Chapter 163

Chapter 163

Elodie felt a faint ache in her chest.

In Grace, she saw her younger self — alone and helpless in the orphanage. The same fragility, the same desperate will to survive.

Elodie closed the book, reached out, and gently touched Grace's cheek.

"My name's Elodie."

Grace looked up, her eyes clear and bright.

"Elodie, are you going to die?" Grace asked with childlike innocence. "There was a boy in the room next door. The doctors wheeled him away yesterday and he never came back. The nurse said he went to heaven. Is heaven fun?"

Elodie gazed at the mountain range stretching across the horizon.

"No, it's not."

She took Grace's cold little hand in hers.

"So we're not going." Elodie looked Grace straight in the eyes. "Grace, we're both going to make it. I promise."

Grace nodded hard, breaking into a bright, wide smile.

Their hands held tight.

Harbor City. The Stewart Group headquarters.

Top floor. The CEO's office.

A complete wreck.

Documents and reports scattered across the floor. An antique vase worth millions of dollars lay shattered in the corner.

Adrian stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, his chest heaving.

The office door burst open and his assistant rushed in, drenched in sweat.

"Mr. Stewart! We've hit a wall with the aviation authority! Military airspace restrictions are in effect for all outbound international flights today. Every private flight request has been denied. The earliest we can take off is eight tomorrow morning!"

Bang!

Adrian kicked the coffee table in front of him clean off its legs.

The heavy thud echoed through the office.

"I said take off now!" Adrian spun around, eyes bloodshot, voice raw. "Get someone in the military on the phone! Pull every connection the Stewart family has! I want that plane rolling down the runway in thirty minutes!"

The assistant swallowed hard, his legs barely holding him up.

"Mr. Stewart, the cross-border acquisition meeting is about to start. The other party's representatives are already in the conference room..."

"Cancel it!" Adrian snapped. "Cancel every single meeting. Shutting the Stewart Group down for one day won't kill anyone."

He strode to his desk, grabbed his car keys, and headed for the door.

He couldn't wait.

Not a minute. Not a second.

Every time he closed his eyes, the date on that diagnosis report flared up in his mind, growing larger and larger.

Terminal. Late stage.

Those words tore at him like claws.

He had to see Elodie now. He needed to hear from her own mouth exactly how much she'd been hiding from him. He would fly in the best doctors in the world — money was no object — because there was no way in hell he was going to let Elodie die.

Adrian stormed into the private elevator.

It dropped straight to the underground garage.

The black Maybach shot out of the Stewart Group building, its engine roaring like thunder, and tore up the elevated highway toward the airport.

The needle on the speedometer kept climbing.

Adrian gripped the steering wheel with both hands, a raw, desperate fury burning in his eyes.

He thought, 'Elodie, don't even think about running from me.'

Harbor City. The elevated highway.

The black Maybach cut through traffic. The speedometer was closing in on two hundred miles per hour.

Adrian held the wheel with one hand, knuckles white.

The cabin was filled with the roar of the engine.

Through his Bluetooth earpiece, his bodyguard's voice was still shaking.

"Mr. Stewart, Ms. Johnson has completely lost it. She's holding a piece of broken glass to her throat. She's slashing anyone who gets near her. She says if she doesn't see you, she'll die right here today."

Adrian slammed the brakes.

The tires screamed against the asphalt, leaving long black streaks on the road. The smell of burnt rubber seeped in through the window gaps.

His chest rose and fell hard.

Elodie was in Eldoria. She could die at any moment.

His mind was still full of that diagnosis report, of the blood she'd coughed onto a tissue. He wanted nothing more than to be by her side right now, to fix this, to cure her.

But Chloe was using leverage against him.

The kind of leverage that had once saved his life.

Six years ago, in an abandoned warehouse. When the kidnapper's blade came down, Chloe had thrown herself onto his back. That deep, bone-deep gash had become an invisible chain around Adrian's neck ever since.

He had let her get away with things. Covered for her. Even when he knew she was calculating and manipulative, he looked the other way.

Until she pushed Elodie off the ship.

Adrian closed his eyes and drew a slow, deep breath.

"Take me to the hospital."

This was the last time.

He would settle his debt to Chloe and cut every tie between them, once and for all.

Harbor City Medical Center. VIP ward.

Bodyguards lined the hallway.

Adrian pushed open the door.

The sharp smell of blood hit him immediately.

Chloe sat on the hospital bed, her right wrist wrapped in thick bandages soaked through with red. Blood dripped steadily from her fingertips.

The floor was covered in dark, spreading pools.

The moment she saw Adrian, Chloe's tears broke loose.

"Adrian!"

She threw off the covers, stepped barefoot into the blood, and stumbled toward him.

Adrian didn't move.

At the last second, just before she could reach him, he stepped to the left.

Clean and deliberate.

Chloe grabbed at nothing but air.

She hit the floor hard, bruising her knees on impact. When her wrist took the weight, the wound tore open and bled even faster.

She looked up, stunned.

In the past, a single tear from her was enough to make Adrian pull her into his arms.

Now, all she got was his cold profile.

Adrian looked down at her. His eyes were completely flat.

"Done with the performance?"

His voice was ice.

Chloe went rigid.

She bit her lower lip, tears falling fast.

"Adrian, what are you talking about? I really can't go on. The Turners don't want me. You don't want me. I have nightmares every night. You're all I have left."

She reached out from the floor and grabbed for his pant leg.

Adrian stepped back, out of her reach.

"You pushed Elodie off the ship. You bribed the surveillance room on the cruise. You cut every rope on the backup lifeboats." He stared at her. "And you call that not being able to go on?"

Chloe went pale.

She shook her head frantically, trying to hide the panic in her eyes.

"I wasn't thinking straight! I just loved you too much! She took my place, she took my parents, and she was going to take you too! I was out of my mind with jealousy!"

Chloe cried out and yanked her hospital gown off her shoulder.

The jagged scar across her back came into full view.

"Back in that warehouse, I took that knife for you! You said you'd take care of me for the rest of my life! You can't just walk away from me!"

Adrian looked at the scar.

Once, that scar had forced him to give her whatever she wanted without limits. He had even canceled his wedding anniversary with Elodie just to keep her calm.

Now, it just felt like a bitter joke.

"When you pushed her off that ship," Adrian said, each word slow and deliberate, a vein rising at his temple, "did you know she already had late-stage cancer?"

"You weren't acting out of jealousy. You were trying to kill her."

The room went dead silent.

Only the steady beeping of the monitor remained.

Chloe froze. Tears clung to her lashes. She forgot to breathe.

Late-stage cancer?

Elodie had a terminal illness?

Chloe's pupils widened. She quickly dropped her head, letting her hair fall forward to cover her face.

After a few seconds, the hand hanging at her side slowly curled into a fist.

Her heart was racing.

Elodie was going to die.

The woman who had stolen the title of Mrs. Stewart was finally going to die.