I Stopped Loving Him When He Let Me Bleed Out novel Chapter 124

Neither man spared Chloe a single backward glance.

She sat crouched on the ground, discarded like a piece of trash.

She tried to stand, but her legs gave out, forcing her back down.

She clenched her fists, her nails biting brutally into her palms.

She told herself she hadn't lost. She still had York, she still had Yolanda, and she would undoubtedly find a way to flip the board.

In the car.

Finn was behind the wheel, with Paxton in the passenger seat.

The interior was swallowed by a heavy silence for quite some time.

Paxton leaned against his seat, watching the streetlights blur past, the white bandage on his cheek standing out starkly in the dim cabin.

"Thanks, by the way," Paxton suddenly broke the silence, his voice low.

Finn glanced at him.

"I mean it," Paxton turned to face him. "You're a decent guy. Honestly, I figured you hated my guts and would just let Chloe brain me with that vase so you'd have one less rival."

Finn's fingers stiffened against the steering wheel.

He kept his eyes glued to the road, remaining silent for several agonizing seconds.

"You like her?"

Paxton didn't bother denying it.

"She's incredible. Who wouldn't like her?" Paxton continued, a faint smile touching his lips. "I've been alive for over thirty years, and I've never met a woman better, or more captivating, than she is. I'm not going to let this chance slip by."

Finn pressed his lips into a hard, tight line, saying nothing.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles turned entirely white.

Every word Paxton spoke felt like a needle driving straight into his heart.

But he couldn't argue, because Paxton was entirely right.

Sienna was incredible. Who wouldn't fall for her?

And what right did he have to stop someone else from loving her?

The car swerved through the hospital gates, screeching to a halt outside the emergency room.

In the corridor outside the resuscitation bay.

Finn spotted Sienna the instant he walked in.

She wasn't in her lab coat. Instead, she wore a simple white t-shirt and light blue jeans, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail with a few stray wisps framing her face.

The harsh, unforgiving fluorescent lights of the hallway washed over her.

For a split second, Finn felt like he was looking at the Sienna from their college days, a decade ago.

Pure, stunning, with eyes that held the stars—always optimistic, radiating warmth like a ray of sunshine, always offering him the brightest smile.

Bursting with life, she had bulldozed her way into his world.

Like a vibrant leaf settling into a chaotic storm.

A sudden, violent ache seized Finn's chest.

Paxton instinctively glanced down the hall at Finn.

Finn looked like a soulless ghost drifting through purgatory, and Paxton suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

"I'm fine for now. You go handle your stuff; I actually have an errand to run."

Paxton practically bolted.

Sienna had no desire to linger in the hallway either, pivoting to walk out of the building.

As she exited the ER and cut through the hospital's small garden, she suddenly froze.

A man and a woman were intimately wrapped around each other in the shadows.

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

She ducked swiftly behind a thick ginkgo tree, pressing her back against the rough bark.

The lilacs in the flowerbeds were in full bloom, their overly sweet scent suffocating her and making her temples throb.

She held her breath, carefully peeking around the trunk.

The woman was Chloe.

The man's hand was resting possessively on Chloe's waist, a half-smoked cigarette pinched between his fingers, the cherry glowing fiercely in the dark.

He wore a dark trench coat, the collar turned up to obscure the lower half of his face.

As he turned his head slightly, the cherry of the cigarette flared, illuminating his profile.

Sienna's breath caught in her throat...