Chapter 286
Chapter 286:
She was wearing the exact outfit Eliza had worn the day before — the jeans, the beige coat. She had Eliza’s hair. She looked up at Anson and smiled — a dazzling, intimate smile. She reached up and straightened his collar, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
Weston’s coffee cup slipped from his hand. It hit the ground and splattered brown liquid across his shoes.
“Are you kidding me?” he growled. “She’s here? With him? While Dallas is upstairs bleeding p>
“That…” Zane squinted. “That looks just like her p>
𝖶𝗁a𝘁 e𝘷e𝗋𝗒oո𝘦 𝗂𝗌 𝗋е𝖺𝖽іn𝘨 𝗈𝗻 ѕ.𝖼𝘰𝗺
“It is her!” Weston yanked out his phone and snapped three photos in rapid succession. “Look at the way she touches him. She’s not even hiding it p>
Suki, catching them in her peripheral vision, turned slightly. She gave a small wave — mocking, dismissive — before linking her arm through Anson’s and walking with him toward the hospital garden, away from the entrance.
“I’m going to kill her,” Weston said, his face darkening.
“No.” Zane grabbed his arm. “We show Dallas. He needs to see this. He needs to know she’s playing him p>
Upstairs, inside the locked room, Eliza was frantic. She leaned over Victoria and shook her gently.
“Wake up!” she said. “Victoria p>
Victoria mumbled something incoherent and went still again. She was deeply asleep — likely sedated.
Eliza looked around the room. No windows. One vent in the ceiling, far too small to crawl through.
She understood now with perfect, sickening clarity what was happening. She wasn’t just trapped.
She was being framed. Again.
The beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in Room 2201.
Dallas lay still, his leg elevated in a traction sling, his chest wrapped in bandages. His face was pale, deep shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes.
The door burst open.
Weston marched in, Zane trailing behind him with a reluctant expression.
“You need to see this,” Weston said, thrusting his phone in front of Dallas’s face.
Dallas blinked, his vision blurry from the pain medication. He focused on the screen.
It was a photograph. Taken minutes ago. Eliza, standing beside Anson’s car. Touching his face. Smiling.
“She’s downstairs,” Weston said, his voice shaking with fury. “Right now. We saw her ourselves. She didn’t come up here, Dallas. She went for a stroll in the garden with him p>
Dallas felt a sharp pain in his chest that had nothing to do with his broken ribs. It was cold and hollow.
“Are you sure?” he rasped.
“I saw her with my own eyes,” Weston said. “She waved at us, Dallas. She waved and laughed p>
Dallas closed his eyes. The silhouette from the rainy garden merged with this new photograph into a narrative he could no longer argue against.
“She’s gone,” Dallas whispered.
“She’s playing you,” Weston said. “You need to cut her loose. Now. Before she takes half the company p>
“Call the lawyer,” Dallas said. He turned his head away. “Get the papers ready p>
In the locked room, Eliza was tearing the place apart.
She shoved a heavy armchair aside and found it — a wall jack. A landline jack.
She looked at the side table. A standard hospital phone.
She plugged it in. A dial tone hummed in her ear.
“Thank God,” she breathed.