Chapter 106: gone
Kian didn’t answer. He stood up, towering over her in the dim light, his grey eyes bloodshot and completely hollow. He walked up to her, his heavy hands reaching out to grab her shoulders, pulling her close without a shred of gentleness.
"Tonight," Kian whispered, his voice dark, raspy, and desperate. "You are Isabella."
Lily flinched, looking up at his handsome, ruined face with a mix of fear and hesitation. "Sir, I... I don’t know if—"
"Shut up," he growled, dragging her toward the bed.
He didn’t care about Lily. He didn’t care about her name or her voice. He just needed to stop the agonizing void in his chest before it swallowed him whole.
He forced her down onto the mattress, grabbing a black silk scarf from his jacket pocket and tying it tightly around her eyes, blinding her completely.
"Don’t take it off," Kian commanded, his voice trembling with a dark, twisted intensity.
He stripped her clothes off with rough, frantic hands, spreading her out on the sheets. He pressed his body down over hers, trapping her beneath his heavy weight.
"Say my name," Kian demanded, his fingers digging into her hips as he pushed his hand between her thighs, his long fingers working her roughly, forcing her body to yield to him. "Say it! Tell me you’re not leaving me!"
"K-Kian..." Lily whimpered, terrified by his aggression, her body trembling under his harsh touch. "I’m... I’m not leaving..."
"Tell me you love me!" he shouted, his voice cracking as he drive his fingers deeper into her wet warmth, working her until her breath hitched and her body shook, crying out as a sudden, overwhelming release spilled over his hands.
Lily tried to turn her head away, her lips trembling under the blindfold. "Kian, please... it’s hurting..."
The hesitation broke the delicate illusion in his mind, and a sudden wave of sharp, ugly rage exploded inside him.
"Don’t push me away!" Kian snarled.
He unbuckled his belt, line up his body, and thrust himself deep inside her in one hard, relentless drive.
Lily gasped, her fingers clutching at the bedsheets as he began to move, his hips slamming against her with brutal, punishing speed.
He shut his eyes tight. In the dark behind his eyelids, the girl beneath him vanished. It was Isabella.
It had to be Isabella. It was his soft, gentle wife, pinned beneath him, belonging to him, trapped in the darkness he controlled.
"You’re mine," Kian choked out, his chest heaving as he thrust hard and fast, losing himself entirely in the horrific lie. "You’re my wife... you’ll always be my wife..."
He kept going, driving himself deeper and harder until the intense, painful edge of his climax crashed over him.
He slammed forward one last time, spilling his release deep inside her, his body shuddering as he collapsed against her shoulder, breathing heavily into her neck.
When Kian finally opened his eyes the next morning, the bright sunlight was pouring through the windows.
He sat up slowly, his head pounding with a vicious hangover. Beside him, Lily lay fast asleep, her skin covered in dark bruises and hickeys, the silk scarf tangled in her hair.
Kian looked down at her face, and the illusion shattered into dust.
A wave of intense, bitter disgust washed over him. She wasn’t Isabella. She would never be Isabella. The realization left him feeling even emptier, even more pathetic than he had felt the night before.
He got out of bed without saying a word, pulled on his clothes, and left a thick stack of bills on the nightstand.
Stepping out into the hallway, Kian pulled out his phone. The screen lit up with over thirty missed calls, mostly from Arthur Pendleton.
With a tight jaw, Kian clicked Arthur’s name and brought the phone to his ear.
"Where the hell have you been?!" Arthur’s voice exploded through the speaker the second he picked up, sounding entirely frantic and exhausted. "Have you seen the news?! The reporters are outside my office right now!"
"I don’t care about the press, Arthur," Kian said coldly, his voice flat and dead.
"Well, you should!" Arthur snapped back. "Because things just got ten times worse. We need to meet. Now."
"I’m on my way," Kian replied, his grey eyes turning to ice as he walked toward the elevator.
...
While the scandal continued to burn through the upper circles of the city, a dark sedan rolled quietly down a trash-strewn alleyway on the far, industrial edge of the docks.
The polished, high-end world of luxury estates and corporate empires was completely absent here. The air smelled of salt, rusted metal, and rotting fish.
The car door opened, and Alice stepped out.
She wore a long, dark trench coat, her designer heels clicking lightly on the wet pavement as she walked toward a dimly lit, unmarked door at the back of a dilapidated warehouse.
She didn’t read the news today. She didn’t need to. She already knew the court had confirmed Isabella’s pregnancy, and she knew Kian was completely unraveling because of it.
Everything she had worked for, every lie, every manipulation to secure the Kingston fortune and keep Kian for herself, was slipping through her fingers.
She opened the door and stepped inside.
The room was small, dingy, and thick with smoke.
A heavy-set man sat behind a scarred wooden desk, counting a stack of dirty bills. He looked up, his sharp, dark eyes scanning her expensive clothes and refined posture with mild interest.
"You came alone," the man said, his voice deep and raspy. "I don’t usually get high-society ladies in a place like this."
"I asked for discretion," Alice said coldly, taking a seat across from him and crossing her legs. "And I pay well for it."
The man leaned back, tapping his fingers against the wood. "Depends on what you want done. Who needs to disappear?"
Alice reached into her leather handbag, pulled out a white envelope stuffed with cash, and slid it across the desk. A cold, cruel smile touched her red lips.
"Isabella Carter," Alice said smoothly.
The man paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at the envelope. "That’s a dangerous name to touch right now. She’s all over the news."
"That’s why I’m paying double," Alice replied, her voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "I don’t care how you do it. I just want her and that child gone."