The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 168

Chapter 168 Sharpening The Sword

“Will she… can she come back from this?” Xan asked, the question sounding pathetic even to his own ea

Dr. Evans gave him a measured look. “The trauma is profound and complex. It’s layered–the original! the false guilt, the institutionalization, and now the shattering of her foundational story. It’s not a matte ‘coming back.‘ It’s a matter of building something new. It will take a long time. And it will be painful. Fo her, and for anyone who cares about her.”

Xan nodded, swallowing hard. “I’ll pay whatever it costs. For as long as it takes.”

“That’s the easy part,” Dr. Evans said softly. “The hard part will be letting her go through the pain withou trying to fix it for her. Your role now isn’t to be her savior, Mr. Valdris. It’s to be a consistent and your honest presence. If you can be that.”

“I can try,” he said, and it felt like the most honest thing he’d said in years.

He was given a room in a guest cottage on the grounds. He couldn’t leave her, not yet. The penthouse fe like a tomb. This place, with its quiet gardens and soft–spoken staff, felt like a limbo. A place for waiting.

That night, he sat on the small balcony of his room, looking out at the dark shapes of the trees. His pho buzzed. It was an update from his own security team. The men who had attacked Nethys Medical had been professionals, as expected. Untraceable. But they’d found a partial fingerprint on a discarded tool. I was running through databases, but it was a long shot.

He also had a message from Elera, sent to the secure drop.

We have the detective’s notebook. It mentioned some names. Commissioner Dawes and Judge Carballo. We’re moving forward. Thank you for the files and be careful.

He typed a reply. Sarah is safe and we are in a facility. It’s very bad. She wanted to kill him but I stopped her, for now. Be careful with Dawes. He’s not just dirty, he’s dangerous.

He sent it, then stared at the phone. He thought about Elera, probably in her lab or her library. surrounded by her team, planning a war. He thought about the way she’d looked at him in the coffee shop not with hatred, but with a weary understanding. He thought about Drakonius Vex, sitting beside her, a solid, silent pillar of support.

He thought about the disaster of his own heart.

With a sigh, he put the phone down and picked up the book left on the nightstand–some bland. inspirational thing about mindfulness. He opened it to a random page.

“The past is a story we tell ourselves. When the story changes, we must change with it, or be lost.”

He snorted and tossed the book aside. Too little, too late.

But as he lay in the unfamiliar bed, listening to the whisper of the wind in the trees, he knew it was true. His story had changed. The vengeful knight was gone. The broken maiden was not who he thought. The dragon was real, but it wasn’t the one he’d been chasing.

He didn’t know what his role was in this new story. Maybe he didn’t have one. Maybe his part was over.

Chapter 168 Sharpening The Sword

Finishe

But as he finally drifted into a fitful sleep, one clear thought remained: Kieran Nethys had to fall not just for revenge but also for justice. For Sarah, for Elera, for the detective in the unmarked grave and finally fo all the ghosts he’d created.

And if Xan couldn’t be the hero, maybe he could at least help sharpen the sword.

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