Betrayed By The Billionaire

270

Chloe Bishop’s almond-shaped eyes met Xavier Grayson’s piercing gaze. Her expression remained flat, almost detached. "Donovan Tang has no reason to do that," she said quietly. "And even if he did, that is between you men in the business world. It has nothing to do with me."

"A fine 'nothing to do with me.'"

Xavier’s grip on her jaw tightened, his fingers digging into her skin with a cold, mechanical force. The air in the room grew so heavy it felt impossible to draw a breath. "Chloe, you truly are a master of playing the fool."

With a sudden, sharp motion, he shoved her away. Chloe, already off-balance from leaning over him, tumbled to the carpeted floor.

She didn't cry out. Instead, a faint, tragic smile touched her lips as she looked up at him from the ground. "It seems," she whispered, her voice laced with a profound sorrow, "that you didn't listen to a single word I said the other day."

Everything she had poured out—her fears, her dignity, her plea for basic respect—had been discarded like trash. But she shouldn't have been surprised. This was Xavier Grayson, the wealthiest man in the city, the man whose name made titans tremble. Why would such a man ever indulge in self-reflection? To expect him to lower his guard or admit a mistake was her own naivety.

Chloe pushed herself up, her movements stiff. She stood before him, her gaze clinical. "Do you still want me to dress the wound?"

Xavier stared at her, his face a mask of dark fury. Her very composure seemed to act as fuel for his rage. The more she withdrew into this cold, professional shell, the more he wanted to break it.

The Crimson Shard

Seeing his silence, Chloe stepped forward again. She reached for the buttons of his shirt, her touch now devoid of any lingering warmth. As she peeled the fabric away from his shoulder, Xavier’s entire frame jolted. A sharp, hissed intake of breath escaped his teeth.

It was only then that Chloe saw the true extent of the damage.

Embedded deep in his upper arm was a jagged, triangular shard of glass. The white silk of his undershirt was no longer white; it was a saturated, heavy crimson. The glass had sliced through the muscle, and every movement of the fabric had been grinding the shard deeper into the wound.

Despite the ice in her heart, the sight of so much blood triggered her innate Bishop instincts. A flash of genuine worry crossed her face. "It’s too deep. I can’t handle this here. You need a hospital."

Xavier closed his eyes, his voice a low, gravelly command. "Pull it out."

"There could be smaller fragments inside," Chloe argued. "You need a professional medical team to debride the wound properly."

Xavier snapped his eyes open, his pupils like two sharp daggers. "You could clean a gunshot wound for Liam Martin... but you can't handle a little glass?"

Chloe froze. Her entire body turned to stone as she stared at him in pure shock. "How... how do you know about that?"

Years ago, during the bloody power struggle between Liam Martin and his uncle, an assassin had been sent to finish him. Liam had been shot in the shoulder, but for a dozen political reasons, he couldn't risk being seen at a hospital.

That night, Chloe had spent hours over him, her hands stained red, her vision blurred by tears, her clothes soaked in cold sweat as she extracted the lead. Liam had even teased her through the pain, saying she looked more like the one who’d been shot. It was a memory she thought was buried forever in the vault of their shared past.

"There are no walls in this world without cracks, Chloe," Xavier said coldly.

"But you weren't even in the country then," she countered, her mind racing. "Liam was a nobody back then. Why would you waste your energy tracking his history?"

Xavier let out a chilling laugh. "A nobody? Are you sure you ever truly knew that man?"

Chloe found herself speechless. For years, she believed she was the person who understood Liam Martin best in the entire world. Only later did she realize how tragically deluded she had been. He had never let her see his true face.

There were likely countless secrets she would never know. But the weight of the past no longer mattered. She looked at the man bleeding in front of her. "There is no anesthesia here."

Xavier shifted his gaze away from her, his eyelids fluttering shut again. Whether from the pain or the blood loss, his face was beginning to take on a waxy, translucent pallor.

"I don't need it," he muttered. "Just do it."

As Chloe reaches for the forceps, she realizes Xavier isn't just fighting Donovan Tang; he is fighting the ghosts of every man she has ever cared for. Will the extraction of the glass be the end of the night's violence, or will the "Iron Commander" find a reason to burst into the room before the wound is closed?