Page 119 of Billionaire’s Ruin

The two men glared over my shoulder, heat radiating off both of them seconds away from tearing each other apart.

“We could have rescued Kai according to plan if you hadn’t meddled!” Lincoln barked past me, voice cracking with rage.

“Lincoln!” June’s warning cut sharp, but he was past warnings.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to speak.

“Thanks for coming, bro,” I muttered, the words scraping out of me as sharp as broken glass.

Helpless.

Small.

The air in my lungs thinned—as if something clawed from the inside.

Images slammed behind my eyes in jagged flashes—so fast I couldn’t separate one nightmare from another.

The padded room.

The filthy hut.

The bucket.

Xiao Wu’s tiny hand gripping mine.

Nurse Angela’s fake concern.

My mother’s perfume.

The straps.

The darkness.

They bled together, an ugly collage of everything I’d tried to bury under money, power, and the illusion of control.

Control.

The one thing I’d fought all my life to own—slipped through my fingers like water.

“Of course.”

“I said I would come back for you.”

Two voices.

Overlapping.

Colliding.

Dannie’s. Lincoln’s.

Both claiming me in their own way, both laced with memories and guilt and unfinished debts.

For a moment, the room went still—thick with something heavier than anger. The two men stared at each other across the space, something electric in the air between them.

Respect?

Recognition?