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Chapter 657
Chapter 657:
Behind her, near the access door, a cluster of firefighters and negotiators stood frozen, their body language indicating they had been ordered not to intervene.
Cole walked toward her. Slow, deliberate, his shoes crunching on gravel. He stopped three meters away — close enough to see the gooseflesh on her arms, the slight tremor in her calves that had nothing to do with cold.
“You wanted me here,” he said. Not a question.
“I wanted you to see what you’ve done,” Alycia said, her hand moving to her abdomen with practiced grief. “What your cruelty has cost us. Our child, Cole. Our p>
“Stop p>
The word cut through her performance like a blade. His voice was quiet, almost gentle, but something in it killed her next sentence before it formed.
Y𝗼u𝘳 dа𝗂𝗅𝘆 𝘥𝗼𝘴𝖾 о𝖿 no𝘃𝖾𝗅𝘀 o𝗻.с𝗈𝗺
He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a tablet, its screen dark. He tapped it to life.
“You’ve been on that ledge for forty minutes,” Cole said. “Long enough for my team to finish their work p>
He pressed play and turned the volume to maximum.
Dr. Finch’s face filled the screen — sweating, pale, his voice cracking as he confessed to falsifying pregnancy tests, accepting wire transfers from offshore accounts, and creating medical documentation for a pregnancy that had never existed.
The blood left Alycia’s face so quickly she looked like a figure carved from chalk.
“That’s not—” she stammered. “That’s fabricated, that’s p>
“Your uterus was damaged by your father’s violence,” Cole continued, his voice conversational, almost detached. “Extensive tearing. You did get hurt, Alycia — he did that to you. The damage is real. But you took that real tragedy and built a lie on top of it. You used it to fabricate a pregnancy, a miscarriage, an entire fiction — and then you tried to pin it on me p>
He took one step closer. Alycia’s balance wavered on the ledge.
“You knew you were never pregnant. You knew there was no child to lose. And you stood here threatening to destroy everything I have built, invoking my brother’s name, to manipulate me p>
He tossed the tablet onto the gravel at her feet. It landed screen-up, still playing, Finch’s voice carrying clearly on the wind — the words fraud, conspiracy, and federal prison audible to everyone on the roof.
“Jump,” Cole said.
Alycia stared at him, her mouth moving without sound.
“Jump,” he repeated, louder, his voice carrying to the firefighters, to the news crews gathering on the street below. “Tomorrow’s headline: Alycia Beasley, fraud and extortionist, takes her own life rather than face federal charges p>
He smiled. It was the most frightening expression Alycia had ever seen.
“Your choice,” he said. “The ledge, or prison. But either way, you are finished p>
Alycia’s knees buckled. She stumbled backward off the parapet and collapsed onto the gravel, her hospital gown tearing on the rough surface. The tablet cracked under her hand, but Finch’s voice continued its damning recitation, steady and indifferent as the wind.
Cole looked down at her — at the person who had consumed years of his life and nearly destroyed everything that mattered in it.