Chapter 248 - 0248: Remove The Virus

Chapter 248: Chapter 0248: Remove The Virus

Lillian’s Point Of View

"I hate youuuuu!"

My scream tore through the underground garage and bounced back at me from every concrete wall, multiplying itself until it sounded like a chorus of furious voices rather than just my own.

The echo came back louder. Ugly. Broken. I didn’t care. I didn’t care how I looked, didn’t care if someone heard me, didn’t care if security cameras were pointed straight at me, recording this unraveling for anyone to see. Let them watch. Let them judge. There was nothing left in me to protect.

My chest heaved as I stood there, my hair a mess from where I had been gripping it moments ago, tears still sliding down my cheeks, cutting thin tracks through my makeup. I could taste salt at the corners of my mouth.

"I hate you!" I shouted again, my voice cracking violently. The sound echoed between the silent rows of parked cars, swallowed slowly by the vast concrete emptiness. My breathing was ragged and loud, each inhale scraping against my throat. Hot, suffocating anger sat inside my chest like fire, spreading outward until my fingertips tingled with it.

"Elena!"

I spat her name like it tasted bitter in my mouth, like saying it aloud might poison the very air around me.

"Why don’t you just die?!" The words flew out before I could stop them, uglier than anything I had ever said aloud. My voice bounced off the ceiling pipes, sharp and shrill, and for a moment I almost didn’t recognize it as my own.

"Die!"

I pointed an angry, shaking finger at the empty air, like she was standing right there in front of me with that stupid, calm face of hers... the one that always made me feel small, invisible, like a mistake Graham was still trying to correct.

"Do you hear me?!"

My hands shook violently, the tremor running all the way up into my shoulders.

"Die!" My voice rose higher, straining until my throat burned raw. "Die and get out of our lives!" The words ripped out of my throat again, tearing something loose inside me. "Just die already!"

My chest rose sharply as the last word echoed through the cavernous garage. For a second, the only sound left was my breathing... heavy, uneven, and ragged, filling the silence where her name had been. I wiped angrily at my face, but more tears kept coming, ruining what was left of my foundation, leaving pale streaks against my flushed skin.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered hoarsely, though I made no move to stop.

"Why are you still here?" I started pacing again between two parked cars, my heels clicking sharply against the concrete floor, each step a small explosion in the quiet. "You’re not even here," I said bitterly to the empty air, as if repeating it enough times might finally make it feel true.

"You’re gone." My jaw tightened until it throbbed, the ache spreading toward my temples.

"You walked away."

Yet somehow... somehow she was still everywhere. In his eyes. In his silences. In the space between us that never quite closed. I stopped walking, my legs trembling beneath me, suddenly too weak to carry my own fury.

My eyes drifted slowly up toward the low concrete ceiling, as if Graham’s thirty-story tower was directly above me, as if I could see straight through steel and stone into the office where he sat, perhaps thinking of her at this very moment.

"He still thinks about you." The realization twisted something deep inside my chest, sharp and agonizing, like a blade turning slowly. "He still defends you." I laughed bitterly under my breath, the sound hollow and humorless. "He still won’t sign the divorce papers."

My nails dug so hard into my palms that they almost drew blood, crescent-shaped indentations blooming red against my skin.

"I’m the one carrying his child!"

The words came out louder now, echoing back at me from every direction, as though the garage itself were mocking my desperation.

"I’m the one who stayed!" My hand pressed firmly against my belly through my silk blouse, the small curve beneath my palm the only proof I had left of my place in his life. "You hear that, Elena?" My voice trembled. "I stayed!"

My breathing grew heavier again, a wild rush of heat flooding my face, my pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my ears.

"You walked away like some noble saint." I rolled my eyes bitterly, tears spilling over my eyelashes and dripping onto the collar of my blouse. "But somehow you still win." The thought made my stomach churn with pure nausea, bile rising hot in the back of my throat.

"How?" I whispered harshly. "How do you keep doing that?" My head shook slowly in disbelief. "He looks at me like I ruined his life."

My chest tightened painfully, each breath a small, aching effort.

"Me."

I laughed again, a harsh, dry sound devoid of any humor, the kind of laugh that comes right before tears or violence. "Meanwhile he still talks about you like you’re some untouchable memory." My fingers curled into tight fists again, nails biting deeper into my palms. "I see it." My voice dropped into a dark, venomous register. "Every time someone says your name."

My jaw clenched tight, muscles aching from the effort.

"He goes quiet."

My throat tightened, a lump forming that I couldn’t swallow away.

"He stops breathing for a second." I closed my eyes briefly, the humiliation burning straight through my veins like acid. "He still cares." The words tasted like poison on my tongue. "He still thinks about you."

Anger rushed back into my chest like a sudden explosion, obliterating whatever fragile calm had begun to settle.

"Why?!"

My voice echoed loudly again through the basement, ricocheting between the pillars.

"Why you?!" I spread my arms in complete frustration, feeling the full, ridiculous weight of my own desperation. "What is so special about you?!" The question hung mockingly in the empty garage, unanswered, as it always had been.

"You’re not prettier than me." I shook my head sharply, as though the motion could dislodge the doubt creeping into my chest.

"You’re not smarter than me."

My breathing quickened, shallow and desperate, panic threading itself through my fury.

"You couldn’t even give him a child!"

My hand pressed hard against my stomach again, grounding myself in the one undeniable truth I still possessed.

"I did that!"

My voice cracked with pure fury. I stared straight ahead into the shadows, as if Elena herself were standing across from me in the dim light, her expression infuriatingly serene even in my imagination.

"And yet he still chooses you." My throat burned, the anger twisting deeper, mutating into something toxic and unfamiliar even to me. "I’m standing right there and he still talks about you like you’re the only woman that ever mattered."

My nails dug into my skin, deep enough now that I welcomed the small, sharp pain.

"You ruined everything."

The accusation came out quietly this time, dripping with malice, more dangerous for its sudden calm.

"You should have just disappeared." My breathing slowed slightly, the storm inside me beginning, almost imperceptibly, to shift. "You should have stayed gone."

The silence in the garage felt thick, heavy, and suffocating, pressing down on me like a physical weight. Then another thought slid into my mind - slow, sharp, and icy cold, slipping in through the cracks my rage had left behind. My lips parted slightly as I stared blankly at the stained concrete, my mind suddenly very, very quiet.

"You know what..." My voice dropped to a whisper. A dangerous, unhinged whisper. "If you were really gone..." My eyes narrowed slightly. "Completely gone..." My chest rose slowly. "This wouldn’t be happening."

The idea settled deeper into my mind, warping everything around it, reshaping my fury into something far more deliberate.

If she wasn’t around... if she wasn’t somewhere out there... if Graham couldn’t keep imagining her returning to him... My heartbeat quickened, no longer from anger but from something colder, something that frightened even me.

"I want her dead."

The words slipped out quietly, but they sounded terrifyingly clear in the empty garage, as though some other version of myself had spoken them. My breathing slowed as the wild hysteria burned itself out, leaving behind a terrifying, hollow quiet, the kind that follows a storm once it has finally spent itself.

"Yes."

I nodded slowly to myself, almost surprised by how natural the gesture felt.

"That’s the problem." My voice steadied, gaining a clarity that unsettled me even as I welcomed it. "As long as she’s alive..." My fingers curled slowly. "He’ll keep thinking about her." My jaw tightened. "He’ll keep remembering her." I stared blankly at the floor, watching my own shadow stretch long and thin across the concrete. "But if she’s dead..."

The thought wrapped itself around my mind like a tightening coil, and I let it, almost gratefully.

"Then it’s over."

My lips curved slightly, a distorted, broken shadow of a smile forming despite myself.

"Completely over."

I lifted my head slowly, looking at the distant exit of the basement, where a thin strip of daylight bled in beneath the closed gate.

"When she’s dead..." My hand rested against my belly again, as though sealing some silent promise to the child inside me. "Graham will stop thinking about her."

The logic felt ironclad in my head. Simple. Permanent. A final solution to a problem that had consumed two years of my life, two years of sleepless nights and quiet humiliations I had never allowed myself to name until now.

I exhaled slowly, letting out a long, shuddering breath, and wiped the last wetness from my cheeks with the back of my hand. My fingers trembled slightly, but the wild storm inside me had shifted into something far colder.

Clearer.

"When she’s dead," I muttered under my breath, pacing slowly across the garage floor again, my posture straightening, my shoulders pulling back as though some invisible weight had lifted, "Graham will come to me."

My voice echoed softly in the empty space, almost gentle now, almost tender.

"He’ll finally see." My fingers brushed over my stomach again. "He’ll finally understand that I’m the one who stayed." My heels clicked against the concrete as I walked past rows of silent luxury cars, their dark surfaces reflecting fragments of my own distorted expression. "He’ll finally be mine."

The words felt heavier now. Measured. Unyielding.

"Mine."

I stopped walking and looked down at my belly again, allowing myself, for the first time that night, something close to peace.

"And we’ll be a happy family." I nodded slowly to myself, my eyes wide and unblinking. "Yes."

The picture formed easily in my mind. Graham standing beside me. Our child in his arms. The Sinclair heir. Our home. Our life. I could almost see it, almost touch it, as though it were already waiting for me somewhere just beyond reach.

Elena gone. Not haunting the space between us anymore. Not sitting inside his head like some ghost he refused to let go of. Gone. Completely gone. The word tasted different now... not bitter, but sweet, almost intoxicating.

A laugh slipped out of my mouth. At first it was small, breathless. Then it grew into something soft and frantic, bubbling up from somewhere deep and unfamiliar.

"I’m so smart," I murmured, shaking my head in disbelief at myself. "Why didn’t I think of this earlier?" My lips curled upward again in a sharp, fragile smile. "All this time I’ve been fighting shadows."

I looked around the garage, the dim fluorescent lights humming overhead, flickering faintly like they too were uncertain of what they had just witnessed.

"All I have to do..." My voice dropped slightly. "...is remove the problem."

Another light, unstable laugh escaped me, echoing strangely in the vast emptiness.

"Yes." I tapped my temple lightly with my finger. "I’m really smart."

The thought made something inside me settle, though my pulse was still racing. The anger wasn’t gone, but it had morphed into a single, sharp focus, narrowing my scattered fury into something almost serene in its purpose. I turned and started walking toward my car parked three rows away, my steps now deliberate, unhurried.

My heels echoed sharply against the floor.

Step. Step. Step.

The black sedan came into view under the dim lighting. My car. My space. My control. I reached it, pulling the key from my purse as I walked around to the driver’s side. The door unlocked with a soft, electronic click, the small sound oddly comforting after the chaos of my own voice.

I opened it, slid inside quickly, and slammed the door behind me. Loud. The sound bounced off the concrete walls outside, then vanished, swallowed by the stillness.

For a moment I just sat there in the dark interior. Breathing. The quiet inside the car felt completely different from the echoing garage. Contained. Private. Safe, in a way nothing else had felt in longer than I could remember.

I adjusted myself in the leather seat, pulling the door handle once to make sure it was shut properly. Then I reached for the seatbelt.

Click.

The strap slid across my chest and locked into place. My hand rested on the steering wheel, my knuckles white against the dark leather. For a moment I didn’t start the ignition. I just sat there staring straight ahead through the windshield into the concrete wall, watching my own reflection faintly superimposed over the gray surface, barely recognizing the woman staring back.

Then I let out another quiet, breathless laugh.

"I’m really smart." The words slipped out into the small space, filling it entirely.

I turned the key.

The engine roared to life with a low rumble, the vibration traveling up through the floorboards and steering wheel, steady and controlled, grounding me in something solid after the wildness of the last several minutes. I paused for a moment longer, my grip tightening on the wheel.

Then I laughed again, a soft, chilling sound in the quiet car.

"I’m so smart. Remove the virus... and the system will be free. Simple."

I shifted the car into drive and drove out into the light, leaving behind the echoes of everything I had just confessed to the empty dark.