SECRET TRUTH

Chapter 5:The Rejection

POV: Ethan Blackwell

I didn't sleep.

After Ava saw the text about Dr. Reeves, she just stared at me. Not with anger. Not with fear. With something worse—disappointment. Like I had just confirmed every terrible thing she already knew about me.

"I didn't do it," I said instantly.

But even I knew it was a lie.

She didn't say anything. She just grabbed her things and ran out of my apartment. I tried to follow her, but she was already gone. And I was left alone with my image in the dark glass of my apartment, seeing myself for what I really was: a man who would destroy anyone, even the one person I actually cared about, just to keep control.

I spent the entire night moving.

Pacing and thinking about what I had done. About Dr. Reeves. About the plan I had made weeks ago when I learned Ava was going to leave me. I had wanted her so desperately that I had told myself hurting her mother was the only way to keep her. I had wanted to make her so desperate, so dependent on me, that she would never leave.

Sophia would be happy. She had taught me well.

By morning, I had made a choice. I had to end this. I had to let Ava go. Not because I wanted to—God, I didn't want to. But because I could feel myself becoming something worse than just broken. I could feel myself becoming like Sophia. Willing to destroy anyone for power. Willing to hurt innocent people just to keep from being alone.

I couldn't become that. I wouldn't become that.

So when Ava came to my office at seven in the morning, looking like she hadn't slept, with red eyes and a broken face, I did what I had planned to do. I told her the truth—or at least, part of it.

"It was a mistake," I said before she could even speak.

She flinched like I had hit her.

"Last night was a mistake," I continued. "What happened between us. The yard. The promises. All of it. I was confused. I was exposed. But I don't want this, Ava. I don't want you."

Her face went white.

"I don't want a relationship with you," I said. The words were harsh, and I meant them to be. Cruelty was the only thing that would make her leave me. Love wasn't enough. Hope wasn't enough. Only pain could drive her away from me.

"But," I added, hating myself with every word, "I will pay for your mother's treatment. All of it. The experimental treatment, the best doctors, everything. I'll set up an account for her medical bills. Consider it a layoff. Consider it payment for your time here."

I was offering her money. I was offering her the thing that would save her mother's life. And I was making it sound like a business deal. Like love was useless. Like what we had shared in that garden meant nothing.

Ava started to cry.

Not the kind of crying where tears fall quietly. The kind where your whole body shakes and you can't breathe and you look like you're breaking apart from the inside.

"I know you paid someone to hurt my mother," she whispered.

I didn't deny it. I couldn't. The shame was too heavy.

"Yes," I said quietly.

"You poisoned her. You tried to kill her to keep me here."

"Yes."

"And now you're paying for her treatment because you got scared."

"Yes."

She looked at me for a long moment, and I saw something shift in her eyes. The love I had seen there was dying. Piece by piece, I was killing it.

"I hate you," she said.

Those three words hurt more than anything else she could have said.

"I know," I answered.

"But I'm taking the money," she added. "Because my mother is dying, and you're the only one who can save her. So yes, Ethan. I'll take your blood money. I'll take your pay. I'll take whatever you're offering. But I will never forgive you. I will never forget what you did."

I nodded. That was fair.

She turned to leave, and I thought that was the end. I thought she would take the money, save her mother, and escape from my life. I thought this was the price I had to pay for becoming a monster.

But then she stopped at the door.

"By the way," she said, not turning around, "I took something from your office before I left last night."

My stomach dropped.

"What did you take?" I asked.

She finally turned to face me, and there was something in her look that terrified me. It was the look of someone who had nothing left to lose.

"Files," she said. "Every file about Sophia. Every transaction. Every piece of proof about her embezzlement. Every proof that you knew what she was doing and covered it up. I have copies of everything."

My blood went cold.

"If you try to come after me," Ava added, "if you try to take back the money or hurt my mother again, I'm giving all of it to the FBI. They'll destroy you, Ethan. And Sophia? She'll go to jail for the rest of her life."

She was blackmailing me.

And worse—she was right. She had won. She had me completely trapped.

"Ava," I said, taking a step toward her.

But before I could reach her, my office door burst open. Sophia stormed in with two guys I didn't recognize. Police men. Federal agents. Something.

"Ethan Blackwell," one of them said, "you're under arrest for conspiracy, fraud, and attempted murder."

My world stopped.

Sophia was happy.

"Did you really think I was embezzling money just for myself?" she said softly. "I was documenting everything. Building a case. Waiting for the perfect time to turn you in."

She had played me.

All this time, I thought I was protecting myself from her. All this time, I thought I had power. But she had been three steps ahead of me the entire time.

As the cops handcuffed me, I saw Ava watching from across the room. And I understood what had happened: she had made a deal with Sophia. She had traded my freedom for her mother's life.

"Enjoy prison," Ava said quietly. "And know that I'm taking the money and leaving. You'll never see me again."

Then she walked out of my office and out of my life forever.

As they led me away, I realized the truth: I had tried so hard to control everyone around me that I had forgotten to control myself. And now I had lost everything.