36. Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Lina
Idon’t think I breathe for a full minute after Alex tells me everything.
Five million, every five years. For life.
It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. My mind keeps circling, searching for a crack in the logic, a misunderstanding. Anything to make this seem less surreal.
Because all I can see is Virginia. Sweet, gentle Virginia.
For fifteen years, I loved that woman without expectation.
I never wanted her money or needed her approval.
In a family where kindness was scarce, Virginia gave it freely.
She never saw me as the poor girl Cole married.
Never spoke to me with pity or condescension.
Never let me believe I was anything less than worthy.
She saw me.
When she got sick, bedbound, I went to visit her every day. Not out of obligation but out of love. I’d sit beside her and gossip about anything and everything, mainly celebrity gossip. Show her IG videos she didn’t understand but laughed at.
We’d whisper about family drama and mundane things like it was our own little world.
She never once looked at me like a burden.
She was the one who encouraged me to go to business school. Told me I was wasting my life by shrinking myself to fit Cole’s insecurities. She said it to his face once, too. He hated it. The tension afterward was unbearable.
That was the worst time for me while with Cole. The abuse that came quietly, constantly, wrapped in intimidation and humiliation. Emotional and mental. All because I wanted to educate myself.
But I pushed through.
When I filed for divorce, I already had my bachelor’s degree. I was on my way to earning my MBA. I was becoming someone Cole couldn’t cage anymore.
Virginia was proud of me.
After the trust money came—money I never asked for, never expected—I tried to give it back. I told her I couldn’t justify keeping something that belonged to the Allister family.
But Virginia had only looked at me over the rim of her teacup and said, “Then you still don’t understand why I gave it to you.”
At the time, I didn’t.
I thought the trust was about legacy. The Allister name. Bloodlines. Wealth protecting wealth.
But it wasn’t. Not really.
Virginia believed motherhood changed a woman in ways the world refused to respect. She used to say pregnancy was the most vulnerable a woman would ever be—physically, emotionally, financially—and that vulnerability only became more dangerous when the wrong man stood beside her.
She knew because she’d lived it.
Before Cole’s father David was born—before the polished country club marriage and the carefully curated family reputation—Virginia lost two pregnancies. Late enough to dream about the future. Late enough to bury those dreams.
She rarely talked about it directly, but when she did, her voice always changed. Softer. Distant. Like part of her stayed buried with them.
And when she carried a pregnancy to term—her only surviving child David—she clung to motherhood like it was oxygen. David became her entire world.
Sadly, her husband never understood any of it.
Her grief after the miscarriages.
The fear during pregnancy.
Or the postpartum depression that came afterward and hollowed her out piece by piece while everyone expected her to smile through it.
Virginia once told me there’s nothing lonelier than carrying unbearable grief while everyone around you celebrates the life you’ve just brought into the world.
I didn’t fully understand what she meant back then.
Now I do.
She loved being a mother fiercely, almost obsessively, because she knew how fragile it all was. How quickly life could take things away from women while expecting them to survive it gracefully.
That’s why she built the trust the way she did.
It wasn’t for Cole or the Allister name. It was for me. Because she and I lived the same pain.
She didn’t want the money tangled up in marriage or accessible to any man who might one day decide he was entitled to it. She made it ironclad. Untouchable. Mine the moment my little guy was growing inside my fragile body.
Because to Virginia, that was the moment a woman needed protection most. Before abandonment. Before betrayal. Before life could corner her without options.
I still remember the way she explained it to me, like the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Men come and go, darling. But your child will love you in a way the world never will if you raise him with kindness. And knowing my idiot grandson, there’s a decent chance you’ll need something that belongs only to you someday.”
At the time, it seemed harsh. Maybe cruel. Now I understand it was the closest thing Virginia knew to love.
She didn’t believe in rescuing women from bad choices. She believed in making sure they survived them.
And somehow…she knew.
Maybe not the full details. Maybe not the coming divorce or the years of emotional erosion with Cole. But I think some part of her recognized the same loneliness in me that she once carried herself.
So she prepared for the day I might need a way out. And she was right.
After the divorce, I walked away with almost nothing. No real work history. No financial independence. No credit strong enough to stand on my own. I was thirty-one years old, trying to rebuild a life from scraps while pretending I wasn’t terrified every second of it.
I told myself I’d never touch that money. Then survival stopped being theoretical.
Virginia’s trust kept me afloat long enough to finish school. Long enough to breathe without depending on Cole or the Allister’s ever again.
I was lucky.
Most women leave situations like mine with absolutely nothing. No money. No support. No safe place to land. At least I still had people who loved me.
I still visited Virginia after the divorce. Still loved her, and I mourned her intensely when she left this world.
When Virginia passed, the Allister’s made my place in the family abundantly clear.
I wasn’t welcome at the funeral.
At the time, I convinced myself it was grief. Pettiness. Resentment over the divorce. Now I know better.
They didn’t want me standing beside the truth. They didn’t want people seeing who Virginia chose at the very end.
Because despite everything—despite the divorce, despite the family name and even Cole—Virginia chose me.
And if people remembered that, they might start asking why.
I collapse onto the side of the bed as the weight of it all crashes down on me.
Virginia did it to protect me. To make sure I could build a life of my own. One they could never take from me.
And for that kindness, for that love, they decided I was expendable.
I’m mixed with grief and fury.
They tried to kill me—to erase the last gift a dying woman gave out of love.
And as the truth takes root in my bones, I see now that Virginia believed I was worth saving, and I love her more for it.
There was a time when something like this would have hollowed me out from the inside.
I learned early how to keep my reactions contained, how to think clearly while fear rattled through my chest. Abuse teaches you that composure is survival.
That if you stay calm, stay rational, stay agreeable, you might avoid the worst of it.
I matured faster than I should have, burying my emotions beneath control because expressing them never felt safe.
Not anymore.
And now, I get to decide what happens next instead of waiting for it to happen to me.
“What’s next?” I ask, sitting up.
The words come out steadier than I expect. I’m done spiraling. Done reacting. I’m not hiding, not from them, not from myself.
Alex studies me. Measuring. Weighing. I can tell he doesn’t want to answer.
“I’m not going underground,” I add. “I’m not running. I want to help you end this.”
He exhales slowly. “There are only two ways this will go.”
I brace myself.
“Either your hitman lives,” he says, “and whoever sent him knows he failed. They pull back. Hide. Go quiet.” His jaw tightens.
“Or we remove him from the equation and wait. His contract expires. Someone else gets sent, and we use that to trace the source. That’s if I can’t get this guy talking.
But I’m very good at making people talk. ”
The words chill me, but I don’t flinch.
“How would you make him talk?“ I say, tilting my head towards the intruder.
He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is flat. “You won’t like the answer.”
I study his face. The calm. The restraint. The absence of apology.
“Do you hurt good people?” I ask.
“No,” he says quickly. No hesitation.
“And the bad ones?”
His eyes darken, not with rage, but certainty. “I don’t have sympathy for murderers, rapists, or people who hurt children.” He looks directly at me now. “I won’t pretend otherwise. I…enjoy hurting people who deserve it.”
He lets that sit between us, heavy and honest.
“It’s important for you to know who I am,” he continues. “No illusions.”
The room is silent except for my own breathing.
“Good,” I say simply.
His brow furrows. “Good?”
“Especially the ones that hurt children,” I add, without irony. “If I could erase people like that from the world myself, I would.”
The truth of it doesn’t scare me.
Alex watches me carefully, like he’s reassessing a calculation.
“I’m not na?ve,” I say. “I’ve lived with monsters. I know what real evil looks like. And I don’t lose sleep over people like that facing consequences.”
I step closer, not into his space, but into the conversation.
“I don’t need you to be someone who saves me,” I tell him. “I need you to be honest. In every way.”
He nods once with acceptance.
“Then we do this together,” Alex says. “Eyes open.”
“Okay,” I reply.
I watch Alex pull his phone from the dresser—like this is another decision he’s already made.
He doesn’t look at me when he dials.
“Reese,” he says when the call connects. No greeting. No filler. “I have him.”
A pause.
“I need a location. Somewhere contained.” His voice is calm, but there’s steel underneath it.
I lean against the doorway, arms folded tight around myself, listening, watching him shift fully into command. Whatever version of Alex I met at the shop, whatever softness existed over dinner. It all steps aside for this version.
Reese says something I can’t hear.
“Good,” Alex replies. “Send the coordinates.”
Another pause.
“I’ll be ready when they arrive,” Alex says.
He ends the call and turns to me.
“I have a transport team in route,” he says. “Reese has a place mapped out. A van will pull up out front and take him.”
The efficiency of it all makes my stomach roll. The weight of knowing what comes next feels heavy.
I’ve decided to be informed. That doesn’t mean I need to witness everything.
“You have to stay back,” Alex continues, softer now.
I nod.
“I’m not going. I won’t fight you on that,” I say, before he can worry I might argue. “I don’t think I have the stomach for…whatever you’re going to do.”
He studies my face, then nods. “That’s not weakness. That’s knowing your line.”
Relief washes through me.
“I’ll handle this,” he says.
I swallow and glance toward the hallway, toward the man tied to a chair, still trying to wiggle his way free.
“Are you going to kill him?” I ask.
He hesitates, watching me. “Yes,” he replies.
The burden of that knowledge should hollow me out. Instead, I feel nothing. He tried to kill me. Who knows how many innocent people he’s already killed. I meet Alex’s gaze and nod. I have no quarrel with it.
Alex moves back toward the living room, already shifting into action. Already gone somewhere colder and more focused than I can follow. Then he places tape over the hitman’s mouth while we wait.
Twenty minutes later, a van is here along with three other men. The men say nothing as they collect my hitman still tied to my dining chair.
“I’ll return the chair,” Alex says, smirking.
When he passes me, he pauses to stroke my cheek. Grounding, reassuring.
“I’ll be back,” he says.
I nod. Trust comes easier this time because I see him clearly.
Alex kisses the top of my head, then walks out.
I step back into the house and lock the door.