I Stopped Loving Him When He Let Me Bleed Out novel Chapter 10

Yolanda furrowed her brow fiercely. "Finn!"

"Four years ago, you told me Chloe was pregnant and that I had to step up and take responsibility." He raised his eyes, dragging a cold stare across his mother's face. "I agreed. For the past four years, I have done exactly what was required of me."

He paused, dropping his voice into a dangerous whisper. "But are you all deciding to back out of the promise you made to me?"

The sprawling room fell dead silent for a second.

Grant threw his napkin down, his furious glare locking onto him. "Bargaining with your own family? You've grown terribly arrogant!"

Yolanda hurriedly stepped in to smooth things over.

"Finn, your brother Ford has been married for a year now. You're fully clear to have yours."

A vicious sting pierced Finn's chest.

Since he was a child, he had constantly lived in the suffocating shadow of his older brother, Ford.

Ford was brilliant, driven, and perfectly obedient—the flawless heir the family had poured every drop of their resources into cultivating.

And what about him?

He was just the spare, the second son who could do "whatever he pleased"—as long as he didn't cause trouble, embarrass the family name, or get in Ford's way.

Years of vicious neglect had carved out a massive, bleeding void right in his core.

Until four years ago.

For the absolute first time in his life, he saw 'expectation' and 'warmth' burning in his parents' eyes. Their voices actually carried a desperate, pleading 'need' that he had never once experienced.

"Finn, you're the only one who can save the family from this."

The sheer emotional shock of hearing those words felt like a tsunami tearing violently through his veins.

In the end, he had nodded.

He had stupidly believed that this was his ultimate purpose, his true value to the family.

Because for once, he could actually see a different version of himself reflected in his parents' eyes, and he finally thought that gaping void in his chest would be filled.

But the crushing price was losing Sienna forever.

"You made me a promise." Finn looked up, sweeping a lethal glare over everyone at the table, his voice low but weighted with absolute finality. "No wedding. No marriage certificate. We live together and that is it."

Yolanda traded a sharp look with her husband, but neither uttered a single word.

"We're all family here; there's no need to throw a massive fit over something so trivial. You two must have had a fight over this, right?"

She grabbed Chloe's hand, gently tracing the edge of the medical gauze, her tone dripping with dramatic heartache.

"Just look at this poor thing. Chloe, you're a brilliant artist with such precious hands. How could you possibly mutilate yourself like this?"

Finn's gaze slowly shifted to Chloe's wrapped wrist.

The stark white gauze was wrapped flawlessly.

He only stared for a fleeting second.

But suddenly, his mind flashed violently to another scar—the jagged scar on the inside of Sienna's left wrist.

The color had faded, but the thick scar tissue was slightly raised, snaking across her pale, delicate skin like a cracked and dried-up riverbed.

How did she get that?

A horrifying thought abruptly spiked in his mind, stabbing deeply into his gut and freezing his blood solid.

"Four years ago," he suddenly demanded, his voice dangerously hoarse. "When you lied and forced me out of the country... what exactly did you do to Sienna behind my back?"