He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 05

He Brought His Mistress, I Brought My Lawyers Chapter 05

I didn’t dignify his question with an answer.

He knew. I knew. Any explanation would only devolve into an uglier farce.

I didn’t look at him. I just braced myself against the cold brick wall and used every last shred of strength to push myself up, inch by inch. My body was weak, but my spine would stay straight.

“I’ll take you to the emergency room.” Ethan stepped forward again, trying to lift me, his voice full of feigned urgency.

“No.”

Leaning against the wall, I sidestepped his outstretched hand. One step, then another, I moved into the clinic on my own. Those few steps nearly drained me completely.

Ethan followed stiffly, wanting to help but not daring to. In the end, he just strode to the front desk and, in his usual commanding tone, arranged for the best doctor and nurses.

Blood tests, exams, questions… I sat through it all like a soulless doll.

When the doctor gently asked how I’d been injured, I said flatly, “I was accidentally locked in a storage room.”

Ethan stood to the side, a storm of complicated emotions in the blue eyes I had once loved. He opened his mouth to speak several times but forced the words back down.

The diagnosis came quickly: acute stress disorder, accompanied by severe dehydration and malnutrition. The doctor recommended immediate hospitalization.

I was wheeled into a private room and put on an IV. Cold fluid flowed into my veins, bringing with it a delayed sense of clarity.

The ward door closed, shutting out the noise.

Ethan sat beside the bed, looking at my paper-white face. His voice was dry when he finally spoke.

“Avery, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know Sloane would…”

“Didn’t know she would go that far?” I cut him off, my voice quiet but sharp as poisoned ice. “Or didn’t know that locking your fiancée up like a prisoner would break her?”

“I didn’t!” he denied immediately, as if I’d hit a nerve. “I just wanted you to calm down! The wedding is almost here. I couldn’t let you do anything… irrational.”

“So illegal imprisonment is how you help your fiancée calm down?”

I turned my head away, unable to look at his hypocritical face. My gaze fell on the pale ceiling, a perfect match for my heart.

“Ethan, I admit I lost control. You said you wanted to lock me up for three days to calm me down. Fine. I accept that.” My voice was unnervingly steady. “But Sloane used my greatest fear to torment me. Did you allow that, too?”

“Of course not!” Ethan shot up from his chair. “I only told them to watch you. I never…”

I laughed.

It was a light sound, but it was a scalpel, cutting through every layer of his disguise.

“Then how did she know I’m afraid of the dark? Of enclosed spaces? Ethan, I only ever told one person that secret. You. Dare to say you never mentioned what happened in Nantucket the summer I was eighteen?”

Every word was a silent slap.

Ethan’s face flushed. His lips trembled, but he couldn’t refute a single word.

“Forget it.” I closed my eyes, overcome by a crushing exhaustion. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

He looked at me, eyes closed and nearly lifeless, and real panic finally surged in his chest. He seemed genuinely afraid—afraid I might disappear, afraid he would never be able to control me again.

He wanted to say something, anything, to salvage the situation, but his phone vibrated at the worst possible moment.

It was Sloane.

Even from a distance, I could hear her pitiful, weeping voice.

“Ethan… I’m all alone at the estate. I’m so scared… It’s dark. Can you come back and stay with me?”

Ethan instinctively glanced at me. His face was a battlefield of struggle and hesitation.

I slowly opened my eyes. Beneath them lay a dead desert.

“Go on,” I said calmly. “Your responsibility is waiting.”

Those words were like a pardon.

“I… I’ll be right back.” As if granted amnesty, he stood and fled the room.

Listening to his hurried footsteps disappear down the hall, the last faint light in my eyes went out.

I didn’t wait for him.

From the bag of personal belongings the butler had delivered, I took out my backup phone.

I started to call my grandfather but stopped, worried the news would be too much for him. Instead, I dialed another, more rational number.

When the call connected, I used all my strength to speak clearly.

“Mr. Davis, it’s Avery Caldwell.”

“Regarding the lawsuit against Sloane Pike,” I paused, then added, word by word, “I’m adding another defendant.”

“I’m suing Ethan Ward for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”