A Divorce He Regrets

Chapter 28:

DOMINIC

As I watched the city lights flicker past the window, a strange heaviness settled in my chest. The hum of the engine filled the silence between Alexander and me, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the thoughts swirling in my head. Each light, every passing landmark we drove by felt like a tick of a relentless clock counting down—and the words I held back lodged painfully in my throat.

The temptation to tell Alexander the truth— it clawed at me. If he knew the reality of my relationship with Raina, the years of assumptions and anger would crumble. It would all finally make sense. He’d see how twisted and backward his thinking had been. I’d clear it all up with a single confession: Raina and I were family, tied by loyalty, not by blood. We were each other’s shelter through every storm, but never anything more.

The words hovered at the edge of my tongue, heavy and eager to break free. I felt that pulse of anger, a sharp, hot urge to spit out the truth so he’d be forced to choke on it. Maybe he’d realize just how wrong he’d been, how much he’d hurt her with his self-righteous assumptions. It would be so easy to strip away the lie he’d wrapped around himself, that familiar cloak of superiority he always wore. But I couldn’t.

I’d made Raina a promise. I’d protect her secrets until the day she felt ready to share them herself. Even now, with the truth gnawing at me, that promise held me back. It wasn’t my story to tell, and I had no right to spill it for my own satisfaction.

Besides, a part of me preferred it this way. It was better, safer, to keep Alexander and his family at arm’s length. I didn’t want to be bound to them by anything other than business. They were poisoned, tangled up in lies and manipulations that had already cost Raina more than anyone should ever have to pay. If keeping my distance meant holding my tongue, then so be it.

The silence weighed heavy, mingling with memories I didn’t want to revisit. Back when Raina and I were just kids, abandoned to the care of the state, we’d each clung to the other, sharing secrets and fears under dim lights in a world that felt impossibly dark. I could still remember the day she’d disappeared from the orphanage—gone without a trace, with no clue of what had happened to her. And then, years later, we found each other again. Older, scarred, but still bound by blood.

I glanced at Alexander from the corner of my eye. His gaze was fixed ahead, his expression blank but tense, as though he, too, was holding back a storm of words.

We reached the hospital, and the moment we pulled into the lot, I bolted out, striding straight toward the security office. The stale air of the hospital mingled with the scent of antiseptic, sharp and unwelcome. But there was no time to linger. My men were already waiting, gathered around a series of screens, the footage pulled up and paused, ready for me.

𝖀𝖕𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘 𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖓 g⍺𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝗲𝗅𝘀․𝗰𝗈𝗺

I leaned over, focusing on the timestamp. I clenched my fists as I watched the grainy footage flicker on the screen, my jaw set in frustration. We’d come all this way, only to find that the damn cameras were practically useless. The angles were all wrong, the views blocked by walls or positioned in the worst possible places. And the blind spots—there were so many, it was like someone had designed it that way on purpose.

A low hiss escaped me, the irritation simmering beneath my calm exterior. Either the hospital’s security team didn’t know what they were doing, or someone was in on this, sabotaging things from the inside. The cameras looked like they’d been tampered with—only on the floor where Liam was, too, which was suspicious as hell. It wasn’t just poor security; this was deliberate. It was calculated. No one saw anything, and the footage barely showed Raina before she disappeared around a corner. Then, a figure—a shadow, really—carried her out, their face conveniently hidden. Disappearing with her into a waiting van parked outside in the loading zone.

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