Chapter 180/The Psycho’s Card

Chapter 180: 180/The Psycho’s Card

Chapter 180:

Stephanie’s POV

I stumbled blindly, my feet tripping over themselves as I was dragged backward. His hand clamped around my wrist like an absolute iron shackle, pulling me with a silent, lethal determination toward the threshold of his office. The second we crossed the line into the room, he slammed the heavy door shut and turned the key. The sharp, mechanical click of the deadbolt echoed through my chest, completely cutting us off from the blinding lights of the living room and his mother’s predatory glare.

I whipped around to face him, my chest heaving violently as I struggled to catch my ragged breath. Rage and raw humiliation burned like wildfire in my veins.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" I screamed, keeping my voice down to a harsh, suffocating whisper so it wouldn’t bleed through the walls. "What the hell was that back there? Your girlfriend?! By what sick, twisted logic are you throwing that word around?! Are you actively trying to destroy my entire life?!"

He casually adjusted his black silk bathrobe with a freezing, calculated indifference that grated on my raw nerves. Ignoring my explosive breakdown entirely, he took slow, arrogant strides toward his massive wooden desk, sinking into his leather chair as if he hadn’t just blown up my entire world. He locked his long fingers together over the dark wood, lifting his piercing eyes to scan my flushed, furious face with palpable amusement.

"And what the hell did you want me to tell her instead, Miss Miller?" his deep baritone rumbled, smooth and completely unbothered. "That we were just having an intellectual corporate debate while I’m half-naked in a bathrobe?"

"You tell her the goddamn truth!" I snapped, lunging forward until my trembling palms slammed hard against the edge of his desk. I leaned over the wood, forcing him to look at me. "The truth you know damn well! That I am strictly an employee at your firm, and that I’m only inside your house because of an absolute emergency! There is nothing else going on between us!"

A vicious, chilling smirk pulled at his lips. "She wouldn’t buy that trash for a single second, and you know it. What she witnessed with her own two eyes can’t be explained away with a clean, corporate excuse, sweetheart."

"Because of you!" A suffocating lump formed in my throat, hot tears finally breaking free and scalding my cheeks as my composure cracked. "You are the sole reason for this entire nightmare! You and your sick, twisted actions deliberately throw me into harm’s way without a single shred of mercy!"

He arched his eyebrows, masking his face in a slow, patronizing display of innocence. "What harm have I caused you, exactly?"

I slammed my fist against the desk, sending a stack of loose papers scattering across the surface. "Your mother thinks I’m your secret whore now! She’s standing out there waiting to tear me apart with degrading questions, while the reality is that I am a married woman! I have a whole goddamn life, and I am carrying babies inside my womb!"

He leaned back into his chair, indifferently shrugging his massive shoulders. "And?"

My voice completely broke, terror gripping my throat as a cold sweat broke out across my limbs. I pointed a violently shaking finger down at my stomach. "I am married! Married to your friend! Does your sick, psycho brain not comprehend what the fuck that word means?! Do you not see the lethal target on our backs if this ever gets out?!"

He sunk deeper into his leather seat, his expression turning completely glacial and devoid of any human emotion. "My mother will completely forget about this little stunt in a couple of days the second she finds another shiny distraction. I strictly used your ass as a meat shield tonight so she’d stop shoving her annoying friend’s daughter, Claire, down my throat. You were simply the perfect card to play to shut her down."

I took a sharp step back, absolute shock paralyzing my limbs. I stared at him, my stomach churning with pure disgust. "You used me? Am I just a goddamn doll to you? A little toy you can manipulate with your fingers whenever you need to protect your own skin?!"

His sharp blue eyes locked onto mine with a sudden, vicious intensity. When he spoke, his voice dropped into a low, lethal murmur dripping with a definitive threat. "Yes. That is exactly what you are to me. Your entire life belongs to me now, Miss Miller. If you pull a single wrong move or even think about fighting back again, I will make your existence a long, agonizing hell that your fragile body won’t survive."

I shook my head in utter despair, completely repulsed by the sheer darkness of his soul. "You’re a lunatic," I spat, my voice laced with venom. "A literal, sick psycho."

He stood up from his chair with absolute, unbothered calm. Smoothly fixing the lapels of his robe with his long fingers, he cut the conversation short with a dominant, commanding tone. "Move. We’re going back out. The debate is over."

I walked out behind him, my rigid limbs feeling like wood. The second we crossed the corridor back into the wide living room, I saw his mother. She hadn’t shifted an inch from her spot on the plush sofa, sitting there like a ruthless queen on her throne, her sharp eyes tracking our every movement with calculating precision.

Desperately clawing for a chance to escape this suffocating cage, I glued my eyes to the hardwood floor and forced out a tight, polite murmur. "Excuse me... I need to leave right now. I’ll let you two talk alone."

The older woman suddenly bolted upright in her seat. Her sharp voice sliced through the air, instantly freezing my feet right in their tracks. "You don’t get to just walk out of here whenever you please without my explicit permission."

I whipped my head around to face her, my features contorting in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

She extended her plump, manicured fingers heavy with massive gold rings and pointed aggressively toward a lone armchair near her. "Get over here and sit down," she ordered, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.

I cast a desperate, helpless glance toward Vincent. My tear-filled eyes begged him to speak up, to show a shred of humanity and pull me out of this humiliating trap his mother was setting. But his towering frame remained entirely static. He didn’t move a single goddamn muscle. Instead, his face remained completely washed in a cold, entertained indifference.

I dragged my feet toward her, my legs feeling as heavy as lead, as if I were walking straight to a goddamn guillotine. Stopping right in front of her, my throat felt as dry as a desert as I forced the words out. "Yes, Madam... is there something you want from me?"

Her eyes narrowed into venomous slits, scanning me from head to toe with blatant, unadulterated disgust for my cheap clothes and my entire existence. "How much money do you want to break things off with my son and vanish from his life permanently? Give me a number to make you go away."

My eyes dilated in absolute, burning shock. My gaze flickered frantically between the two of them. *Jesus Christ, this was the absolute last thing I needed on this catastrophic night.* Vincent’s goddamn mother was a literal carbon copy of him possessing the exact same coldness, greed, and tyrannical arrogance. What the hell did she think her son was? Some rare, priceless prince? Did she honestly think I was some low-life street rat trying to blackmail men for a check?

"Madam..." I whispered, my pride bleeding as I clamped my fingernails hard into my palms to violently force back my tears. "I don’t want a single dime of your money. I don’t fucking need it."

She curled her lip into a dismissive, mocking sneer. "You are a liar and a highly skilled actress. Poor, pathetic girls like you only run around at this hour for one specific reason: cash and leverage."

A heavy, unbearable wave of humiliation crashed against my chest. I glanced at Vincent, who had casually thrown his long legs over one another on the opposite sofa. He was leaning back, completely amused, his dark eyes devouring the spectacle as he thoroughly enjoyed watching his mother crush my dignity into the dirt.

*But no... I am not going to let this sadistic, elite family stomp all over me anymore.*

I locked my eyes onto the older woman’s face, a reckless, suicidal surge of defiance flaring through my chest. "Madam," I stated, my voice ringing out strong and unshakeable. "Do you honestly think I give a single shit about your money or your son? Your son with his toxic, unhinged behavior, his sick mind, his disgusting morals, and his pure sadism could have all the goddamn wealth in the world piled in his vaults, and I still wouldn’t willingly look his way or consider him a man."