His Ruthless Redemption (Isabella and Dominic) novel Chapter 130

Chapter 130

Isabella’s POV

“Did

you really think I tried to kill you?”

His voice didn’t rise.

It didn’t harden.

It broke.

And somehow that hurt more.

I didn’t answer immediately. Because the truth wasn’t a sentence. It was five years of fear lodged under my skin.

“I was already going to leave,” I said finally, my throat tight. “Before the explosion.”

Dominic didn’t move. His eyes didn’t leave mine.

“You told me to get rid of the baby,” I continued. My voice trembled now despite my best efforts. “You told me that a child would ruin everything. That I was being selfish. That you wouldn’t let it happen.”

I remembered the look on his face that day. Cold. Controlled. Terrifying.

“You said or else,”

His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might crack.

“I was angry,” he said roughly.

“You were more than angry,” I shot back. “You were done with me.”

Silence slammed into the space between us.

“And then the car exploded,” I whispered.

I could still hear it. The blast. The heat. The smoke swallowing the sky.

“So what exactly was I supposed to think?” My voice broke now, uncontrollable. “You had just threatened me. You didn’t want the baby. And hours later, the car I was meant to be in goes up in flames.”

I stepped back from him like the memory physically hurt.

“You tell me what I was supposed to believe.”

Dominic went pale.

“I didn’t order that,” he said.

I laughed, a fractured, shaking sound. “Of course you would say that.”

“I swear to you, Isabella.” He stepped closer, desperation replacing pride. “I didn’t.”

Something in his tone, something raw and stripped, made my chest tighten.

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149 OPP P

Chapter

But I would never have hurt you

Hy voce cracked on vou

“You were supposed to be in that

he continued his breathing uneven no

“When I heard a went of

me the bod

recognizable

His voice failed completely

“I thought you were dead.”

His world seemed to tilt as he spoke the words out loud, almost as if it was too painful for him to even admit i

“I thought my enemies had taken you because of me.”

He dragged a shaking hand through his hair.

“I spent weeks searching for confirmation. Months refusing to accept it. Years blaming myself”

My stomach dropped.

“I thought I killed you.” he whispered.

The words gutted me. He blamed himself for the explosion, for my supposed death. Dear God.

“No.” I breathed

“Yes,” he said fiercely. “I pushed you away. I said those things. I made you vulnerable. If you hadn’t been tied to me

His voice splintered.

“I buried you in my head a thousand times”

My knees weakened.

All those years I had hated him.

All those years he had mourned me.

“When you came back,” he said hoarsely, “I thought you had staged the explosion”

I blinked through my tears. “What?”

“I thought you used the explosion to disappear. That you wanted out so badly you faked your death

I shook my head violently. “I was terrified”

“I know that now.”

“I had divorce papers drawn up.” I said suddenly, the memory crashing mo me. “I signed then I had them sent to you

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Chapter 130

His face iwisted in confusion. “I never got them.”

“They were returned,” I whispered “Or intercepted. I don’t know.”

The realization hit us both at once.

Years of silence.

Years of wrong assumptions.

Years of grief that didn’t need to exist.

“I didn’t want you dead,” he said, his voice collapsing completely now. “I didn’t want you gone. Fjust didn’t know how to keep you safe.”

The finality of that truth cracked something open inside me.

I had lived with the certainty that he had tried to kill me.

It had been the foundation of my rage.

My leaving.

My hatred.

And now-

Now it dissolved.

Because the man standing in front of me didn’t look like someone capable of ordering my death.

He looked like someone who had survived it.

“I was so afraid of you,” I whispered.

His eyes closed briefly.

“I know.”

“And you thought I was dead.”

“Yes.”

The room felt too small to hold the weight of that.

I thought of every night I had cried alone

Every time I told myself I had escaped a monster. That it was better this way. That he would’ve killed me, killed us if I’d stayed.

That thought alone was what had given me the strength to leave and stay away no matter how difficul

sometimes felt

And now I realized, I had escaped a misunderstanding.

And he had lived inside a grave I never meant to dig for him.

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Chapter 130

covered my mouth as sobs broke out of me without warning

“Oh God,” I choked. “I hated you

His face crumpled

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“I built an entire life around hating you,” I said, voice shaking violently, “Around surviving you.”

He stepped forward then, carefully, like approaching something fragile.

“I never stopped loving you,” he said quietly.

That shattered me

Because I believed him.

Not because I wanted to.

But because I could see it.

In the way he had shielded me from enemies.

In the way he had taken bullets meant for me and Mateo.

In the way he positioned himself between danger and our son without thinking.

He had always stepped into fire.

For us.

Even when he didn’t know how to love gently,

I collapsed against him then, not out of weakness, but because the truth was too heavy to stand under alone.

He held me like I might break.

And maybe I was.

Because if he hadn’t tried to kill me, then I had been wrong

For five years.

The realization was devastating

“I don’t know what to do with this” I whispered against his chest

Because even though this healed something ancient, it didn’t erase everything.

There was

ull Alevla

the party

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Chapter 130-

l trust, crackedand fragile.

Still the question of whether love was enough.

I pulled back slowly, searching his face through tears.

“You didn’t try to kill me,” I said.

“No.”

“I believe you.”

The words felt like both freedom and surrender.

He closed his eyes like the weight of that nearly undid him.

But even as relief flooded his face, mine remained uncertain.

Because healing one wound only revealed the others.

And I didn’t know yet if we were strong enough to survive them all.