Chapter 157
Chapter 157
"Die." The word scraped through Aaron's clenched teeth. His fingers tightened in a sudden, crushing vice.
Clio's face turned a violent purple from oxygen deprivation, her eyes bulging grotesquely.
But at the absolute edge of death, something shifted in her gaze—a flash of vicious, mocking triumph.
She used her last reserves of strength to claw at Aaron's wrists, a rasping laugh tearing from her throat.
"Kill me... you think you have the right?"
Clio forced her mouth open, each word a blade. "Aaron, you think killing me makes you innocent? All I did was tell a few lies. The one who really drove Hestia away—that was you."
Aaron's fingers went rigid.
Clio seized on that single second of hesitation, screaming with every ounce of breath she had left. "Did I make you neglect her during your marriage? Did I make you take my side without ever asking questions? You had a thousand chances to look for the truth, and you never did! You were arrogant. Selfish. You loved how I fawned over you. You took Hestia's silence for granted!"
"You believed every lie you wanted to hear. You're the one truly responsible! Without your complicity, I could never have touched her. You tore your own marriage apart. You're the real killer!"
Every sentence buried itself in the most unbearable corner of Aaron's heart.
Aaron reeled as if struck by lightning.
A deafening roar filled his skull. Every ounce of strength drained from his body in an instant.
He stared at Clio, blank-eyed. His fingers loosened of their own accord.
Air rushed back into her windpipe.
Clio crumpled to the ground, coughing violently, gasping in ragged gulps.
She looked up at Aaron—gutted, hollowed out, as if his spine had been ripped away—and a flicker of cunning darted through her eyes.
She didn't hesitate. She scrambled to her feet, shoved past Aaron, crashed through the dim fire exit, and ran for her life.
Aaron stood frozen. He didn't chase her.
The underground garage was silent as a tomb.
He looked down at his own hands. His palms were ice cold.
Clio's mockery echoed in his ears, over and over.
Yes. He was the one who'd pushed Hestia away.
He'd taken the purest, most devoted woman in his life and shoved her into the abyss with his own two hands.
Suffocating guilt and monstrous regret swallowed him whole.
He wrenched the car door open and floored the gas. The Maybach tore out of the garage like a caged animal, hurtling toward Hestia's ballet studio.
He had to see her. He had to explain everything.
---
Outside the studio, dusk was settling. Cold wind swept through the street.
Hestia had finished her day's rehearsal. She descended the front steps in a cream-colored trench coat, her expression serene, her gaze cool, radiating an untouchable distance that warned the world to keep away.
"Hestia!"
A voice—wrecked beyond recognition—cut through the evening air.
Aaron rushed toward her. His hair was wild, his suit wrinkled beyond repair, his eyes a map of broken capillaries. He looked like a man who'd lost everything.
He stopped three steps away. His knees buckled. He dropped to the cold concrete with a heavy, graceless thud.
A few passersby glanced over, startled.
Aaron Harvey—CEO of the Harvey Group, untouchable king of Seaside City—knelt on the pavement before Hestia, stripped of every shred of dignity and pride.
Hestia stopped walking.
She looked down at the man on the ground. Her brow didn't even furrow. Her eyes held nothing but ice.
"Hestia, I was wrong." Aaron lifted his face, his eyes raw and red, his voice shaking violently. "I know everything now. The person who saved me from the wreck five years ago—that was you. The silhouette I fell for outside that college rehearsal room—that was you. The person I've loved from the very beginning was always you."
Tears spilled down his face. He reached for the hem of her coat, but she sidestepped, smooth and deliberate.
His hand hung frozen in midair. His fingers curled in agony. "Clio deceived me for five years. I didn't know it was you... If I'd known you were the one who saved me, I never would have treated you that way. Hestia, you matter—to me, to Gilbert. We can't live without you. Please. Give me one chance to make this right. Come home..."
He ground himself into the dust, wielding belated truth and their child as weapons, grasping for even a fraction of her mercy.
Hestia looked down at him.
She listened to every word of his tearful confession and felt nothing. Not even a ripple. If anything, she felt nauseous.
Five years of a marriage where she might as well have been a widow. Five years of cold indifference and calculated cruelty. Countless nights burning with fever, utterly alone. Being branded the villain by his entire family with no way to defend herself.
And now, in his mouth, all that blood and damage could be erased with a simple "I had the wrong person"?
"Matter?" Hestia spoke, her voice frost-clear. "Aaron, are you trying to insult me, or yourself?"
Aaron froze, tears blurring his vision. "Hestia..."
"You don't love anyone." Hestia's gaze was razor-sharp, every word drawing blood. "You claim you fell in love with a silhouette. You claim you loved your savior. But you couldn't even identify who she was. What you loved was a fantasy in your head and the halo of a debt you owed."
She stepped back, widening the distance between them, her eyes bright with revulsion.
"Now that your fantasy's collapsed and you've realized I'm the one you were looking for all along, you come crawling on your knees to tell me I matter? Aaron, your devotion is so cheap it makes me want to vomit. And stop using Gilbert to guilt-trip me. Whether you and your son live or die has nothing to do with me anymore."
Her tone was calm. Absolute. Final.
"Take your confession and stay away from me. Don't show your face again. You're dirtying my path."
She didn't spare him another glance. She walked to the black Cullinan waiting at the curb. The door opened and closed. The car pulled away smoothly, not even a wisp of exhaust left behind for him.
Aaron knelt on the frozen ground, cold wind cutting through his clothes.
He watched the car vanish and felt his heart being ground into dust. He collapsed completely, sprawled on the pavement.
---
Late that night, a bombshell detonated across the internet.
Aaron published a three-thousand-word public confession through both the Harvey Group's official account and his personal page.
No PR spin. No deflection. Aaron dissected his own stupidity, arrogance, and blind obsession with ruthless precision.
He publicly acknowledged the emotional abuse and gross negligence he'd inflicted on Hestia throughout their marriage. He confessed to the entire internet that his willful blindness had destroyed everything.
Alongside the statement, he released the recovered convenience store surveillance footage from the accident, as well as the authentic ballet competition records.
In the letter, Aaron named Clio directly and exposed every one of her crimes—
Stealing credit for saving his life. Appropriating Hestia's code name 'N' and all her honors. Fabricating medical records for a heart condition. Hiring someone to carry out a kidnapping. The evidence was airtight, laid out with damning clarity.
The internet erupted.
Clio—already in hiding because of the arrest warrant—became a universal pariah overnight.
Condemnation poured in from every corner. Countless people expressed their disgust at a woman who'd stolen another person's entire life and hired criminals to commit violence.