Ruby crossed her arms, the silk of her sleeves cool against her skin. She refused to show a flicker of the pain clawing at her throat. "You've embarrassed yourself enough today, Seron. Don't add a kidnapping charge to the list."
Seron let out a laugh, a broken, bitter sound that bounced off the mirrored walls. "You planned this. The board meeting, the takeover… the humiliation. You've been waiting for this."
"I survived you," she corrected, her voice as sharp as a diamond. "There's a difference. Survival isn't a plan, Mr. Byron, it's a consequence of your own failures."
"You married my father just to spit in my face," he hissed, stepping so close she could see the frantic pulse in his neck. She didn't move. She didn't even blink. "I admit, Ruby, I'm impressed. I underestimated how far you'd go to hurt me."
"Don't flatter yourself," she said, tilting her head. "I didn't marry him to hurt you. I married power. You just happened to be the one who lost it."
His jaw clenched so hard she heard the bone pop. "I loved you! I still do!" He threw his hands up, pacing the three feet of available space. "Okay, fine! I was wrong. Acacia coming back… it messed with my head. The sex was easy and great, it was new. It was exciting while things with us had become… stagnant. But it was just physical. I still love you, Ruby."
The silence that followed was deafening. Ruby stared at him, a slow, pitying smile spreading across her lips.
"You stupid, arrogant fool," she said quietly. "You should stop talking. Every time you open your mouth to defend yourself, you make me sick. You didn't love me, Seron. You owned me. You cheated for so long that you actually convinced yourself I was obligated to accept the crumbs you left behind."
"Seron! Open this door right now! This is going too far!" Acacia's muffled scream pierced through the steel, but it sounded like it was coming from another world.
Seron ignored her. His eyes were dark, fixated on Ruby. "You ruined everything. Yes, I messed up, but we could have fixed it if you weren't so damn stubborn. Now? You're playing with fire. You're messing with people who will swallow you whole."
Ruby stepped forward, reversing the pressure. She met his gaze without flinching, her presence suddenly filling the small car.
"No, Seron. I didn't just mess with them. I ended it. I ended us," she whispered. "And as for the people you think I'm messing with? I'm not afraid of them. I'm the one they should be afraid of."
The elevator creaked, a long, metallic groan of protest. They were suspended in the dark, caught between the life they had and the war that was coming.
Outside, the frantic rhythm of the guards' footsteps and the distant wail of a siren signaled that the world was coming for them. Inside the narrow, dimly lit lift, two people who had once shared a bed and a name stood inches apart. They were no longer lovers, no longer allies, just two enemies breathing the same recycled air, waiting for the cables to snap.
The elevator hummed low, a deep, metallic groan vibrating through the floorboards as if the building itself were eavesdropping on their ruin.
Seron's voice dropped, turning dangerously calm. The frantic energy was gone, replaced by a cold, desperate edge. "You think Max can protect you?" He turned to her slowly, his shadow stretching long against the mirrored wall. "You have no idea what kind of people you're standing against now. Mia. Malvin. The board. You're a lamb walking into a den of wolves, Ruby. They've buried people for far less than a company takeover."
Ruby didn't respond. She simply watched him, her expression a mask of granite. He took a step closer, his shadow swallowing hers.
"I'm the only one who can keep you safe," Seron pleaded, his voice cracking. "I know them. I know how they move. How they destroy people quietly, from the inside out. Come back to my side, Ruby. I'll fix this. I'll leave Acacia tonight. I swear." He reached out, his hand hovering near her arm but not daring to touch. "We'll start over. Just you and me. Like it used to be."
Ruby laughed.
It wasn't a soft sound. It wasn't even bitter. It was the sound of something final, a door locking from the inside.
"Start over?" she repeated, the words tasting like ash. She looked at him then, truly looked at him, as if she were seeing a stranger wearing a familiar face. "You ceased to exist to me the day you cheated, Seron."
He flinched as if she'd slapped him.
"And the day I lost our baby," she added.
The words landed like a bomb. The air in the elevator seemed to vanish instantly, leaving a vacuum of suffocating silence.
Seron froze. His entire body went rigid, his eyes widening. "What… baby?"
Ruby's jaw tightened. Her hands were trembling in her lap, hidden by the folds of her skirt, but her voice remained a steady, lethal blade.
"Our baby," she said. "The one I was carrying while you were too busy with your first love."
Every drop of color drained from Seron's face. He looked like a ghost. "No," he whispered, shaking his head frantically. "Ruby… you never told me. We were trying for years, you never…"
"I was going to," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than a scream. "On our anniversary. I had the ultrasound in my bag. I had a speech prepared. I was going to tell you that we finally had the family you claimed you wanted."
His eyes filled with a sudden, horrific realization. "Then why…why didn't you..?"
"Because I found you with her first," she spat, the fire finally breaking through her icy exterior. "I found you inside of her, and then you had the nerve to humiliate me. You told me to go home and be the 'perfect fool' you married. You made your choice, Seron. You chose her. And in doing so, you lost everything. Including the child you'll never get to meet."
Silence, it was thick, crushing, and absolute.
Seron staggered back, his shoulders hitting the mirrored wall with a dull thud. "You're lying," he rasped, his voice cracking like dry earth. "You have to be. You're just saying this to hurt me."
"I bled alone on the floor, the very second you left with her," Ruby snapped, her voice trembling with seven years of suppressed rage. "While I was losing everything, you were in a hotel bed with Acacia."
His breath hitched, coming in fast, shallow gasps. "I didn't know," he said, his hands shaking. "I swear, Ruby, I didn't know. If I had known…"
"But you didn't," she cut in, her words cold and final. "And that is the entire point. You weren't there because you didn't want to be."
Something inside Seron snapped. The grief and the guilt curdled into a hopeless, obsessive madness. He lunged forward, his fingers bruising as they clamped around her wrists. "Come back to me," he pleaded, his eyes wild. "We can still have another. I'll make it up to you. I'll protect you. I'll kill for you if I have to, Ruby!"
"Don't touch me!" Ruby shoved him, but he was a dead weight of desperation.
"I loved you," he choked out, pulling her into his space, his breath hot against her skin. He leaned in, a twisted, possessive sneer crossing his face. "My father is just using you. He's an old man, Ruby. He can't love you as I do. Did he touch you? Did he kiss you? Tell me where he touched you, so I can remind you that mine will always be better…"
He forced a kiss on her…a desperate, pathetic attempt to reclaim a territory he had long ago burned to the ground. It wasn't love. It was a sick sense of ownership.
Ruby froze for a heartbeat, her skin crawling, before she shoved him with every ounce of strength she possessed.
At that exact moment, the elevator doors groaned and slid open.
Artificial light flooded the car, blinding and harsh. Security. Maintenance. And Acacia standing there, white-faced and trembling. Two of Max's guards were already moving before the doors had even fully retracted.
Seron stumbled back, the shock of the light hitting him like a physical blow.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Acacia screamed, her eyes darting between Seron's disheveled state and Ruby's icy glare.
Ruby stood tall, her breath uneven, her eyes blazing with a fire that made the guards pause. Seron looked at her as if he'd been shot through the heart.
"She was pregnant?" he whispered, the words barely audible over the hum of the lobby.
Ruby didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer. She didn't give him a single look. She adjusted her blazer and walked past him, her head held high.
The guards closed in instantly, their hands heavy on Seron's arms.
Acacia stepped into Ruby's path, her face twisted with a cocktail of hatred and fear. "You're lying!" she spat, her voice shrill. "You're just lying to destroy him because you can't have him!"
Ruby stopped. She turned slowly, her gaze so cold it seemed to drop the temperature of the hallway.
"I buried a child," Ruby said, her voice a low, lethal chime of judgment. "A child you will never speak of again."
Silence fell over the lobby, heavy and suffocating.
Seron collapsed into himself, his knees hitting the floor as his hands covered his face. The truth had finally arrived, and it was crushing him too late.
Ruby walked away, the sound of her heels echoing like a countdown to the war she was about to win.