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Chapter 432
Chapter 432:
The crumpled medical report dropped onto the pristine glass with a soft slap.
Alycia’s eyes dropped to it. Her pupils dilated. The color left her face so quickly she looked like a corpse.
Cole turned his head and looked at her.
“Explain,” he said.
One word. Perfectly flat. It carried more destructive force than any screaming fit could have managed.
Alycia’s mind went into overdrive. She knew she was standing on a landmine. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced a fresh wave of tears down her cheeks. Her knees buckled slightly, manufacturing fragility.
“I — I don’t know what that is,” Alycia sobbed, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen it before p>
𝗥е𝗮𝖽 f𝘳𝗲е 𝘯𝘰ve𝗅𝗌 on
Cole’s lips curved into a microscopic, terrifying smirk.
“You don’t know?” he repeated softly. “My security team just reviewed the footage of you handing this exact file to my grandmother p>
The absolute certainty in his voice shattered her last line of defense.
Alycia dropped to her knees. She lunged forward and grabbed the fabric of his trousers.
“It wasn’t my idea! Cole, you have to believe me!” she shrieked, her voice ricocheting off the walls. “An anonymous hacker sent it to my private email. They threatened me — they said if I didn’t give it to Eleanor, they would leak June’s infertility to the press and destroy her life p>
She was building a new narrative at speed, casting herself as a martyr who had sacrificed herself to protect June.
“I just wanted —” Alycia gasped, tightening her grip on his leg. “I thought if Eleanor knew the truth, she would finally let you divorce her. I just wanted to give our baby a real family p>
She weaponized the child again.
Cole stood perfectly still and looked down at the woman weeping at his feet.
He did not feel rage. He felt a wave of intense, visceral nausea. His stomach turned.
He thought of June. He thought of the way she had stood in the hospital lobby, bleeding, looking at him with absolute, unbreakable dignity. June would rather die than beg like this.
Looking at Alycia’s performance made him feel physically dirty.
Alycia sensed he wasn’t responding. Panic seized her entirely. She reached for her final failsafe.
She released his trousers and grabbed her stomach instead.
“Ah —” Alycia moaned, her face contorting in exaggerated agony. “My stomach — Cole, it hurts so much p>
Her eyes rolled back. She collapsed onto the expensive rug in a dead faint.
Cole stared at her motionless body.
The crushing guilt over what he had done to June, and the absolute revulsion for the woman lying on his floor, tore at opposite sides of his chest.
He did not bend down. He did not check her pulse. He did not reach for his phone.
He turned his back on her.
He walked out of the penthouse, leaving her lying on the floor of her gilded cage.
Cole did not go back to the Manor. He did not go to his corporate office.