The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 180

Chapter 180 The Wrong War

The penthouse was dead quiet. It wasn’t the good kind of quiet, though, it felt heavy and uncomfortable, like a thick fog. Xan sat at his kitchen island, a half–empty bottle of a very expensive and very bland scotch in front of him. He wasn’t drinking it. He was just staring at it, as if the amber liquid held answers.

Sarah was gone. Safely, securely and expensively tucked away in a facility where people with soft voices would try to help her piece together a mind that had been shattered twice–first by the crash, then by the truth. He’d signed the papers, written the checks, rested a bit and driven away feeling like the world’s most hollow hero.

Now he was alone. Truly alone. No Sarah needing his protection. No grand revenge mission to give his days purpose. No furious energy to burn. Just him, a too–clean apartment, and a mountain of evidence spread across his tablet and two laptops.

He’d been poring over it for days. Andrew Webb’s final report. The traffic cam footage Elera had leaked, which he now saw with new eyes. The financial trails from his own files, the ones he’d compiled to help Kieran ruin Elera. He cross–referenced it all, connecting dots until the picture that emerged was so clear, so ugly, he felt physically sick.

Kieran Nethys was a monster. A greedy, soulless, cunning monster. The car accident wasn’t an accident. It was a demolition. Sarah’s parents had refused a business merger, so Kieran had them removed. He’d used their own daughter, a teenager, as a patsy, drugging her and putting her behind the wheel. He’d bought judges and cops to seal the story. He’d let a young girl drown in guilt for five years, and he’d slept like a baby.

And Elera… Elera had just been there. A bystander. Maybe she’d seen something that night, maybe she hadn’t. But she’d been a kid, too. A kid with a monster for a father. Xan thought of all the things he’d said to her, the way he’d treated her, the grand, humiliating revenge he’d plotted. He’d wanted to break her, to make her pay for a crime her father committed.

He put his head in his hands. A low, ragged sound escaped him, something between a groan and a laugh. He was such an idiot. A proud, arrogant, blundering idiot. He’d been so sure he was the wronged party, the avenging angel. He’d built a whole identity around hating the wrong person.

He got up, pacing the cold marble floors. His reflection in the dark windows looked gaunt, haunted. He hadn’t shaved. His hair was a mess. He looked like a man who was unraveling, which was exactly what he

was.

He’d loved an idea of Elera. The perfect, polished heiress. Then he’d hated a lie about her. The careless, heartless villainess. He’d never once tried to see the real person in between. The one who built companies in secret, who wrote novels about lonely people, who put on a brave face while her father sold her off to the highest bidder.

The real Elera was someone who deserved… well, not him. That was the crushing punchline. She deserved someone like Drakonius Vex. Someone who saw her complexity and called it strength. Someone who was fighting his own death to build a future. Xan had just been fighting to soothe his own bruised ego.

He stopped pacing. The weight of what he had to do settled on him, heavy and inevitable. He couldn’t fix the past. He couldn’t give Sarah her parents back or give Elera back the years of fear and manipulation. But he could do one thing.

1:49 pm P P PO

Chapter 180 The Wrong War

He could give her the weapons to finally bring the real monster down.

He walked to his secure office safe, punched in the code, and pulled out a small, unmarked black USB drive. This was it. Three years of careful, dirty alliance with Kieran Nethys. Every encrypted email, every recorded phone call (yes, he’d recorded them, because he’d never fully trusted the old snake), every financial transfer, every shady deal, every whispered threat. It was all here. Kieran’s secrets, his bribes, his plans for Meridian Holdings, his schemes to sabotage rivals, his casual remarks about “handling” problems. It was a roadmap to a prison cell.

Xan held the drive in his palm. It was so light for something that held so much poison. This was his redemption. Not a grand speech or a public apology, but a surrender. Giving up every piece of ammunition he had.

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