Chapter 117 No Escape
Elena：POV
I stood outside room 306, my hand raised to knock, my whole body shaking.
Just get Mom and go. Don't think. Just move.
The hallway carpet was ugly—geometric patterns in brown and beige that probably hadn't been updated since the nineties.
I focused on it, counting the squares, anything to keep from thinking about Ethan's strange behavior just now.
Stop.
I knocked softly. "Mom? It's me."
Silence.
My heart hammered against my ribs. What if something had happened to her during the night? What if she'd—
I knocked harder, panic rising. "Mom, please. I need—"
The door opened.
Mom stood there in her nightgown—the soft cotton one I'd bought her last Christmas, now hanging loose on her frame.
Her hair was messy from sleep, silver strands catching the fluorescent hallway light. Her eyes widened when she saw me.
"Elena? Baby, what—" She took in my appearance—barefoot, hair tangled like I'd been running my hands through it all night, wearing yesterday's clothes that were wrinkled and smelled like hotel soap and something else.
She added, "What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."
More like I'd fucked one. Or been fucked by one. Same difference.
"We need to leave." I pushed past her into the room, scanning for her suitcase. The room smelled like her lavender lotion and medication—that distinctive hospital smell that had become so familiar. "Right now. Where's your bag?"
"Slow down, honey—"
"I can't." I found her small suitcase in the closet, started throwing clothes into it haphazardly. Her medications first—the orange bottles lined up on the bathroom counter like soldiers. Then underwear, her soft cardigan, the comfortable pants she lived in now. "We're going. Back to Florida, or somewhere else, I don't care. But we can't stay here."
"Elena, stop." Mom's hand caught my wrist, her grip surprisingly firm despite the tremor that had become constant. "Tell me what's wrong. Did Julian come looking for you?"
I looked at her.
The dark circles under her eyes had deepened since yesterday, purple-black smudges that makeup couldn't hide anymore. The way her nightgown hung loose on her shrinking frame made her look fragile, breakable.
Her collarbones jutted out sharp and prominent, and I could see the pulse in her neck, rapid and thready.
She's dying. And I'm dragging her around like luggage because I can't face him.
The guilt crashed over me in waves. Here I was, panicking about my own mess—about Julian's hands on my body, about the way I'd responded to him despite everything—while she was fighting for her life every single day.
"Did Julian hurt you?" Her voice went cold in a way I'd never heard before, protective and fierce despite her frailty.
"No. Yes. I don't know." I yanked away, kept packing, shoving her pill bottles into the side pocket. My hands were shaking. "It doesn't matter. We just need to go before he—"
A knock on the door made me freeze.
Three sharp raps. Controlled. Commanding.
"Elena." Julian's voice, muffled through the wood but unmistakably his. "I know you're in there."
Mom's eyes went wide. I shook my head frantically, pressing a finger to my lips.
"Open the door," he continued, his tone leaving no room for argument. That CEO voice he used in boardrooms, the one that made grown men scramble to obey. "We need to talk. And then you're coming back to New York with me."
My blood ran cold. "What?"
"You heard me." I could picture him on the other side of that door—arms crossed, jaw set, that look in his eyes that meant he'd already decided how this would end. "This little escape attempt is over. You're coming home."
"Go to hell!" I shouted, my voice cracking.
"Julian, what the hell are you doing here?" Ethan's voice came from down the hallway, concerned and protective.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"Stay out of this, Blackwell," Julian called out.
I heard footsteps before I opened the door.
Then Ethan appeared around the corner, still in yesterday's clothes—khakis and a polo shirt now wrinkled from sleep.
The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees when he saw Julian.
Julian stood with one shoulder against the doorframe, looking completely at ease in his wrinkled white shirt—my teeth marks probably still visible on his shoulder underneath. His hair was messy, like he'd been running his hands through it. Or like I had, last night, when he'd—
Stop thinking about it.
"She doesn't want to talk to you," Ethan said, positioning himself beside me.
Julian's lips curved into a cold smile. The kind that meant someone was about to get destroyed. "And what are you going to do about it? Play knight in shining armor again?"
"If I have to."
"Interesting." Julian straightened, and I saw the predator in him surface. The man who'd built an empire before he was thirty. "Tell me, Blackwell—did you fuck her yet? Or are you still waiting for your chance?"
"Julian—" I started, horrified.
"Because I'm curious," he continued, his eyes locked on Ethan like a wolf sizing up prey. "Did she tell you about last night? About how she came apart under my hands?" He paused, letting the words sink in. "How she begged for more?"
Ethan's face went white, then red. A muscle ticked in his jaw. "You son of a bitch—"
"She didn't tell you?" Julian's smile widened, cruel and satisfied. "How I had her against the bathroom mirror, making her watch herself come? How wet she got when I told her she was mine?"
I wanted to die. Wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
"Stop it!" I screamed.
But Julian kept going, his voice dropping lower, more intimate. Each word was a knife, precise and deliberate. "She's never come for you, has she? Never will. Because only I know how to make her lose control. Only I know exactly where to touch her—" he demonstrated with his hand, a gesture so obscene I gasped, "—to make her forget her own name."
Ethan lunged.
His fist connected with Julian's jaw with a sickening crack that echoed in the hallway. Julian's head snapped to the side, and I saw blood spray from his split lip.
For a moment, I thought he'd go down.
He didn't.
Instead, he straightened slowly, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at the blood, then at Ethan.
And smiled.
"There it is," he said softly, almost pleased. "The real you."
Then he moved.
I'd never seen Julian fight before. In three years of marriage, I'd seen him in boardrooms, in bed, in every state of dress and undress. But never this.
He moved like violence was second nature—fast, precise, brutal. No wasted motion. Pure efficiency.
He grabbed Ethan's shirt, twisted, and slammed him against the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. The impact made the framed landscape painting rattle.
"You want to know why she'll never be yours?" Julian's voice was deadly quiet, his face inches from Ethan's. "Because every time you touch her, she'll be thinking of me. Every time you kiss her, she'll remember how I taste." He leaned closer, and I saw Ethan's eyes widen. "You're just a placeholder, Blackwell. A poor substitute for the real thing."
Ethan drove his knee up toward Julian's groin.
Julian twisted at the last second, took the blow on his thigh, and retaliated with a vicious punch to Ethan's ribs. The sound was like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef.
Ethan gasped, his face contorting in pain.
"Stop!" I grabbed Julian's arm, my fingers digging into the muscle. "Please, just stop—"