Chapter 198 The Cost of His Lies
"Are you going to fire me, or are you going to divorce me?" Tristan asked.
I threw my ruined wool jacket onto the glass coffee table. The dried blood smeared against the pristine surface.
"I cannot fire a ghost," I said. "And a divorce requires lawyers. We are out of time for paperwork. Get your things."
Tristan stood between me and the hallway. He did not move. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled the fabric up his forearms. He looked like a man preparing for a brawl, not an eviction.
"I am not leaving this penthouse," he stated.
"This is my home. I am telling you to leave."
"I am your husband. I am the father of the boy sleeping down the hall. I sank a fleet and burned a syndicate to the ground tonight to ensure he wakes up tomorrow. You can hate me. You can scream at me. But I am not walking out that door."
I crossed the living room. I stopped a foot away from his chest. I tilted my head back to meet his stare.
"You did not do this for Elias," I said. The words tasted like iron. "You did this for yourself."
"I ordered a strike to save our family!" he roared. The sound vibrated in the floorboards.
"You staged an army behind my back because you lost control!" I shouted. I shoved his chest. He took the hit like a stone wall. "You sat in this room and promised me equal power. You swore you would never make decisions in the dark again. But the second a threat touched our lives, you realized you could not trust me. You looked at the Chairman, and you saw a weak, naive girl who needed her husband to clear the board."
"I saw my wife walking into a slaughterhouse!"
"And instead of standing beside me, you managed me. You let me believe I was making the call. You played me, Tristan."
The silence hit the room. It felt heavier than the screaming.
Tristan ran a hand through his dark hair. The sheer exhaustion etched deep lines around his eyes. He looked broken. But I remembered the man who orchestrated a city-wide massacre with a single phone call.
"I knew your pride," Tristan said. His voice dropped to a rough, fractured rasp. "I knew you would refuse to hide. You spent three years fighting your way out of the gutter. You built an armor out of corporate titles and legal contracts. You thought that armor made you invincible."
"It made me independent," I corrected.
"It made you a target!" Tristan closed the gap. He grabbed my arms. His fingers dug into my skin. He did not hurt me, but his grip held a desperate, suffocating weight. "They do not care about your title, Mina! They put a bullet in Marcus. That bullet was meant for you. If I did not stage those men, you would be dead right now. I would be explaining to our son why his mother is never coming home."
"You took my agency," I whispered. My chest tightened. The tears I refused to shed at the clinic threatened to break through. "You stole the one thing I fought my entire life to keep."
"I stole it to keep you breathing," he swore. He shook me, just a fraction. "I will steal it again. I will break every vow. I will lie to your face. I will burn the entire world if it means you get to wake up the next morning. That is the truth. That is the monster you married."
I stared at him. The absolute, terrifying devotion in his gray eyes stripped the air from my lungs.
He felt the guilt of breaking my trust, but he held zero remorse for the actions.
"Let go of me," I ordered.
He did not let go. Instead, he pulled me flush against his chest. I planted my hands on his shoulders, trying to push him away. He wrapped his arms around my waist, trapping me in his heat. The familiar scent of rain and clean cotton mixed with the acrid smell of the clinic.
"Do not shut me out," Tristan pleaded. He buried his face in my neck. His breath ghosted over my skin. "Punish me. Hate me. But do not end this."
I felt his chest heave. The titan of the Johnston Group trembled against me.
The anger burned in my veins, but the deep, instinctual pull of our bond fought the flames. This man ruined my life three years ago. He pieced it back together. He gave me an empire. He gave me a son. He loved me with a violent, consuming obsession.
"You broke the partnership," I reminded him. I kept my voice cold, a shield against the heat of his touch.
"I protected the woman," he answered. He pressed his lips against the pulse point on my neck. A heavy, desperate kiss. "The Chairman can hate me. But my wife knows I did the only thing I could do."