Chapter 120 Chapter One hundred and nineteen
ARA
When I opened my eyes, Thayne was the first thing I saw. He was hovering over me, and his eyes were bloodshot. His jaw was tight, like he’d been holding himself together by sheer force of will.
“Where am I?” I asked in a thin voice.
“In the hospital,” he said immediately. “Hey—hey. I’m here.” His hand closed over mine. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, swallowing. “What happened?”
He exhaled slowly, like the air had been trapped in his chest for hours. “You went into premature labor. Stress-induced contractions.”
My heart lurched. “The baby—”
“They stopped it,” he said quickly. “They gave you medication, fluids. You scared the hell out of me, Ara, but…” His thumb brushed over my knuckles. “The baby’s fine.”
Relief crashed through me so hard it made my eyes burn.
A second later, Thayne stiffened.
“I’m thinking you should have listened to me,” he said coldly. “None of this would’ve happened if you’d stayed back. Tommy got away. And now our fathers think I’m weak.”
The words hit harder than any bullet ever could.
I blinked up at him, my chest tightening as I searched his face, hoping I’d misheard.
Was he… blaming me?
“I know it’s my fault,” I said quietly, pain threading through my voice. “But I saved your life. Over and over. Despite my condition—”
“Despite the fact that I was trying to protect you!” he snapped.
“You made it easy for me to leave because you knew you needed me.”
“No,” he shot back. “I made it easy so you wouldn’t get hurt trying to find me.”
A bitter laugh tore out of me before I could stop it. “Then maybe you should’ve married a good little submissive wife, one who sits still and looks pretty even when the roof is on fire.”
Silence slammed into the room. Thayne’s jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists at his sides, not in anger now, but in something dangerously close to regret.
“I’ll be outside,” he said tightly.
He didn’t wait for a response. The door clicked shut behind him, the sound far louder than it should’ve been.
I stared at the ceiling, blinking back tears that refused to fall. My chest felt hollow now, scraped clean by words that shouldn’t have been said, and couldn’t be taken back.
Thayne’s attitude didn’t change after I was discharged.
He was rarely at the penthouse, and when he was, it felt like his body showed up long before his heart ever did.
Some nights, I heard him leave quietly, like he didn’t want to wake anything that might ask him to stay.
That night, I couldn’t let it happen again.
I pushed myself out of bed and followed the sound of his footsteps into the hallway.
“Thayne,” I called softly.
He stopped, but didn’t turn.
The space between us felt wider than the corridor itself.
I stepped closer, moved around him until I was standing in front of him. His eyes stayed fixed somewhere over my shoulder, distant and closed off.
“Thayne,” I said again, slower now. “I need to see my sisters. I’ve waited for so long, and I haven’t heard from them.”
His jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he would brush past me. Leave like he always did.
Instead, he finally looked at me. And the hurt in his eyes scared me more than his anger ever had.
“You will do as I say, Ara,” Thayne said quietly. “Your sisters are safe. I can’t risk you moving about. Your protection, your safety, is my utmost concern.”
“I’m worried about my sisters,” I shot back. “What if they’re not comfortable where they are? What if there are things they need to tell me?”
“I have everything under control.” Thayne countered.
“Then let me speak to them on the phone.” I insisted.
“Our fathers are monitoring calls,” he said immediately. “We can’t let them triangulate their location.”
“But you make calls every minute.” I told him. Why was he fighting this?
He exhaled sharply, finally turning fully toward me. “Because I’m different.”
“How?”
“I have a team,” he said, his voice low and precise. “They rotate devices every few hours. Burners that never stay active long enough to trace. Calls are routed through dead towers, bounced across three countries before they ever connect. No voice patterns are stored, and no metadata are left behind.”
He held my gaze now, intense. “Half of them exist on paper only. The other half don’t exist at all.”
My stomach twisted.
“They scrub everything,” he continued. “Cameras, credit trails, location pings. If someone watches me make a call, all they see is noise. Your sisters don’t have that protection yet.”
“So you’re locking me away,” I said quietly.
“I’m keeping you alive,” he countered. “Keeping them alive.”
I swallowed, anger and fear tangling in my chest. “You can’t protect me by cutting me off from my own family.”
He frowned. “And I can’t lose you,” he said, the words rougher than he intended. “Especially not the babies.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. I was too dumbstruck to say anything.
“Especially the babies?” I asked, taking a step back. “So it’s not even about me?”
“Do not put words in my mouth,” Thayne said sharply. Then he sidestepped me and walked past.
I didn’t call him back. Something in my chest had already settled. Something was wrong.
I waited until the elevator doors whispered closed and the penthouse fell into its unnatural silence. Only then did I move.
I went straight to the guest room, the one he’d been using since I got back from the hospital.
The bed was untouched, perfectly made, neat, just like him. I crossed to the desk. The drawers were half-empty.
Thayne Slade never left loose ends. Which meant I needed to search harder.
I reached for the bedside table, my pulse quickening as I pulled it open, and found the first crack in his story.
There was a signed undertaking with Gabe’s signature at the bottom, claiming the pregnancy was his.
I blinked, reading the contents quickly, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. What was this?
It turned out my ex, Gabe was filing a law suit against Thayne for marrying his ex fiancé while she was pregnant for him.
It sounded like a joke at first, because I didn't take in for Thayne until weeks later.
But Gabe was filing a lawsuit claiming otherwise.
So this was why Thayne had been acting strangely lately.