Belinda's POV
I was in the master suite, running a bath, when the soft, insistent tap came at the door. I knew it wasn't Jackson; he never knocked.
I opened it to find Ronda standing there, her face a mask of casual indifference, but her eyes held a silent question. Rosline was right behind her.
"Just wanted to debrief the air quality situation," Ronda murmured, stepping inside and quietly locking the door. "Jackson's still suspicious. Rosline's cover story was good, but he's already back-checking the atmospheric logs."
"He's acting like a worried husband," Rosline said, setting a vase of fresh tulips on the counter—another distraction. "But his instincts are screaming threat."
I walked over to the closet, retrieving a clean towel. "He's right to be suspicious. I initiated a strike."
Ronda and Rosline froze mid-step.
"A strike?" Rosline repeated, her voice low and sharp. "Against whom? The General?"
"Yes," I confirmed, my voice flat. "I tasked Lola with a complete demolition of his residence. He will be inside."
The air went out of the room. Ronda slowly closed her eyes.
"Belinda," Ronda whispered, "You know the level of heat that will draw if something goes wrong, and he lives? That's a declaration of war against the entire network, not just his father."
"It's a declaration of freedom for Jackson," I retorted, facing them, my resolve hard and cold. "He's paralyzed by his trauma. He won't strike his father in a way that risks hurting his mother or Lyle. I removed the target without that risk. I cleared his conscience and I cleared the field. It's done. We manage the fallout."
Rosline sighed, running a hand through her hair. "God help us. Did you confirm he was alone?"
"That was my only condition," I stated. "Lola was tasked to confirm zero collateral family presence before execution. If his family is there, she aborts. Now, we proceed with the night's routine. No change in behavior. Ronda, check the dinner menu. Rosline, prep the sedative."
My two most trusted allies looked at me, a mixture of fear, respect, and profound concern in their eyes. They understood the strategic necessity, but they also understood the danger of the woman who could make such a terrifying decision without consulting anyone.
The dining room that evening was a tense performance. The table was set with careful normalcy, yet an invisible wire ran through the center of the room, humming with unspoken secrets.
Jackson was late. He finally arrived, his eyes cold, his jaw tight. He took his seat without a word, his chair scraping against the floor.
"Everything alright, Nunus?" I asked softly, reaching for his hand under the table.
He didn't return the squeeze. He simply met my eyes, his gaze piercing. "I'm running a diagnostic on the Lola protocol. Seems a long-dormant asset has been reactivated for an unscheduled 'cleanup.' Any thoughts on that, Love?"
My heart stuttered, but I didn't flinch. I let my confusion be genuine. "Lola? Tyrone must have flagged it as part of the General's network sweep. It's a good catch, actually."
Before he could challenge me, Tyrone burst through the door, his laptop open. He wasn't smiling. He was pale.
"Jay. We have a confirmed hit. It just came in via global surveillance feeds—highly classified, but the image is undeniable. The primary residence… your childhood home... it's gone. Total structural failure. It looks like a high-yield gas explosion. He was in the house. No other casualties reported on the property."
A sickening silence descended on the table. Rosline and Ronda exchanged a quick, horrified glance. My face was a carefully constructed mask of shock.
Jackson didn't look at Tyrone. He looked only at me. His eyes were no longer cold… they were blazing with a terrible, slow realisation. He saw the pink lilies, the sudden crying, the secrecy, the air complaint, and the tactical justification. He saw the whole, terrifying truth of my protective rage.
"It wasn't an unknown source," Jackson breathed, his voice raw with disbelief. "It was... you."
I said nothing, letting the silence be my confession. I had just risked everything to protect him.
Suddenly, the tension snapped, and Ronda let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh, clutching Tyrone's arm.
"What?" Ronda cried, trying to break the intensity. "No! It was clearly a gas line failure! Tyrone, you just said it looked like an explosion! It's an old house! That's what happens!"
Tyrone, though shaken by the news of the assassination, instinctively went back to his role as my friend's shield. "Yeah, maybe an accident. He's gone."
Jackson didn't take his eyes off me. He slowly withdrew his hand from mine. The final lie…the final act of protective betrayal…was now a fact between us. The sanctuary was safe from his father, but irrevocably damaged by my love.
Jackson's POV
The silence in the dining room was a physical weight. I didn't need Tyrone's forced denial or Ronda's frantic laughter. I needed only to look into Belinda's eyes. The shock on her face was perfect, a masterpiece of controlled performance, but beneath it was a fierce, cold resolve I recognized because it was my own. She had done it. She had ordered the death of my father.
And she had done it because I was paralyzed by my own history. She saw my trauma…the fear for my mother and Lyle…as a weakness, and she struck with brutal, surgical precision.
I pushed my chair back, the heavy legs scraping against the marble floor, the sound a violation of the fragile peace we had constructed.
"Tyrone," I said, my voice dangerously even, my gaze still locked on the woman who just lied to me again. "Secure the perimeter. No one leaves. No one enters. We are in a state of high alert."
"Jay, what are you talking about? It was an accident! A gas leak!" Tyrone protested, genuinely confused by my immediate tactical response.
"It was no accident," I snapped, standing up. "It was a declaration. The network knows who ordered this. It doesn't matter how it looked…they know why. Get the comms back to lethal settings. Now."
I walked around the table, stopping directly behind Belinda's chair. I didn't touch her. I didn't have to. The proximity was a threat.
"The wedding planning is over, Rosline," I continued, speaking to the entire table, but my words were for her alone. "The dinner party is over. You've just guaranteed that every one of Chester's old associates, and the General's, will come looking for the person who blew up the last key player's house. And they will come here."
I finally looked down at the top of her head. "You broke protocol, Love. You went outside the structure. You risked every single person in this room."
Belinda slowly stood up, turning to face me. She looked up at me, her expression a mix of exhaustion and defiant righteousness.
"I removed the central threat," she stated, her voice steady and low. "A threat you were incapable of removing because of sentimental ties. He was the one thing that would have compromised your focus, your mother, or your brother. I protected you from your own weakness, Nunus. Just like you did for me."
The use of the pet name, the casual invocation of the trauma, fueled the sudden, cold rage boiling in my gut. She had justified a murder using the most vulnerable part of my soul.
"You should have told me," I ground out, my voice laced with hurt that eclipsed the anger.
"And risked you shutting me down?" she countered. "Risked you hesitating, and then having to mourn a different kind of collateral damage? No. This was the clean, efficient move. You're welcome."
I stared at her, the sudden, terrible thought consuming me: What else is she keeping from me to be 'efficient'? The crying, the nausea, the fatigue, the absolute terror of the shower floor—it wasn't about the future. It was about now.
I grabbed her arm, my grip tight, and started walking toward the elevator. "We're going to the vault. Tyrone, lock down the suite."
Enough is enough.