Chapter 12
Ryan refused to believe Thea had killed herself.
He tore the city apart until he found the two bodyguards.
The moment he saw them, Ryan tackled one to the ground, landing punch after punch in a blind rage.
“I told you thirty minutes! Why didn’t you get her out?”
“Why didn’t you save her?”
“She’s dead and you’re still breathing!”
Just thirty minutes. That’s all it was supposed to be.
He’d calculated it perfectly-the fire wouldn’t re
But the impossible had happened anyway.
she’d be fine.
People tried to pull him off, but he was too strong. Finally someone shouted, “Don’t you want to know how Thea died?!”
Those words hit him like a kill switch.
The bodyguard scrambled away on his hands and knees at once.
Ryan’s murderous stare bore into him. “Tell me what happened.”
The bodyguard’s voice shook. “After you left, we went to open the door like you said. But it was jammed-she’d barricaded it from the inside with a metal rod.”
Ryan’s fists clenched so tight blood seeped between his fingers.
“We called for her to open up, but she didn’t answer. Through the crack under the door, we saw…”
“Saw what?”
The man was trembling. “We saw her drink something from a bottle. Then she started coughing up blood and collapsed. We were trying to break down the door when the chemicals exploded. We didn’t have a chance.”
Barricading the door. Drinking poison.
Every detail pointed to the same thing-Thea had wanted to die.
Ryan’s throat felt burned raw. “Why were there flammable chemicals in an abandoned warehouse?”
“I don’t know.”
But Ryan remembered.
Years ago, he’d gone to that warehouse specifically because of Thea.
Her father had bought tons of flammable materials under the company name-he was planning to burn Thea alive to collect insurance money.
After her father was arrested and the warehouse abandoned, those chemicals were never properly disposed of.
Ryan had told Thea he wanted to tear the whole place down and plant her favorite blue roses there.
But work got in the way, and he’d never followed through.
After Lyra came back, he’d forgotten completely.
Ryan could barely stand. The scene from that day flashed before his eyes.
100
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Thea clinging to him, eyes wild with terror.
“Let go! I’m not going in there!”
“Please, don’t do this…”
“Ryan, don’t leave me here! Open the door!”
Back then, he’d ignored her pleas, pried her fingers away, and shoved her inside.
The sound of her pounding on the door that he’d ignored now hammered against his heart, each blow like a knife through his chest, bloody and raw.
“What a touching scene.”
Ryan looked up in a daze. Marcus was clapping slowly as he walked over.
He let out a cold laugh. “She’s dead, Ryan. Who are you putting on this show for?”
Ryan’s face was ashen.
Marcus walked past him, stopping
at
the stairwell. “Might as well tell you-I’m the one who gave Thea the poison.”
Ryan’s body shook. The next second, he lunged forward like a madman.
But after two days without food or
wate
he was
по
“Marcus!”
match for Marcus, who twisted his arm behind his back and slammed him against the wall.
Ryan’s voice dripped with murderous rage. “Why did you do it? You killed her!”
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t take credit for that. The one who drove her to burn herself alive-that was you, wasn’t it?”
Ryan couldn’t hear those words.
All he knew was that if Thea hadn’t taken those drugs, she might have pushed through the pain or gotten scared enough to escape the fire.
She might still be alive!
Marcus’s eyes went dark as he kicked Ryan’s shin.
Ryan tumbled down the stairs, covered in blood and dirt, struggling to get up.
“Poison someone? I wouldn’t dare, bro. Most of what I gave her was just flour. Only the fifth vial had anything real-crushed sleeping pills.”
Marcus looked down at him from above. “But I heard they found actual toxins in the soup she made you. Where do you think those came from?”
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