"Now you suddenly remember to ask for my opinion."

Elise looked at Dylan, a sharp, mocking laugh slipping past her lips. "Then again, I suppose that’s only because the person she shattered this time was your precious son."

A deep crease carved itself between Dylan’s brows. "Elise, can you stop speaking like that?"

"No. Because you’re the one who refuses to see things clearly." Her voice remained deceptively calm, but every word carried the honed edge of a blade. "When I wanted to deal with Quinn, you blocked me. You shielded her at every turn, rationalizing her venom. So why bother asking for my verdict now?"

Dylan’s jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. "At the time, we were in a critical phase. Quinn still served a purpose for the board."

Elise offered a faint, entirely humorless smile.

"There’s no point in rewriting history anymore." She turned to face him fully, letting the distance between them bear its full weight. "By now, you’ve probably realized she was harboring far more malice than your calculations ever accounted for."

A sudden breeze swept across the balcony, stirring loose strands of her hair across her face. She didn’t bother brushing them away; her expression remained utterly detached.

"The company shares are already back in my hands," she said, her tone level. "As for Quinn..." She paused, looking out over the glittering, indifferent city lights. "Consider her the steep price of my own foolishness. To me, she’s nothing more than garbage now."

The smile that returned to her lips was devoid of warmth, striking colder than the night air. "And once people throw away their garbage, they don’t spend their lives wondering which landfill it ended up in."

Dylan studied her silently, his dark eyes absorbing her defiance. "Fine," he said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly register. "I understand."

He stepped closer, the pretense of the investigation dropping away. "Since everything has been laid out in the open, come home with me."

The demand immediately extinguished what little patience Elise had left. She looked directly into his eyes, refusing to grant him the comfort of her gaze wavering.

"Dylan, do you really have to keep pushing me into a corner like this? I truly don’t think we are capable of surviving under the same roof anymore."

She shook her head slightly, a bitter tint coloring her expression.

"Maybe the affair was a fabrication. Maybe it was all a masterclass in strategy for your grand plan. But that doesn’t rewrite the cruelty of what actually happened."

She pressed a palm flat against her chest, right over her heart. "This plan of yours... it feels like a splinter buried deep in my chest. It isn’t fatal. But it aches every single time I breathe."

Dylan’s expression darkened, a rare flicker of genuine remorse breaking through his armor. "This time, I admit I handled things poorly," he said, his tone striking an urgent, sincere chord. "I should have guarded your feelings more carefully. I promise you, Elise, something like this will never happen again."

Elise almost laughed aloud. The irony of his promises was overwhelming, suffocating.

"No." She slowly shook her head, a trace of profound sadness flickering across her eyes. "You’re still entirely missing the point. This wasn’t a lapse in judgment, Dylan."

Her gaze locked onto his, unblinking. "You simply believed I loved you enough to endure any humiliation. You were operating under the absolute certainty that no matter how hard you struck, I would never actually leave."

An agonizing silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

"Dylan..." Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "You were weaponizing my love for you."

For the first time since she had known him, the brilliant strategist had no immediate response. His hands slowly clenched into fists at his sides, his jaw locking so hard the bones strained. His dark eyes reflected her face.

A ghost of a smile curved her lips, though her eyes remained dead.

"Now I finally understand the scope of it. Everything that transpired was already factored into your ledger." She tilted her head slightly, dissecting him aloud.

"The public friction between Quinn and me. The bloodbath for control of the company. The volatile shares. The engineered fallout. You saw the entire chessboard moving exactly as you intended."

A heavy shadow crossed Dylan’s face, his brows knitting tight in defense. Just as he parted his lips to speak, the sharp, intrusive ring of his phone cut through the frigid air.

He glanced at the screen. Oliver.

Dylan answered immediately, his posture rigid. Within seconds, the tension in his shoulders shifted entirely. His expression fractured.

Robin had regained consciousness.

The heavy wood door of the hospital room swung open, and Elise followed Dylan inside. The moment he crossed the threshold, Dylan strode directly to the bedside, abandoning his usual calculated composure.

Robin lay propped up against a mountain of sterile pillows, his small, fragile face stark white against the clinical sheets. The sheer vulnerability of the sight made Dylan’s chest visibly constrict.

"Robin." His voice softened instantly, a rare tenderness bleeding through. "Daddy’s here."

The little boy blinked heavily, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his pale cheeks. "Daddy..." his voice was a frail rasp, barely rising above the hum of the medical monitors. "Where did you go?"

His small, uninjured hand reached out blindly toward Dylan. "My head hurts. Everything feels dizzy..." A tiny, pained frown puckered his brow. "Daddy... I feel so awful."

In the corner, Mrs. Lander turned her face away to muffle her sobs, the crushing weight of guilt and heartache written into every line of her posture. Even Elise felt a sharp, sympathetic ache pierce her chest. No matter the sins of the adults, Robin was an innocent child. What Quinn had done to him was monstrous.

"Be good, medicine will help," Dylan murmured, carefully brushing the damp hair back from the boy’s forehead. "I’ll have the doctor come check on you right away."

He reached over and firmly pressed the nurse call button.

At that exact moment, Robin’s glazed gaze drifted past his father’s shoulder. His eyes landed squarely on Elise, who was standing quietly near the foot of the bed.

Immediately, the boy’s dull eyes brightened with a sudden, radiant spark. A genuine smile spread across his pale little face. Then, in a soft, completely natural voice, he called out, "Mommy."

The entire room froze. The steady beep of the heart monitor seemed to amplify in the sudden, dead quiet.

Elise blinked, her breath catching in her throat. For a surreal second, she convinced herself she had simply misheard the child.

Even Dylan went completely rigid. Slowly, almost mechanically, he turned his head to look at Elise, then turned back to Robin. His brows furrowed into a tight, strained knot.

"Robin," his voice was incredibly cautious, thick with a sudden undercurrent of dread. "What did you just call her?" 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

The little boy looked genuinely confused by the reaction, his large eyes widening innocently. "Mommy," he answered without a shred of hesitation. He blinked up at them, entirely baffled. "Daddy, what’s wrong?"

Dylan stared at the boy, a cold, strange feeling creeping into his chest and wrapping around his lungs.

"Robin," he spoke with agonizing care, testing the waters. "You didn’t use to call her Mommy. You always called her Pretty Miss."

"Huh?" The confusion on Robin’s face deepened instantly. He looked genuinely lost, his small hands clutching the edge of the blanket.

"Why would I call Mommy ’Miss’? Mommy is really pretty..." He gave a small, slow nod as if stating an undeniable truth. "But she’s still my Mommy."

A terrifying silence engulfed the room.

This time, the realization struck everyone at once. Dylan, Elise, Mrs. Lander—every single soul in the room understood the gravity of the shift. This wasn’t the lingering disorientation of a fall, nor was it a child’s playful mistake.

Something was wrong. Terribly, fundamentally wrong.