Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 181

Time seemed to slow the moment my eyes locked on Elise.

She sat in a hospital wheelchair, her legs motionless beneath a pale blue blanket that couldn’t hide the brutal truth of her condition. Her hair that was once perfectly styled and glossy, hung limp and tangled around her face. The woman who used to walk into every room radiating control and confidence now looked hollow, her skin pale, her eyes ringed with deep shadows that spoke of pain, sleepless nights, and humiliation.

My heart raced not from fear, but from something darker and far more complex. Shock. Vindication. A twisted sense of satisfaction I hadn’t known I was capable of feeling. It was as if all the sleepless nights, all the tears, all the pain she’d caused me had somehow been acknowledged by the universe.

She tried to move the wheelchair, fumbling with the controls in a frantic attempt to turn away, but Alex who was standing behind her with an exhausted and resigned expression, kept a steady grip on the handles, stopping her.

For a long moment, I couldn’t move. Every word of rage I’d ever rehearsed, every confrontation I’d imagined in my mind, dissolved into nothing. The fury I’d carried for so long burned away, leaving only a strange, quiet emptiness. Christian stepped closer beside me, his presence grounding me, a solid reminder that I wasn’t alone in this moment.

I took a slow, deliberate step forward. Then another. Each one heavier than the last, as if the weight of everything she’d done was pressing down on me. The echo of my footsteps on the polished hospital floor filled the corridor, counting down to the moment that had felt inevitable since the day she’d pushed me down those stairs.

When I finally stopped a few feet away, I found my voice.

“Is it permanent?” I asked, the question carrying every conflicting emotion swirling inside me.

Elise’s eyes met mine, burning with pure hatred. It was the same cold, contemptuous look she’d given me so many times before, except now it came from a woman stripped of everything that had once made her powerful. She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned her head sharply away, as if even looking at me as beneath her.

The silence stretched, broken only by the soft beeping of monitors and the distant murmur of hospital life. Then Alex spoke, his voice low and heavy with a kind of tired sadness that made me feel something dangerously close to pity.

“The doctors don’t have much hope,” he said quietly, eyes fixed on the floor. “The spinal injury was… severe. They said the chances of her walking again are very l low.”

I crouched down slowly until I was eye-level with her. Up close, I could see how pain had carved itself into her features, how resentment had settled into every line of her face.

“Good,” I whispered.

The single word came out like a soft and deliberate blade.

Elise’s reaction was immediate. Her face twisted with fury, her whole body trembling with effort. She tried to spit at me, but I flinched back just in time. The spit landed on her own lap, darkening the blanket covering her useless legs. The sight was pitiful and in some twisted way, poetic.

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