<b>Chapter </b><b>134 </b>


    -CELINE’S POV-


    The silence in the Ferrari was suffocating, broken only by the soft hum of the engine and Caesar’s peaceful breathing from the <b>backseat</b>.


    Five minutes had passed since Hunter pulled out of the motel <b>parking </b>lot, and each second lelt like an eternity stretching between us.


    I kept my eyes fixed on the window, watching g the neon lights of roadside diners and <b>gas </b>stations blur past like dying stars.


    My teeth worried at my lower lip until I tasted the metallic tang of blood.


    The habit had gotten worse since everything fell apart…another small piece of evidence <b>that </b>I was slowly unraveling


    Turning slightly, I nced back at Caesar’s sleeping form sprawled across the leather seats.


    Even in sleep, his face held that same peaceful happiness he had worn since seeing Hunter again. He looked like he belonged here, in this expensive car with his papa, and maybe that was the truth I had been running from.


    Maybe Caesar did belong here, and <b>I </b>was the one who didn’t fit.


    The check. Hunter had found the check his mother had given me, the one I had hidden away like a shameful secret.


    ted to exin, to tell him about the desperation that had driven me to take Eleanor Reid’s blood money.


    Part of me <b>wanted </b>to


    But arger part–the part that was tired of fighting tired of defending choices that felt impossible….wanted him to think the worst of me.


    Let him call me a gold digger. Let him believe I was exactly what his mother had always said I was. <b>Maybe </b>it would be easier that way.


    Maybe if he hated me enough, he would finally let me go


    But then why was there? Why hadn’t he just taken Caesar and left me behind at that motel? The question gnawed at me, creating anxieties in a mind already crowded with fear.


    new


    Maybe he was nning to make me sign papers. Maybe this ride was just a warm–up to some legal proceeding where I would be <b>forced </b>to surrender all rights to my son.


    The thought made my stomach clench with such violence that I had to press my hand against my mouth to keep from being sick.


    ‘T’ll never sign anything I thought fiercely. “No matter what he threatens, no matter what he promises or what <b>his </bwyers say. I won’t be separated from Caesar


    The money I had taken–it was for Caesar, wasn’t it? He was a Reid, and he deserved some of that family wealth, some of the privileges <b>that </b>


    came with carrying their name.


    That’s what I had told myself when Eleanor had made her offer, when she had made it clear that taking the money


    forever.


    y meant disappearing


    I should say something I should clear the air, make it known that I wouldn’t surrender to him or his mother no matter what power they


    wielded.


    But as I opened my mouth to speak, Hunter’s voice cut through the silence like a <b>de</b>.


    heard you were rushed to the hospital”


    The words were carefully neutral, but I could hear the tension underneath, like a wire pulled too tight


    His knuckles were white against the steering wheel, <b>and </b>I found myself staring at his hands–hands that had once touched me wit tenderness, hands that had now learned how to hurt.


    “Once we get back home,” he continued, his tone still maddeningly calm, “I’m going to have the best doctors in the city examine you. Full- workup, blood tests, scans–whatever it takes to make sure you’re all right.”


    The word ‘home‘ hit me like a physical blow. There was no home anymore, not for me.


    There was only the life he would create around me, the gilded cage <b>he </b>would build with Caesar as the key to keep me trapped inside. <fnc2f2> Th?s chapter is updated by find?novel</fnc2f2>


    But it was his next words that sentice through my veins. The thought of doctors, of medical tests, of someone discovering the secret i <b>carried</b>.


    The pregnancy test results felt like they were burning a hole in my pocket, and I instinctively pressed my hand against my still–t stomach.


    “He can’t know. Not yet. Not like this.


    If Hunter discovered I was pregnant with his child, he would never let me go. He would have two reasons to <b>keep </b>me prisoner, two lives to use as leverage against any thought of escape.


    And what if he tried to take this baby too, the way he was taking Caesar? What if he decided I was too unstable, too much of a fight risk to be


    trusted with either of his children?


    “I’m fine,” I said quickly, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I don’t need your doctors. I don’t need your care.”


    The silence that followed my deration felt explosive:


    I watched Hunter’s jaw clench, watched his grip on the steering wheel tighten until I thought he might crack the leather.


    “You’re damn well getting checked whether you like it or not,” he said,


    d, his voice low and dangerous. “And you don’t have the right to refuse


    me, Celine. Not after everything you’ve done


    The casual way be dismissed my autonomy, the assumption that my betrayal had stripped away my right to make decisions about my own body–it ignited something desperate and fierce in my chest.


    “if you hate me so much,” I said, my voicensing despite my efforts to stay calm, “why didn’t you just let Caesar and me go? Why chase after


    The question hung in the air between us, heavy with days of unspoken bitterness and <b>pain</b>.


    I watched Hunter’s profile in the dashboard light, saw the muscle in his jaw tick as he processed my words.


    When he finally looked at me, his eyes were arctic blue, cold enough to freeze blood in veins.


    “Because I want to make you pay,” he said simply “For betraying my trust. For trying to take what belongs to me <b>away </b>from me. His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow sounded more threatening than any shout.


    “You need to shut up and take whatever punishmentes your way<b>” </b>


    The honesty of it was more terrifying than any lie would have been. He wasn’t taking me back because he loved me, or because he wanted to rebuild <b>our </b>family.


    He was taking me back because he wanted revenge, because his pride demanded payback for the humiliation I had caused him.


    Without warning. Hunter yanked the car to the shoulder of the highway. The sudden motion new me against the door, and


    ed at him in


    $101213 WEL U200


    Chapter <b>134 </b>


    confusion and growing rm


    What was he doing? Were we stopping here, on this dark stretch of road with nothing but empty fields stretching into the night


    I watched in stunned silence as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the crumpled check–my shame made paper, the of my desperation reduced to something he could destroy with his bare hands.


    Slowly, deliberately, he began tearing it into pieces. The sound of ripping paper was unnaturally loud in the confined space of the car, each tear like a small explosion,


    When he was finished, he rolled down his window and let the pieces flutter away into the darkness like dying moths.


    I wanted to say something, wanted to exin or protest or defend myself, but the fury radiating from him was so intense it seemed to steal the words from my throat.


    I had never seen Hunter this angry before, not even during our worst fights. This wasn’t the controlled businessman i had fallen in love with, or even the hurt lover who had discovered my betrayal.


    This was something else entirely. Something dangerous


    Hunter started the car again and pulled back onto the highway, his movements sharp and aggressive. When he spoke again, deceptively conversational


    his voice was


    “Were you happy!


    away


    me, Celine? Were you nning to run away with your new boyfriend?”


    “That’s not true,” I whispered, but even to my


    y own ears the denial sounded <b>weak</b>. “I <b>wasn’t</b>..


    “Why did you do it?” The question exploded from him with such force that i flinched back against the passenger door.


    “We were happy, weren’t we? You could have been patient with me, could have tried to understand what I was going through. If you needed money so badly, you could have asked me instead of taking my mother’s blood money and proving to her that you were always the gold digger she used you of being.”


    Each word was like a physical blow, and I felt tears gathering in my eyes as the lights from passing vehicles <b>shed </b>across the windshield like searchlights.


    In the unsteady brightness, I could see Hunter’s face clearly–the pain etched in every line, the sadness that warred with the anger in his blue


    <b>eyes</b>.


    He was right, and that was the worst part. I could have talked to him<b>, </b>could have exined my fears about his mother’s threats and the pressure I felt being around him.


    Instead, I had taken the money and run, confirming every terrible thing Eleanor Reid had ever said about me.


    Hunter turned back to face the road, but his next words made my blood turn to ice water in my veins.


    “<b>You’re </b>going to spend the rest of your life learning why running away from me was the wrong choice,” he said, his voice soft and calm <b>and </b>absolutely terrifying


    “I never let go of what’s mine, Celine. That was your mistake–thinking you could get away.”


    The promises that followed were delivered in the same conversational tone he might use to discuss the weather, but the content made my soul shrivel with fear.


    “I’m going to hurt you in ways that will make you beg me for death, but you won’t find it. Even in death, you’ll be mine<b>, </b><b>and </b>I’ll spend every day reminding you of that fact.”


    <b>My </b>heart skipped a beat, then began racing so fast I thought it might burst. This wasn’t the man had fallen in love with speake


    This was someone else entirely, someone my love had created through betrayal and abandonment and days of festering rage.


    A monster


    “My love had created a monster.


    The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow


    The gentle, passionate man who had once held me like I was precious, who had whispered promises of forever against my skin–I <b>had </b>broken him sopletely that this cold, vengeful stranger was all that remained.


    And the most terrifying part was the certainty in his voice, the absolute conviction that he owned me, that I belonged to him no matter what i wanted or how hard I fought.


    There would be no escape from this version of Hunter Reid. No amount of running or hiding or pleading would make him let me go


    I was <b>trapped</b>, just as surely <b>as </b>if <b>he’d </b>locked me in a cage.


    The highway stretched endlessly ahead of us, carrying us toward whatever punishment he had nned.


    In the backseat, Caesar slept on, innocent and unaware that the family he was so happy to have back together was already irreparably


    broken.


    d like a death knell. “No matter how much I try, no matter how far I run, I’ll never


    “I’m trapped,” Lhought again, the words echoing in my mind escape him.”


    And somewhere in the darkness of the <b>car</b>, I felt the first flutter of the new life growing inside me–another chain to bind me to this beautiful, terrible man who had promised to make my life a living hell.


    The monster I had created would never


    er let me <ol><li>go<b>. </b></li></ol>


    Not in this life.


    Not in any life.