Chapter 236
Ethan broke his knees buckling, his breath rasping, the pressure of everything finally crushing him.
He wasn’t the golden heir anymore.
He wasn’t the future of the Zhao Group.
He wasn’t even the confident man he once pretended to be.
He was just a man who had lost everything… and was now losing the only person who ever cared for him.
Back in Adrian’s Penthouse... Adrian, now bandaged and exhausted, lay half propped against plush cushions. Lila finished taping gauze along his rib, careful and gentle, her fingertips skimming his skin with a tenderness he badly needed.
“Arabelle won’t answer my calls.” Adrian’s voice dropped, almost hollow. “The men who guarded the base? All shot. Execution style. That’s not cleanup, that’s silencing.”
Lila froze mid motion. “You mean...?”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched. “She’s eliminating loose ends. And if she thinks I’m one of them…”
Lila’s hands trembled, fear rippling through her. “You’re not safe.”
“None of us are,” Adrian muttered darkly. "But she won't mess with me..."
He scoffed.
His eyes sharpened. “Lucien is the real deal.”
Lila swallowed. “And if he finds out what you and Arabelle did to Meilin…”
Adrian closed his eyes. “He’ll bury her not me...”
Ethan didn’t knock.
He kicked the penthouse door open so violently it rebounded off the wall with a deafening crack.
Adrian jerked upright on the couch, hand flying to his side in pain. Lila froze mid bandage, her eyes widening as Ethan stood in the doorway, hair disheveled, chest heaving, face twisted in the kind of fury born only from loss.
“E... Ethan...” Lila whispered, stepping back.
He hadn’t seen her in days. He thought she’d been kidnapped. Murdered. Used against him. He’d torn through half the hospital, threatened security, screamed until his throat burned.
And now... Here she was.
In Adrian Feng’s penthouse.
Tending his wounds.
Dressed in clothes she didn’t own. Hands touching Adrian the way she used to touch him.
Something in Ethan’s chest cracked so hard he almost staggered.
“Wow,” Ethan breathed, laughing once, a broken, humorless sound. “I knew you two had something. I knew you were getting closer. But this...”
He gestured violently at them.
“This is how far it went? After everything I did for you?”
Lila swallowed hard. “Ethan, I can explain...”
“Oh, can you?” His voice sharpened like shattered glass. “Explain how you left the hospital and didn’t even think to call me? Explain how you ran to him?”
Adrian stood, face calm but eyes watchful. “Ethan, this has nothing to do with you.”
“SHUT UP!” Ethan roared.
Adrian fell silent, jaw tight.
Ethan took a step forward, and Lila instinctively moved between them.
That was the final nail in his sanity.
“You’re with him now?” Ethan’s voice dropped to a whisper, but that whisper trembled with lethal rage. “You choose him over me?”
Lila didn’t answer. Because the truth was already written on her face.
Ethan’s breath shook. For a moment, he wasn’t angry, he was devastated.
“You… you promised me we’d fix things…” he whispered, voice cracking. “You told me I still mattered to you.”
Lila’s lips parted, guilt swimming in her eyes. “Ethan, I...”
“Save it.”
His expression twisted again, grief turning into something uglier.
“You’re my downfall,” Ethan spat, every word laced with venom and heartbreak. “Everything that’s happened, Serena crushing me, Lucien humiliating me, my father turning his back on me, it all started because of you.”
Lila’s breath hitched. “That’s not fair...”
“I don’t give a damn about fair!” Ethan snarled, stepping closer. “All this time, I thought Adrian was manipulating you. That you were being used. But no, you’ve been choosing him.”
His voice dropped to a deadly calm.
“You’ve been betraying me. Making a fool out of me.”
He leaned in, eyes burning.
“I should draw blood for what you did.”
Lila flinched.
Adrian moved instinctively, stepping forward, placing himself between them just an inch.
Ethan’s gaze snapped to Adrian, and the hatred there was blinding.
“You,” Ethan hissed. “You knew she was my weakness. You used her. You took her.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed.
“You never deserved her,” Adrian answered quietly.
Silence.
That single sentence sliced Ethan deeper than any blade.
Lila gasped softly.
“Adrian...”
Ethan’s expression shattered.
For one heartbeat, he looked like a boy again, broken, humiliated, unwanted. Then everything inside him burned away, replaced by pure, murderous intent.
“I swear to God," Ethan whispered, voice trembling with cold fury, “I’m going to ruin you both.”
He didn’t yell.
He didn’t lunge.
He didn’t throw anything.
He just turned around and walked out, the door slamming behind him with a force that shook the walls.
Lila collapsed onto the couch, trembling.
Adrian exhaled shakily and sank beside her, rubbing a hand over his bruised face.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered.
“He needed to hear it,” Adrian murmured, pulling her closer as her hands shook. “He was never going to let you go. Now he knows he has to.”
But outside the penthouse, Ethan stood in the hallway, breath ragged, knuckles white, eyes red with barely restrained violence.
He wasn’t letting go.
He was hunting.
Adrian locked the door and returned to her, moving slowly, careful not to worsen the bruises Lucien had left on him. He sat beside her, reaching out to hold her hand.
But Lila couldn’t feel his touch.
Her body was there on the couch, but her mind… her heart…
It was still standing in that doorway.
Still staring at Ethan’s broken expression, the exact moment he saw her touching Adrian with the tenderness she once saved only for him.
Still hearing his voice cracking when he whispered: “You promised me we’d fix things.”
Lila closed her eyes, pressing her nails into her palms until they hurt. That had been years ago.. but now...
She hadn’t meant for it to go this far. She hadn’t meant for Ethan to look at her like she had stabbed him in the chest.
But she also hadn’t let herself admit the truth: She still loved him.
Even after everything.
Even after he pushed her.
Even after he yelled, doubted her, dismissed her fears.
Even after she ran to Adrian because she needed someone, anyone, to validate her.