Chapter 182
Lena's POV
Vivian's breath came in short, sharp gasps. "You don't understand. You've never understood what it's like to carry that weight, to be responsible for hundreds of employees, for a legacy—"
"I understand that you were so afraid of looking weak that you sacrificed your own daughter to maintain the illusion of control."
The words hung in the air between us. Vivian stared at me like I'd slapped her.
"Lena, please." Her voice cracked. "Please, just help me get out of here. Send me somewhere abroad, somewhere I can start over. I'll sign whatever you want, give you whatever you need—"
"No."
"Lena—"
"No." I took a step forward, and she flinched. Good. "I'm not here to negotiate with you, Mother. I'm here to tell you that we're done. Finished. You will never contact me again. You will never use my name to manipulate anyone again. As far as I'm concerned, Vivian Grant died the day she chose Marcus over her own child."
Her face went white, then red. "How dare you—after everything I sacrificed for you, everything I gave up—"
"You gave up nothing." My voice was ice. "You used me. You used me to try to hold together a marriage that was rotten from the start. You used me to maintain your social standing. You used me as a bargaining chip in your pathetic attempt to salvage a company you were too incompetent to run on your own."
"I should have—" She was shaking now, her whole body trembling with rage. "I should have strangled you the day you were born. Should have saved myself twenty-eight years of disappointment—"
The words should have hurt. Maybe once they would have. But standing there, looking at this woman who'd given birth to me but had never once been a mother, I felt nothing but a cold, clear certainty.
"You're right about one thing," I said quietly. "You should have let me go a long time ago. Because I was never yours to keep."
Vivian's mouth worked soundlessly. I watched her cycle through emotions—fury, desperation, calculation—like she was trying to find the right key to unlock me. But there was no key anymore. I'd changed the locks.
"You want to know the truth, Mother?" I took another step closer. "The company didn't survive because of you. It survived in spite of you. Grandfather's old team, the people who actually knew what they were doing—they held it together out of loyalty to him, not you. They watched you make mistake after mistake and cleaned up your messes because they couldn't bear to see his legacy destroyed."
Her face crumpled. "That's not—"
"You were never smart enough to run Nexus. You were never strong enough to stand up to Marcus. You were never brave enough to protect your own child." Each word was a scalpel, precise and cutting. "You were just a woman who inherited power you didn't earn and spent thirty years proving you didn't deserve it."
"Stop," she whispered.
"You don't get to be my mother anymore," I continued, relentless now. "You chose your pride over my safety. You chose your delusions over reality. And now you get to live with those choices. Alone."
Vivian's legs gave out. She collapsed onto the bed, her hands covering her face. For a moment, I thought she was crying. But when she looked up, her eyes were dry and empty, like all the fight had drained out of her at once.
"Get out," she said, her voice flat and dead. "Get out and don't come back."
"That was always the plan."
I turned and walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when she spoke again.
"I did love you," she said to my back. "Once. Before everything got so complicated."
I didn't turn around. "No, you didn't. You loved the idea of me. The perfect daughter who would do exactly what you wanted and never ask for anything in return." I pulled open the door. "Goodbye, Mother."
I walked out and didn't look back. Patricia was waiting in the hallway, her expression carefully neutral.
"How did it go?" she asked.
"We won't be needing any more family sessions," I said. "Please remove me from her contact list. If she asks for me again, the answer is no."
Patricia nodded slowly. "I understand. I'm sorry it came to this."
"I'm not."
I walked down the hallway, through the security doors, past the reception desk. The late afternoon sun hit me as I stepped outside, warm and bright and completely at odds with the ice in my chest.
I made it three steps from the building before my legs went weak.
The world tilted. I reached out blindly, my palm hitting cold brick. My other hand pressed against my chest, where my heart was hammering so hard I thought it might crack a rib. The air wouldn't come. My lungs felt like they were full of broken glass.
She should have strangled me.
Disappointment.
I should have let you go.
The words circled in my head like vultures. I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made it worse. Behind my eyelids, I saw Vivian's face—not the broken woman in the hospital scrubs, but the cold, beautiful mother from my childhood, looking at me like I was a problem to be solved rather than a person to be loved.
My knees buckled. I slid down the wall, my hand scraping against brick, until I was crouched on the ground. The professional mask I'd worn into that room, the ice-cold composure—it was all cracking apart, and I couldn't stop it.
I'd done what I came to do. I'd severed the last tie. I'd walked away clean.
So why did it feel like something vital had been ripped out of my chest?
A sob tried to claw its way up my throat. I bit down on it, hard, my teeth cutting into my lower lip. I would not break down here. Not in public. Not where anyone could see.
But my body had other ideas. My shoulders shook. My breath came in short, painful gasps. And somewhere in the distance, I heard footsteps running toward me.
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