Chapter 223 Do you still love her?

Chapter 223 Do you still love her?
The steel door of the maximum-security visitation booth slammed shut.

The air inside the concrete chamber tasted of stale floor wax, and the unmistakable, lingering despair of men who had traded their freedom for blood money. Fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead with a low, agonizing whine that vibrated right behind the eyes.

Jason Wang sat rigidly on the bolted metal stool behind the scuffed plexiglass divider, his orange jumpsuit hanging loosely off shoulders that had once worn bespoke Italian wool. His hair, usually styled to perfection in the high-society clubs downtown, was limp and dull. Dark bruises of exhaustion shadowed his hollow eyes. He looked less like the untouchable heir of the Wang corporate dynasty and more like a ghost haunting the ruins of his own colossal hubris.

The door at the opposite end of the visitor’s corridor creaked open.

A burly guard in a dark vest shoved a chair forward, barking a curt order. "Wang! Visitor. Move."

Jason didn’t look up at first. He assumed it was his lawyer or rather, one of the junior associates sent by his father’s legal team to deliver yet another sterile message explaining that the family name had been scrubbed from corporate filings, that his trust fund was permanently frozen, and that he was entirely on his own.

He dragged his shackled feet across the scuffed linoleum, sliding into the seat opposite the visitation window. He lifted his heavy, bloodshot eyes, expecting a clipboard, a stack of affidavits, and a cold look of professional pity.

Instead, he found the cold, dark stare of Ridge Lockhart.

For a fraction of a second, the blood drained entirely from Jason’s face. His jaw went slack, and every muscle in his body seized up. 

The man sitting across from him,impeccably dressed in a tailored navy overcoat, his dark hair falling effortlessly across a forehead untouched by prison walls was the exact person Jason hated more than anyone else on God’s green earth. 

Ridge was the wall he had crashed against, the predator who had stolen Elisa out from under him, and the living embodiment of everything Jason had lost.

Panic and pure, complete humiliation flared hot in Jason's chest.

Without a word, Jason shoved his hands against the bolted metal table, his chair screeching backward as he scrambled to his feet. 

He turned his back to the glass, his shoulders shaking with sudden, violent rage, ready to signal the guard to take him back to his cell. Better the suffocating loneliness of solitary confinement than sitting here playing audience to his own total destruction.

"Going somewhere, Wang?"

Ridge’s voice didn’t echo. It didn’t need to. It cut through the buzzing fluorescent hum like a razor blade through silk,low, steady, and carrying the suffocating weight of an apex predator toying with a cornered rat.

Jason froze halfway toward the exit door.

"Do you still want your father to see you as a capable heir," Ridge continued smoothly, his tone dripping with calculated venom, "or would you rather stand there like a whipped dog and watch another man permanently take your place in your empire?"

The words hit Jason’s spine like a cattle prod.

Another man.

The Wang family board had already voted to strip him of his titles. His uncle was sitting in his executive chair, signing away assets that had belonged to his grandfather. His father had literally locked him in a concrete box and thrown away the key, erasing his existence as if he were nothing more than a bad quarterly report.

Slowly, agonizingly, Jason turned his head back around. His face was twisted into a mask of ugly, trembling fury, his teeth bared.

"Go fuck yourself, Lockhart," Jason spat, his voice cracking with dry, venomous hatred as he slammed his fist against the reinforced glass. "Get the hell out of here! Stop digging your nose into my business, you arrogant piece of shit! You think because you’re wearing a fancy coat and sleeping in the city that you own the world? You’re nothing! You’re just a glorified street thug with a billionaire bank account!"

Ridge didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He didn't even lean back.

He simply raised his gaze, locking his dark, piercing eyes onto Jason’s frantic ones with terrifying calmness.

"I'll ask the question three times, Jason," Ridge said, his voice dropping an octave, turning deadly quiet. "Your freedom is just a snap away. The gates outside can open today. All you have to do is cooperate."

Jason let out a harsh, barking laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete. He stared at Ridge through the plexiglass, his lips curled in a sneer of absolute disbelief.

"Freedom? From you?" Jason mocked, shaking his head. "You expect me to believe that the golden boy of the Lockhart empire walked into a maximum-security federal hole just to hand me a golden ticket? You’re here to gloat. You want to watch me crawl. Well, keep waiting, because I’d rather rot in this concrete coffin than take a single breath of air bought with your charity."

Ridge didn't react to the outburst. He let the silence stretch out until Jason’s sneer began to waver under the relentless, unblinking weight of his stare.

Then, Ridge leaned forward, resting his forearms on the metal ledge.

"Do you still love Elisa?"

The four words dropped into the room like a charge.

Jason’s breath caught violently in his throat. The arrogant sneer vanished from his face as if it had never existed, replaced by a sudden, stark pallor. His eyes widened, darting away from Ridge’s gaze as a wave of raw, agonizing vulnerability flashed across his features.

On the other side of the glass, a muscle ticked violently in Ridge’s jaw.

If looks could kill, the glare Ridge directed at the inmate would have melted the steel frame right out of the wall. 

A dark, violent rage surged through his veins, hot and immediate. How dare he? How dare this pathetic, broken-down wreck sitting in a federal cell still harbor a single romantic thought about his woman? Elisa was his wife, the mother of his son, his queen. The mere idea that another man,let alone this obsessive piece of trash was sitting in a prison cell thinking about her with anything other than absolute terror made Ridge want to shatter the plexiglass with his bare hands and wrap his fingers around Jason’s throat.

"Would you like to apologise for your wrongs?" Ridge’s voice rose slightly, carrying a dangerous, razor-sharp edge that made the nearby guard shift uneasily in his stance.

The mention of Elisa’s name seemed to short-circuit whatever mental defenses Jason had left. The defiance bled out of him, leaving him looking hollowed out, small, and utterly defeated.

Jason’s hands, resting on the metal ledge, began to tremble uncontrollably. He stared down at his own knuckles, his fingers curling into tight, frantic fists as he pinched his own skin until it turned white.

"I........ I......... I can't face her," Jason whispered.

The words came out ragged, broken, and thick with a shame so profound it seemed to physically crush his chest. He slumped forward, his forehead nearly touching the cold plastic divider, his shoulders shaking with the suppressed agony of a man who knew he had torched his own paradise.

"I ruined it," Jason choked out, his voice dropping to a raw, pathetic mumble. "I ruined everything. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face when she found out what I did. I was mad. I was insane. I thought if I controlled her, if I boxed her in, she’d have no choice but to stay. But I just... I made her hate me. I made her look at me like I was a monster."

Ridge stared at him, his chest heaving with suppressed fury. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to reach across the table, grab the inmate by his orange collar, and remind him whose wife he was talking about. But he forced his fingers to uncurl. He kept his face blank, his breathing steady.

"You know Elisa has a pure heart, don't you?" Ridge said, his voice rising, vibrating with a tense, controlled power. "You grew up in the same circles. You knew her before the media circus, before the isolation, before you tried to destroy her. You should at least know that she’s better than you ever deserved!"

Jason didn't answer. He squeezed his eyes shut, a single, bitter tear finally breaking free and tracking down his hollow, unshaven cheek, splashing silently against the metal ledge.

Ridge watched him for a long, brutal moment. Then, he stood up, pushing his chair back with a sharp scrape. He adjusted the lapels of his navy overcoat, his dark eyes hardening into absolute ice.

"If you're ready for my proposition, tell your warder," Ridge said, turning his back and taking a slow step toward the exit. "You're just a step away from freedom."

He didn't look back. He walked toward the heavy steel door with the deliberate, unhurried pace of a man who knew he held all the cards.

"Stop."

The word croaked out from behind him, desperate and ragged.

Ridge stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't turn around immediately. He let the silence hang for three agonizing seconds, giving the inmate just enough time to realize that he was completely at the mercy of the man he hated most.

Slowly, Ridge pivoted on his heel.

Jason was still sitting with his head bowed low, staring fixedly at the floorboards, the picture of absolute, shattered humiliation. He wasn't looking at Ridge. He didn't have any pride left to protect.

"What is the proposition?" Jason whispered into the glass.

Ridge walked back slowly, stopping just inches from the plexiglass divider. He leaned down, bringing his face level with the small speaker grille, his dark eyes locking onto the top of Jason’s bowed head.

"Tell me where the fuck Vicenzo Ricardo Jordan is," Ridge said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly soft promise, "and you'll walk away a free man. I swear it to you."

Jason’s head jerked up. His bloodshot eyes widened in sheer shock as he stared at Ridge through the glass.

"Vicenzo?" Jason gasped, his voice cracking. "Are you out of your mind? Vicenzo isn't just some local thug hiding in a warehouse downtown! He’s backed by international cartels! He has an army of mercenaries, encrypted channels, and enough firepower to level half this city! If you go after him without knowing his exact movements, he’ll slaughter you before you even cross the district line!"

"Let me worry about what Vicenzo can and can't do," Ridge cut him off, his voice flat, cold, and entirely devoid of fear. "Your only job is to give me the location. The safehouses, the offshore transit routes, the exact coordinates of where he’s planning his next move."

Jason stared at him, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow gasps. A frantic, desperate calculation was clearly playing out behind the inmate's eyes. This wasn't just a trap,it was an exit strategy. A one-way ticket out of the hellhole he had been discarded in, wrapped in the terrifying package of a blood feud between two apex predators.

"If I give you everything," Jason said, his voice dropping to a harsh, conspiratorial whisper, his fingers gripping the edge of the metal shelf until his knuckles turned blue, "if I hand you Vicenzo on a silver platter... what guarantees do I have that you won't just dump me in a shallow grave the second I walk out of these gates?"

Ridge didn't blink. He didn't offer a comforting smile or a reassuring nod. He simply held Jason’s gaze with the terrifying certainty of a man whose word was absolute law.

"You don't have a guarantee, Jason," Ridge said, his voice dead calm, cutting straight through the plexiglass like a scalpel. "You have my word. And right now, sitting in this cage with your father's boot on your neck, my word is the only lifeline you’ve got left in this world."

Jason swallowed hard. He looked at Ridge and saw the cold, unyielding power of a man who never made a promise he couldn't keep, and never threatened a soul he didn't intend to destroy.

The air in the visitation booth grew suffocatingly heavy. Outside in the corridor, the iron door clanked again as another guard shifted his weight, the sound echoing like a distant clock ticking down the final seconds of a countdown.

Jason opened his mouth, his dry lips parting as the first secret slipped out into the cold, buzzing air.