Chapter 217 Just like my father

Chapter 217 Just like my father
Her voice wasn't a whisper. It was cold, sharp as a razor blade, and dripping with absolute venom.

Ridge stopped dead in his tracks. The glowing smile vanished from his face in a fraction of a second, replaced instantly by a look of sharp, instinctive confusion. He lowered the bouquet of roses slightly, his dark eyes narrowing as he studied her tense posture and the fiery hatred burning in her gaze.

"Elisa?" Ridge asked, his tone dropping into a cautious, guarded register. "What’s wrong? Did something happen with Sunny? Is he—"

"Sunny is fine," Elisa interrupted, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed rage as she took two aggressive steps forward, invading his personal space. "Or at least, he would be if his father wasn't a lying, paranoid hypocrite who spent his nights digging into our son's bloodlines behind my back!"

Ridge’s breath hitched. The air in the foyer instantly turned ten degrees colder. The color drained slightly from his tanned face, though his rigid, enforcer posture didn't break.

"What are you talking about?" Ridge asked slowly, every muscle in his body tensing up like a coiled spring.

Elisa didn't answer with words. With a sharp, furious flick of her wrist, she hurled the crumpled manila folder straight at his chest.

The thick brown envelope hit Ridge squarely over his heart and fluttered open, spilling the official medical lab reports, the genetic charts, and the secret DNA paternity test results across the polished marble floor between them.

Ridge looked down at the papers scattered at his feet.

The silence that followed was deafening. He didn't bend down to pick them up. He didn't gasp or stutter. He simply stared at the official headers with a dark, unreadable expression, the raw truth crashing down around them with the force of a tidal wave.

He had been caught.

"A DNA test, Ridge?" Elisa’s voice broke through the silence, vibrating with a heartbreaking, blistering fury. She pointed a shaking finger down at the papers on the floor. "You secretly tested my unborn child while I was lying in a hospital bed recovering from near-death! While I was thanking God for saving us, while I was believing every single word you said about protecting our family... you were in your private study running genetic tests to make sure I wasn't tricking you with another man's baby!"

Ridge slowly lifted his head, his dark eyes locking onto hers. The warmth and adoration from a moment ago were entirely gone, replaced by the cold, hardened mask of the ruthless billionaire who ruled the city. But beneath that iron shell, there was a flash of raw, desperate panic.

"Elisa, let me explain," Ridge rumbled, his voice dropping into a harsh, urgent plea as he took a step toward her. He reached out a large, calloused hand, trying to grab her wrist. "It wasn't what you think—"

"Don't touch me!" Elisa hissed, violently jerking her arm away from his grasp as if his touch burned her skin. She glared at him, hot tears finally spilling over her eyelashes, though her voice remained razor-sharp. "Don't you dare touch me! What else could it possibly be, Ridge? You didn't trust me! After everything I gave up for you, after every risk I took, you still looked at me and wondered if I was lying, if my baby belonged to some monster from my past!"

"That is not true!" Ridge shouted back, his deep voice echoing off the marble walls with a sudden, thunderous intensity that shook the foyer.

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them with terrifying speed, his own dark emotions finally snapping under the pressure.

"You think I did that because I doubted you?" Ridge roared, his chest heaving, his dark eyes flashing with a desperate, wounded fury that matched her own. He pointed down at the floor, his voice cracking with raw intensity. "Do you have any earthly idea what kind of world I live in, Elisa? Do you know how many enemies wanted to tear us apart before you even drew your first breath in this estate? Syndicate lords, corporate killers, men like your father—they all play dirty! They use bloodlines, heirs, and biological weapons to destroy empires from the inside out!"

"So you tested my baby!" Elisa shot back, her voice matching his volume, refusing to back down an inch. "You treated my womb like a crime scene investigation! You didn't trust me, Ridge! Admit it! You thought there was a chance I was carrying someone else's blood!"

"No!" Ridge slammed his fist down onto the nearby mahogany console table, the loud bang echoing like a gunshot through the mansion.

He ran a large hand roughly through his dark hair, breathing heavily, his broad chest rising and falling as he stared down at her with tormented eyes.

"I tested the child," Ridge whispered, his voice suddenly dropping into a ragged, broken confession, "not because I didn't trust you... but because I needed absolute, unshakeable proof to shove down the throat of every single enemy who tried to use your past against us. I needed to lock down our perimeter so tightly that no one not Vicenzo, not Jason, not a single soul on this earth could ever weaponize a shadow of a doubt against my family."

He took another step toward her, his voice softening into a desperate, agonizing plea.

"I wanted to protect you, Elisa. I wanted to make sure that when I declared Sunny as my heir, no one could ever question his right to sit beside us. I did it out of protection... not betrayal."

Elisa stood frozen, her breath catching in her throat. She looked up into his dark, tortured eyes, seeing the immense weight of the empire he carried on his shoulders, the paranoia of a man who trusted no one because trust was a luxury that always got people killed.

In the past weeks ago, when she was still fragile and living in fear she might have backed down. She might have let him pull her into his arms, accepted his twisted logic, and whispered that it was all okay.

Not anymore.

She wasn't the broken girl running from her father, and she wasn't the terrified patient trapped in a hospital bed. She was Elisa Lockhart. She was a mother, a wife, and a woman who demanded absolute respect.

"Protection?" Elisa whispered, her voice dangerously quiet, shaking with a cold, unforgiving dignity. She stepped back, putting distance between them. "No, Ridge. That’s not protection. That’s fear wearing a crown."

Ridge froze, his hand hovering mid-air, his dark eyes widening in shock as her words hit him like a physical blow.

"You built this entire estate like a fortress," Elisa continued, her eyes locking onto his with unblinking fire. "You surrounded me with flowers, you threw a secret wedding, you gave me everything money could buy. But you forgot the most important thing a marriage requires, Ridge. You forgot trust."

She gestured down to the DNA papers scattered across the marble floor.

"In the old days, my father treated me like a piece of property, a tool to be tested and managed for the Lee family's survival," Elisa said, her voice trembling with emotion. "I thought you were different. I thought you saw me. But hiding behind your paranoia to run secret medical tests behind my back... how are you any different from him?"

The words hung in the air like a guillotine blade.

Ridge looked as though he had been physically struck. All the fierce, intimidating authority drained from his frame, leaving behind a man staring down the barrel of his worst nightmare losing the only woman he had ever truly loved because of his own ruthless instincts.

"Elisa..." Ridge started, his voice barely a raw whisper. "Don't say that. Please."

"In the past, whenever things got hard, I ran away," Elisa said softly, taking another step backward toward the grand staircase, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. "I let people dictate my life, I hid in shadows, and I let fear make my choices."

She drew herself up to her full height, her chin held high with fierce, unyielding pride.

"I’m not running away this time, Ridge. I’m not packing a bag, and I’m not jumping into a river," she declared, her voice ringing clear and strong through the vast foyer. "We are going to settle this. Right here. On my terms."

Ridge stared at her, frozen, his chest rising and falling rapidly as a knot of pure, unadulterated terror squeezed his heart.

"What... what are your terms?" Ridge asked, his voice trembling for the first time in his life.

Elisa looked down at the crumpled DNA report on the floor, then back up at her husband, her expression as hard and unyielding as polished steel.

"Prove to me that I am your partner, not your prisoner," Elisa commanded, her voice echoing in the dead silence of the hall. "Prove to me that you trust me as much as you expect me to trust you. Until you can do that... stay out of my sight."

Without waiting for his answer, Elisa turned her back on him, swept past the scattered papers on the marble floor, and marched up the grand staircase without looking back, leaving the most powerful man in the city standing entirely alone in the wreckage of his own fortress.