---- Chapter 20 Emerson Keller POV: The next morning, | did something | hadn't done in six years. | went to my parents' graves alone. The cemetery was quiet, bathed in the soft, gray light of dawn. | knelt before their headstones, the cold marble chilling me through my clothes. | placed a bouquet of their favorite flowers-my mother' s yellow roses, my father' s white carnations-between them. "lm sorry," | whispered, the words catching in my throat. "I' m so sorry | let him fool me. ' m sorry | brought a monster into our family. I' m sorry | wasn' t strong enough to see the truth." For five years, | had come here with Barron. He had always stood behind me, his hand a comforting weight on my shoulder, his presence a lie that desecrated this sacred ground. He would murmur platitudes about honoring their memory, about how he was trying to live up to my father' s legacy. He had even sworn an oath, here, on their graves, to love and protect me for the rest of my life. The memory was so vivid, so painful, | felt a fresh wave of nausea. Had any of it been real? Had there been even a single moment of genuine emotion in the man, or was it all a ---- calculated performance? The thought was a maddening, unanswerable question. | traced my mother' s name on the headstone with my fingertip. "I' ve avenged you," | told her. "I' ve taken back our name. Our legacy. And |' ve made him pay." But the words felt hollow. The victory felt empty. Revenge hadn't brought me peace. It had just left a gaping void where the anger used to be. Keenan found me there an hour later. He didn' t say anything. He just draped his coat over my shivering shoulders and stood beside me in silent solidarity. "It's time," he said finally, his voice gentle. We went back to the estate. Back to the basement. Barron was awake. He was pale and gaunt, but his eyes were blazing with a defiant fire. He stared at me as | entered, a torrent of emotions swirling in their stormy depths: anger, betrayal, and a desperate, agonizing love. "Why are you doing this, Emerson?" he asked, his voice a raw whisper. | didn' t answer. | walked over to the gurney and picked up a scalpel from the medical tray. His eyes widened, but he didn't flinch. "If you' re going to kill me, do it," he said, his voice steady. "But look me in the eye ---- when you do." | brought the scalpel not to his throat, but to his finely tailored suit jacket. With a single, decisive movement, | sliced it open from collar to hem. "This jacket," | said, my voice cold and precise, "is worth five thousand dollars. The cost of one of the specialists you flew into 'cure' my infertility." | moved to his silk tie and cut it in half. "One thousand dollars. The cost of the experimental treatments you had me endure." | took the scalpel to his expensive leather shoes, slicing them open. "Two thousand dollars. The cost of the private clinic where you held me prisoner." | systematically destroyed his clothing, the symbols of his wealth and power, naming a price for each item, a price that corresponded to a piece of my stolen life, my stolen hope. He watched me, his face a mask of stone, but | saw the flicker of pain in his eyes. | wasn't just destroying his possessions. | was dismantling the armor he had built around himself. Finally, | stood before him, the ruined remnants of his finery at my feet. "And what about the children, Emerson?" he asked, his voice thick with a pain that was finally, terrifyingly real. "What' s the price for them?" ---- "There is no price," | said, my voice breaking for the first time. "Their loss is a debt you can never repay." | looked at him, at the man who had been my world, my love, my destroyer. And | saw not a monster, but a man. A broken, flawed, tragic man who had made a series of monstrous choices. And for the first time, | felt a flicker of something other than hatred. It was a terrible, agonizing pity. | turned and walked out of the basement, leaving him strapped to the gurney, stripped of his pride, alone with his sins. The door slammed shut behind me, the sound echoing like the final closing of a tomb. But | didn't know if it was his tomb, or mine. In "CEO, That Intern is Actually Your Wife" by CrushReel, delve into a captivating romance where a billionaire CEO becomes contractually linked to an unexpected partner. When faced with the urgent need to fund her grandmother's critical surgery, our protagonist finds herself in a unique situation—entering a one-year contract marriage with a stranger. As the story unfolds, themes of love, sacrifice, and the complexities of modern relationships come to light. The novel offers a fresh take on the familiar billionaire romance genre by exploring the dynamics of office relationships and the intricacies of contract lovers. Discover this modern tale of unexpected connections and heartfelt emotions, available to read at CrushReel.