Chapter 1353:
When he had first walked into the dressing room and she turned around with that gentle smile, he had allowed himself—just for a single heartbeat—to imagine she was dressed that way for him. But the moment passed as quickly as it came.
Her smile faded when she saw him.
And reality slammed down on Brandon again.
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, the cut marks from her teeth still raw and bleeding.
Behind him, he could hear her trembling breaths. She was crying.
Brandon’s jaw locked. He forced himself not to look. He rounded a corner and stopped the car outside a quiet, secluded house.
He stepped out, opened the back door, and lifted her into his arms.
Millie thrashed and struggled with all the strength she had—but it made no difference.
Her long wedding train swept across the ground as Brandon carried her up the stairs one step at a time, heading straight for a room on the upper floor.
Only after closing the door behind them did Brandon tear the tape from Millie’s mouth.
“Let me go!” Millie burst out immediately.
Brandon only curved his lips into a faint, stubborn smile.
“Let you go so you can run off and marry him?” He held her face gently but firmly.
“Don’t count on it.”
Millie’s eyes, swollen from tears, darkened with anger. She tried to lunge forward to bite him again.
He stepped aside effortlessly, and she lost her balance, crashing to the mattress with her hands still tied.
For a brief second, remorse cut through Brandon. He steadied her, helping her sit up against the headboard.
Millie stared at him, fear tightening every muscle in her body.
gⱯ𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀.𝗰𝗈n – 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻
“What are you planning to do?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay steady.
“Relax,” Brandon said quietly.
“I only want to explain something.”
Millie didn’t respond. Her tear-bright eyes stayed fixed on him, tense and wary.
Seeing that she wasn’t about to scream again, Brandon reached for a laptop and turned the screen toward her.
“This… this is where everything began,” he said in a low voice, recounting how Vivian had cornered him into cooperating.
“At first, I thought if she died, the photos would disappear with her. But later I realized I’d been played. Vivian and Macauley set the whole thing up. She was never sick. She wanted the title of my wife—and control over my life.”
Brandon finally let everything he’d kept locked away spill out, laying bare the chain of events that had brought them here.
“Vivian is in the basement of my villa for now, but Macauley is the one holding the photos. I can only use her to draw him out. But you… you’re about to marry Myron.” His voice tightened, heavy with grief.
“Millie, I can’t stand by and watch you walk into that.”
The laptop screen glowed, displaying each photo Hayden had taken of Millie.
No matter how careful she had been, living under the same roof had eventually given him his chance.
.
.
.