Alle Kapitel von The Night My Best-Friend Ruined Me: Kapitel 131 – Kapitel 140

Aria’s POVThe hospital room felt too bright, too clean, too quiet for what it was holding.Leo was in the bed beside me, smaller than he had ever looked to my eyes, his little body swallowed by white sheets and wires and the steady, merciless blinking of machines that had become the only reason I could keep breathing without falling apart. Every beep from the monitor made my stomach tighten. Every rise and fall of the numbers felt like a question I was too scared to answer.He was still here.That was the only thought I could hold onto.The doctors had spoken in careful voices I could hardly hear, all the words blurred together into medical language and caution and possibilities that did not feel like they belonged to my life. They had said shocked. They had said stress. They had said his body had been pushed too far too fast and they were monitoring him closely. They had said a lot of things that sounded polished and measured and none of them had sounded like enough.Nothing sounded

Adrian’s POVI had spent most of my adult life believing that if I moved fast enough, thought clearly enough, and stayed two steps ahead of everyone else, then I could keep disaster from becoming permanent.That theory had officially collapsed.I was standing in a hospital corridor with my phone pressed to my ear, listening to one of my legal directors talk in the careful, overworked voice people use when they are trying not to sound panicked in front of someone who is already panicking.“The statement needs to go out again within the hour,” he said. “A stronger version this time. Veronica’s people are pushing the second wave hard, and the headlines are already shifting from allegation to assumption.”I closed my eyes for a second and pinched the bridge of my nose.“Then push back harder,” I said.“We are trying,” he replied. “But the damage is moving faster than the response. The first reports have already been picked up by larger outlets. Aria’s name is being attached to everything.

Aria's POV I stared at the screen, frozen.No.No, that is not what happened.The clip cut again.Another angle. Even more compressed. Even more manipulative. I could see enough to know the editing was deliberate. The timing had been stitched. The motion had been rearranged. A thousand tiny choices had been made to make me look guilty without quite manufacturing anything anyone could easily challenge at first glance.The voiceover continued.“Investigators are now examining whether Dr. Thorne knowingly activated the device during the facility collapse.”My throat went dry.I could hear my own breathing suddenly, too loud in the room.Adrian was beside me now, his face hardening as he looked at the screen over my shoulder. His hand went still in mine.The clip changed again.A close-up of me near the console.Then a pause.Then a caption.“Bioweapon scientist or victim? Authorities remain cautious.”I felt all the blood drain out of my face.It was worse than I expected.Not because i

Adrian’s POVI had been watching Julian the entire time he spoke to Aria, and the longer he talked, the more certain I became that I did not trust him even a little.That did not mean I was blind to what was happening in the room.The problem was that I saw too much.I saw the way Aria looked at him, tired and raw and caught between wanting to believe he meant what he said and knowing she had already been hurt by enough people pretending they were being sincere. I saw the way Julian tried to soften his voice when he asked for another chance, as if the tone alone could wash away the damage he had already done. I saw the careful way he stood, the controlled posture, the almost-rehearsed humility. It was the kind of humility men learn when they finally realize they have pushed too far and now need to sound reasonable if they want to stay in the room.I did not like it.That was the truth.I did not like the way he was using honesty now after spending so much time moving around the truth

Adrian’s POVBy the time I got Leo out of the hospital and into the car, I was already thinking two steps ahead of everyone else and still not far enough.The city had become too loud, too exposed, too full of people who looked at our faces and saw headlines instead of human beings. Every time a car slowed too long behind us, every time a stranger glanced at the security detail around the vehicle, every time a phone rang in the wrong tone, I felt my stomach tighten. Leo needed somewhere quieter. Somewhere that did not constantly feel like the next thing waiting to go wrong.So I moved them.The estate in the countryside had been one of the few places I trusted to hold if things got ugly again. It sat behind a long private drive, with its own walls, its own security system, its own staff who had been screened so thoroughly I probably knew more about their background than they did. Fortified, secluded, and far enough away from the city that even the noise of it felt like a memory instea