The CEO's Rejected Wife And Secret Heir novel Chapter 184

Chapter 184: Chapter 184

Damien point of view

The parking garage opened below me and I heard his voice before I saw them — Charles, mid-sentence, and then Aria’s voice, steady and deliberate and I came around the concrete pillar and saw them and the world narrowed to a single point.

I stopped moving because moving fast was wrong here. Every instinct I had said go to her and every functioning part of my brain said don’t.

Barnes’s team was ninety seconds out. I knew that from the radio chatter in my earpiece. Ninety seconds was a long time.

"Charles." My voice came out calm, although I was not calm. "Look at me."

He turned his head slightly, keeping Aria in his peripheral vision. His eyes found me and I saw what was in them — the particular desperation of a man who had run out of moves and knew it and was looking for someone to blame for that.

"You ruined everything," he said. "You took her back, You"

"I love her," I said. "Whatever you think of me, whatever I’ve done — I love her and that child she’s carrying and the son who is upstairs right now. That is what exists. That is what you are pointing a gun at."

"Damien" Aria’s voice wavered as a small warning.

"I’m not going anywhere." I kept my eyes on Charles. "Neither is she." I took one careful step forward. "You want money. Fine. Name a number — any number — and I’ll wire it to wherever you’re going and you walk away from this country and you never come back. That’s the offer and it stands for the next thirty seconds."

Charles’s gun hand wavered. I watched the calculation move across his face — the trained businessman assessing a deal even in extremis, because some habits ran deeper than desperation. For three seconds I thought he was going to take it but he raised the gun.

The shot cracked through the concrete garage, sharp and enormous, and Aria dropped.

—and my heart stopped.

—and then I was moving, all the control gone, because she was on the ground and Charles was turning and.

The second shot came from behind me. It was the tactical team.

Charles went down, clutching his shoulder, and I crossed the eight feet between us and reached Aria and she was already pushing herself up from where she’d dived behind the nearest car, her palms flat on the concrete, unhurt, entirely unhurt, and I pulled her up and into my arms and held on with everything I had.

"I’m okay," she said into my shoulder, breathless. "I’m okay, Damien."

I couldn’t speak for a moment as I just held her.

"He missed," she said. "He panicked and he missed."

"I know." My voice came out rough and barely functional. "I know."

Behind us, Barnes’s team swarmed the garage, and Charles Monroe who had once been the most powerful man in Aria’s life — lay on the concrete with his shoulder wound.

Aria lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at him as he looked back while she held his gaze for a long moment.

"Get him the help he needs," she told Barnes, who had come beside us. "Medical and otherwise." She paused. "And charge him for everything. All of it."

Barnes nodded and moved away and I stood where I was, a few steps behind Aria, and watched her walk toward Charles Monroe on the concrete floor.

I didn’t follow. She didn’t need me to and I knew it, so I stayed where I was and watched.

She stopped a few feet from him. Two officers flanked him on either side, his gun already bagged and tagged, his shoulder being assessed by a medic who kept having to redirect his attention because Charles kept looking at Aria.

"You could have just walked away," she said. "When the company failed. When the debts got bad, you could have disappeared and I would not have chased you."

Charles said nothing.

"I gave you every reason to leave quietly. I took the company, I removed you from every board, I cut every financial tie. That was your exit. You had one and you chose not to take it." She kept her voice level, no anger in it, just facts laid down one after another. "Instead you looked at a four year old child and decided he was worth thousands of dollars to the right people."

He still said nothing.

"You made your wife treat her own sister’s child like a burden," she continued. "You spent years making sure I knew I was worth less than Vivian, less than everyone in that house. And when I finally built something real without a single thing from you, you tried to take the one person who matters most to me and sell him." She paused. "Catherine Whitmore’s grandchild. Your wife’s sister’s grandchild."

Charles looked at her for a long moment. "Vivian would never have let it get this far," he said.

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