I Agreed To Another Man After He Chose Her In The Collapse Chapter 09

I Agreed To Another Man After He Chose Her In The Collapse Chapter 09

I narrowed my eyes, pretending to be mad. Everett’s smile vanished instantly.

He caught my hand, a flash of genuine panic in his eyes.

“I just wanted him to let you go. I wanted him to see that the woman he threw away is someone I’d do

anything to keep.”

“And the punch… I let that happen. I wanted you to worry about me…”

His voice trailed off into a guilty murmur, until he sounded like a kid confessing to something.

There wasn’t a shred of the intimidating General left. I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“Childish.”

When they hauled Nolan back to Northbridge, his hands were still bound.

The first thing he saw was Vivian being dragged out of his house by military police.

“What are you doing?”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m your commander. Let her go. Now!”

The second she heard Nolan’s voice, Vivian burst into tears.

She pulled free and threw herself into his arms.

“Nolan, they’re hurting me. I just went into your office, that’s all.”

“They said I was a spy. They want to lock me up.”

Nolan’s face darkened. He barked at the men to untie him.

The military police, the same ones who used to jump at his every word, exchanged a look. Then they walked

behind him and forced him to the ground.

“Save it for the interrogation room, Ashford.”

They hauled him through the compound. Every door opened. Everyone watched.

Piece by piece, between the whispers and the shouting, Nolan put it together.

Vivian had used his key to get into the restricted records. She’d been funneling every classified file inside to foreign intel.

When they caught her, she told them Nolan had handed her the key himself. Said she was just tidying up his desk.

Nolan sat in the chair in the interrogation room and didn’t move. He couldn’t process it.

“Ashford. Vivian claims that you gave her the key yourself.”

“Command suspects the two of you were working together, that you were compromised by foreign intel.”

“Do you have anything to say?”

Nolan looked up, hollow-eyed. All he could say was the same thing, over and over. “I just gave her the key.

That’s all I did.”

“You just hand out keys like that?”

“Have you lost your damn mind?”

“She left you the second she found out you were broke and ran off overseas. And the minute she comes

back, you roll out the red carpet?”

His commanding officer was shouting now, full volume. His eyes landed on Nolan’s rank insignia lying on the

desk, and his face twisted with disgust.

“Commander? You’re done. Your career is finished.”

That finally broke him. Nolan slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. “Please. One more chance.

Give me one more chance.”

His commanding officer stared down at him and said nothing for a long time.

“You… you absolute fool.”

“I can’t save you this time. The order came straight from the top. They want to make an example of you.”

He took Nolan’s rank insignia off the desk. At the door, he paused and looked back.

“I heard the story. That Vivian saved your life with a transfusion.”

“But your blood types don’t even match. I don’t know what to say to you.”

Outside, they were taking Vivian away.

As they led her past Nolan, she was still screaming for him.

“Nolan, save me! Save me!”

Years ago, when Nolan had woken up in the hospital, they told him Vivian saved his life. He’d carried that

debt ever since.

He’d never once thought to question it.

Vivian had been working for foreign intel long before she ever met him.

She only saved him because she saw the uniform. If he hadn’t been military, she would have walked right

past

The moment she found out he was just a low-ranking soldier, a nobody, she cut him off and disappeared

overseas.