TWO
799 Words
Lucas kissed her deeply, then pulled back with a smirk. “You helped me end him, Cynthia. Michael Lawrence is finished. And now he’s out of the way, there’s nothing left standing between us.”
Cynthia’s voice grew dark. “Don’t worry, love. He won’t crawl back from this. I made sure of it. Those men I paid handsomely should have drowned him by now. As we speak, he is rotting in hell. That useless excuse of a husband is finally gone.”
She laughed again, a sound so cold and poisonous it twisted Michael’s stomach. Then her tone shifted, playful, seductive. “And now, you’re mine. All mine."
Lucas answered with a growl. “You naughty girl.”
Sheets rustled. Their laughter melted into moans as they surrendered themselves to their illicit passion once more.
Michael staggered back from the door, his heart like a collapsing star inside his chest. Each word, each laugh, each moan from inside the room was another blade, carving him open until there was nothing left but raw, bleeding emptiness.
How could she?
How could the woman he had loved for the past three years — the woman for whom he had sacrificed his fortune, his future, even his body — turn on him so cruelly? How could she conspire to kill him, laugh about his death, and still smile as though nothing mattered?
His breath trembled. His vision swam. It felt as though the world had shifted beneath his feet, the ground threatening to give way. He pressed a hand to his chest as if he could hold the shattered pieces of his heart together, but they only slipped further away.
The weight of betrayal was suffocating. He wanted to storm inside, to scream her name, to drag her out and demand to know why. But the answer was already carved into his soul.
She never loved him.
She never did.
Everything he had given — his empire, his devotion, his kidney, his very life — had been nothing but a cruel joke to her.
A tear slipped from his eye, trailing down his cheek as he drew in a slow, ragged breath.
Enough.
There was no point in confronting her. No point breaking into the room and letting her see his broken face, his bleeding heart. She had already told him everything he needed to know.
To her, Michael Lawrence was already dead.
He backed away, each step deliberate, silent, as though he feared even the floorboards might betray his presence. The laughter and moans behind the door echoed in his ears, but he forced himself not to look back. Not to falter.
By morning, he would end this. He will give her the divorce papers and leave her for good like she wanted.
But just as Michael turned to leave, a sharp sound cut through the haze.
A phone rang from inside the room.
He did not know why but something told him to wait. He stood frozen in the hallway, his ears straining.
Inside, Lucas groaned in irritation, his voice muffled but clear. “Baby, I need to pick this call.”
Cynthia whined, breathless. “Ignore it. Come back to me.”
“No,” Lucas insisted, pulling away. “This is important.” He paused, then added with a low chuckle that made Michael’s veins turn to ice. “Remember what we agreed? To sell off that i***t’s crippled sister after killing him? Well… I’ve found a buyer.”
Michael’s heart stopped.
His sister.
She was not his blood sister but she was his family, his only family. The frail granddaughter of the old woman who had once taken him in when he was penniless and abandoned. The child everyone had mocked and dismissed as “the cripple,” whom Michael had sworn to protect. After her grandmother’s death, he had cared for her like his own flesh and blood, hiring a professional caregiver, providing her every comfort he could afford.
And now, he heard them bargain her life like she was an animal on the market.
Lucas’s voice sharpened. “Yes, I have the location. Don’t insult me with three million. She may be crippled, but her organs are useful. Four million, and not a dollar less. Do we have a deal?”
Michael’s blood roared. His vision tunneled, pulsing red.
Destroying him was one thing. Sabotaging his company, stealing his wife, mocking his love — he could endure the pain. But threatening her? The innocent life he had sworn to protect?
No.
No one touches his sister. No one.
Something inside him snapped.
Michael’s fury erupted into an unstoppable storm. His fist clenched so hard his knuckles whitened, and without another thought, without any fear or hesitation, he drove his shoulder against the suite door.
- Writer
