Chapter 295
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair has nothing to do with it,” he said. “The world isn’t fair. And I can’t be the man you need anymore — the man who keeps you safe. So I’m setting you free.” He paused. “I want a divorce.”
The word hung in the air and emptied the room of oxygen. The heart monitor, now steady at 85, continued its calm and merciless rhythm. Her own heart felt as though it had stopped entirely.
“You don’t mean that,” she said, shaking her head. “This is the pain talking. The fear.”
“No,” he said. “This is clarity.” He looked at her, his expression a mask of stone. “The love was real, Eliza. I will never deny that. But it’s a luxury I can’t afford, and a danger you can’t endure. It’s over.”
He lifted her hand from his face, his touch clinical and final. “My lawyer will be in touch with yours.”
Eliza stood there, frozen, her hand still tingling from the ghost of his skin. The storm raged on outside. The room was utterly, devastatingly silent.
The door creaked open a fraction. A nurse peered in to check the alarms, took in the stark distance between them — the wife standing like a statue of grief — and let the door click quietly shut again.
The morning sun was blinding, reflecting off the wet pavement of the hospital driveway. The silence in the car was heavier than any storm.
“This is a mistake,” Dr. Vance said, standing by the curb with his arms crossed. He wasn’t wearing his lab coat — just a black turtleneck that made him look more like an architect than a surgeon. “You have three broken ribs and a shattered tibia. You should be in bed, not in a car.”
“I have a bed at home,” Dallas grunted. He was sitting in a wheelchair, his leg extended straight out. “And the food is better.”
“If that leg swells, I’m not coming to fix it,” Vance warned, though he leaned down to check the cast one last time. “I’ll just amputate it with a rusty saw.”
“Noted,” Dallas said dryly.
Weston and Zane flanked the wheelchair like Secret Service agents and hoisted Dallas into the back of the modified Maybach with practiced efficiency. Eliza climbed in beside him on autopilot, her body a shell, arranging the pillows around his leg. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t thank her.
As the car pulled away, Dallas immediately retrieved a tablet from the seat pocket.
“Weston,” he said, his eyes fixed on the screen. “I want the penthouse security protocols upgraded to Tier One.”
Weston turned from the front passenger seat. “Tier One? That’s Pentagon level, Boss. We usually reserve that for overseas trips.”