bleeding a bruised, violet evening light across the pristine carpet. My phone sat face-down beside me, the screen completely dark. The bags were already packed and shoved discreetly by the door.Today was the day I burned my safe haven to the ground.I pulled a slow, jagged breath through my teeth and let it sit in my chest before exhaling. I had rehearsed this script a hundred times in my head. I knew the blocking, I knew the cues, but my heart was actively violently rebelling, hammering against my ribs like it was trying to break out.I had played my part perfectly these last few days. Despicable, really, how easily the lies had slipped past my teeth.When Derrick had cautiously asked about the invest

IRIS.For a long, agonizing second, my lungs simply forgot how to work.He stood in my doorway like he owned the frame, the storm howling behind him as if he had dragged it here on a leash. Lightning fractured the sky, throwing his sharp, ruthless features into bone-white relief.“Did you miss me, my love?”My brain scrambled to process the nightmare standing on my welcome mat. My love?Pure, unfiltered survival instinct kicked in before I could even form a thought.“Get the fuck away from me!” I screamed, throwing my entire body weight against the heavy oak door. I pushed with everything I had, desperate to slam the deadbolt in his smug face.But I was fighting a force of nature.Aiden didn’t even brace himself. His hand simply shot out, his palm hitting the flat of the wood. And he shoved.The physical disparity between us was catastrophic. The door violently buckled inward, the heavy wood slamming into my shoulder. I flew backward, my feet tangling beneath me, and hit the floor til