After My Future Husband’s Video, I Took $100 Million and Vanished Chapter 10

After My Future Husband’s Video, I Took $100 Million and Vanished Chapter 10

The stench of burned flesh lingered beneath the overpowering smell of disinfectant.

Julian lay on the hospital bed wrapped almost entirely in bandages, his body looking less like a man than sornething pieced back together after being torn apart.

Only his left eye remained.

It stayed fixed on me.

“Chloe…”

“I gave my life back to you…”

“Can we…”

“Start over?”

Every word was soaked in blood.

Foamy crimson spilled from the corner of his mouth with each ragged breath.

I looked at him quietly.

Inside me, there was nothing left.

Only silence.

“Julian.”

“You think what you did was heroic, don’t you?”

I stopped beside his bed and looked down at him.

“When the acid came flying toward me, you didn’t hesitate.”

“I believe that.”

“In that moment, you truly were willing to die for me.”

His remaining eye lit up with desperate hope.

Cloudy tears streamed down his scarred face.

“You understand me…”

“Chloe…”

“You still love me…’

“Don’t you?”

“But, Julian…”

“It’s too late.”

I cut him off without emotion.

“You traded half your face and one eye to save my life.”

“But do you have any idea what it cost me to escape the hell you created?”

His breathing stopped.

“The version of you from five years in the future only told you that I’d suffer a threatened miscarriage next month.”

“He told you you’d be eating cake with Vivian while I needed you most.”

“But he never told you how I felt the day I held a medical report confirming I was five weeks

pregnant.”

My hand rested gently over my stomach.

“I didn’t wait until next month.”

“The same afternoon I learned the truth…”

“I walked into the hospital alone.”

“I climbed onto the operating table completely awake.”

Julian’s remaining eye widened until it seemed ready to burst.

His pupil shook uncontrollably.

“I stared at the cold surgical lights overhead.”

“I listened to the heart monitor echo through the room.

“I felt every freezing instrument entering my body”

“I stayed awake while they tore away the baby whose heart had already begun beating.”

My voice cracked.

“I was the one who killed her.”

Tears slipped silently down my face.

“If I hadn’t made that choice first…

“The Chloe from five years later, the woman who still loved you with everything she had, who

trusted you completely…”

“…would have died on that operating table on the fifteenth of next month because of your

indifference.”

“Because of your betrayal.”

I laughed softly.

The sound was uglier than crying.

“The only way to stop you from killing me…”

“…was to kill part of myself first.”

“I had to kill our baby.”

“Julian…”

“She was the only child we ever created together during the six years we loved each other.”

A broken, animal-like howl escaped his throat.

He shook his head wildly.

The movement ripped open his healing wounds.

Fresh blood soaked through the bandages.

“No…”

“Chloe…”

“I didn’t know…”

“I swear…”

“I didn’t know…”

I stepped closer until I stood beside the ruined hollow where his right eye had once been.

Blood seeped slowly through the dressing.

“And now you’re lying here looking like this…”

“And you’re asking me to start over?”

My voice was almost a whisper.

“What exactly do we have left to start with?”

The hospital room door burst open.

Ethan strode inside.

Without saying a word, he removed his coat and wrapped it securely around my shoulders, sealing me inside its warmth.

Then he reached for my hand.

His fingers threaded through mine with quiet certainty.

Firm.

Protective.

Unshakable.

Julian’s lone eye slowly traveled downward until it landed on our intertwined hands.

The last flicker of hope inside him died.

He forced a smile that looked more painful than tears.

“Ethan…”

“Take good care of her.”

“Or else…”

He sucked in a tortured breath before roaring,

“Even if I end up in hell…”

“I’ll come back as a ghost.”

“And I’ll never forgive you.”

Ethan let out a cold laugh.

“Mr. Thorne.”

“My wife doesn’t need another man telling me how to love her.”

“I’ll spend the rest of my life loving her openly, proudly, and without apology.”

“As for you…”

“Stay alive.”

“Watch from the wreckage you made of your own life while we grow old together.”

Julian collapsed against the pillows as though every bone had been ripped from his body.

Fresh blood stained the white sheets beneath him.

I turned toward the door.

My fingers had just wrapped around the icy handle when his weak voice drifted through the room

one last time.

“Chloe…”

“If there’s another life…”

“Would you…”

“Wait for me again?”

I stopped.

The cold metal beneath my fingertips carried me back years in an instant.

Back to my first winter in Silverport.

Back to the freezing basement apartment where the wind slipped through every crack in the walls.

Snow had fallen endlessly outside.

Julian had wrapped me tightly in his arms, his own eyes red with fear as he whispered,

“What if we ever lose each other?”

Back then, I had looked up at him with cheeks reddened by the cold and answered without

hesitation,

“I’ll wait for you at the crossroads in the next life.”i

Back then…

That love had been real.

Everything that followed…

The betrayal.

The heartbreak.

The agony that had ripped me apart piece by piece.

That had all been real too.

I never turned around.

I kept my eyes on the pale wooden door in front of me.

My voice was soft.

Steady.

“No, Julian.”

“Not in the next life.”

“And not ever again.”