The Heiress Gambit-Chapter 84- Just like old times

PAIGE

Payton swiped at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand, the gesture clumsy and childlike. She took a shaky breath, her eyes wide and a little unfocused, still swimming in the remnants of drugs and pain.

"I had a dream," she started, her voice still that fragile, broken thread.

I just looked at her. "Ok...ay," I said slowly, drawing the word out. I settled back in the chair, preparing to listen. This was it. This was the reason I was here.

She began to talk, and it was a strange, heartbreaking sound. It was half a laugh, a choked, bitter thing, and half a sob that caught in her throat. She was laughing and crying at the same time, seeing the horrible, stupid irony of it all. I just listened. There was nothing else to do.

She tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling tiles as if the answers were written up there. "He was going to shoot him, Paige," she whispered. "Dad. He had the gun pointed right at Denki’s chest. He called him a ’useless adopted rat.’ He was just... so angry. A kind of angry I’ve never seen."

She paused, swallowing hard. "I didn’t think. I just... moved. It wasn’t some big, heroic moment. My body just did it." She let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul. "And I knew, the second I did it, I blew our cover. I knew Barbara would figure it out. I knew he would. But I didn’t care. Because I knew, for sure, he would kill Denki. He would have pulled that trigger and ended him, just like he was throwing out the trash."

The raw honesty in her voice was shocking. This wasn’t the calculated, manipulative Payton I knew. This was someone stripped bare.

I leaned forward again, my voice quiet. "Why, Payton?" I asked. It was the core of it all. "Why save him? After everything. Was there a... reason?"

She finally looked at me, and her eyes were filled with a misery so deep it was almost physical. "Because I love him," she said, the words simple and devastating. "It’s so stupid, right? So cliché. But I do. I really, really do." A fresh tear escaped and traced a path down her temple into her hair. "But he... he made it clear from the start. This thing between us? It was just for fun. No strings attached. Just stress relief." She said the last words with a mocking tone, throwing Denki’s own coldness back at him.

I thought about the way he’d looked in the penthouse. The blood on his shirt. The sheer, animal panic in his eyes. The way he’d begged me to come here for her.

"That’s not what it looked like to me," I said softly. "But what do I know?" I added with a small shrug. I wasn’t going to push. Her feelings were messy and complicated, and they were hers to untangle.

But then her face changed. The sadness was eclipsed by something else—a dawning, horrified disbelief. She looked back at the ceiling, her brow furrowed as if she was trying to solve an impossible math problem.

"I can’t... I can’t believe it," she whispered, her voice trembling with a new kind of shock. "He pointed the gun at me, Paige. After I moved. He aimed it right at my chest." She turned her head on the pillow, and her eyes locked with mine, begging me to understand the enormity of it. "Our father. The man who always told me I was his perfect girl. His irreplaceable heir. He looked at me and saw... nothing. Something disposable. Something that could be... deleted. Just like that."

The truth of it finally, fully broke her. A quiet sob shook her shoulders. She wasn’t just crying because she’d been shot. She was crying because the entire world she had built her life on—the world where she was the cherished favorite—had been a lie. And in that moment, I realized we were finally, truly sisters. Not because of blood, but because we had both been shattered by the same man.

The raw pain in her eyes was a mirror. I’d looked in that same mirror for months after I left. I saw the shattered illusion, the bone-deep betrayal. She was finally seeing the man our father truly was.

"I’ve been there, you know," I said, my voice quiet but clear in the sterile room. "Before you, it was me. Or did you forget?"

She blinked, her teary gaze focusing on me.

"Before I graduated," I continued, the memories like old bruises. "All of their hopes and dreams were pinned on me. I was the perfect heir. Until I said ’no.’" I let the word hang there. "Until I refused to marry a stranger—Denki, who was just a name and a photo to me then. And just like that..." I snapped my fingers, the sound sharp. "I was disposable. Overnight."

Payton wiped at her eyes again, listening. Really listening, for maybe the first time in her life.

"I always knew he was a monster, Payton," I said, not with anger, but with a cold, certain finality. "A power-hungry one. A man who didn’t think twice about disinheriting his own daughter and leaving her with nothing but the clothes on her back. I knew it was only a matter of time before you saw his true colors."

I looked at her, this sister who had basked in the glow I’d left behind. "Even though he didn’t put the same pressure on you, even though he spoiled you... he was still the same man. Underneath it all, he only ever saw money and assets. Not daughters. Not a family."

A choked, wet sound escaped her throat. It was half a sob, half a word. It might have been "sorry." It was a messy, half-hearted attempt at an apology, tangled up in too much pain and history to be fully formed.

I shook my head. "You don’t need to apologize to me," I said, and I meant it. The anger I’d carried for so long felt distant now, like a storm that had finally passed over the horizon. This wasn’t about us anymore. It was about survival. "You need to rest. Denki and Mother will be in to see you soon."

I stood up, the plastic chair scraping softly against the floor. My mission felt complete. I’d seen her. I’d listened. The bridge, while fragile, was there.

I turned to leave, but a weak, desperate hand shot out from the bed and grabbed mine.

I froze, my breath catching in my chest. I looked down at her hand, clutching my fingers. I was shocked. In all our years of fighting, of cold shoulders and heated insults, she had never, ever reached for me like this. Not since we were very small.

My eyes snapped to her face. She couldn’t look at me. She stared at our joined hands, her cheeks flushed with a mixture of shame and need, but she didn’t let go. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

A long, slow sigh left my lips. All the complicated feelings—the resentment, the pity, the strange, protective ache—melted into one simple, clear impulse.

I reached out with my free hand. Gently, I ruffled her hair. It was a gesture from a lifetime ago, from a time before the jealousy and the competition, when she was just my little sister who followed me everywhere.

Her eyes squeezed shut at the touch, and a single, clean tear rolled down her temple.

"You’ll be fine," I whispered, my voice firm but kind. "I’ll see you soon, okay?"

I gave her hand one last, gentle squeeze before I pulled mine away. I didn’t look back as I walked out of the room. I didn’t need to. I could still feel the ghost of her grip on my hand, a silent promise that something between us had finally, truly changed.

The walk back down the hallway felt longer than the walk to Payton’s room. My mind was a swirl of emotions—sadness for the sister I’d just left, a strange, fragile hope, and a deep, bone-tired exhaustion. It was like I’d just run a marathon I didn’t know I was signed up for.

I pushed through the doors to the waiting area. The first thing I saw was Reomen. He was sitting in one of those awful vinyl chairs, but he made it look like a throne.

He was on his phone, his brow furrowed in concentration, probably setting some other corporate empire on fire from a hospital waiting room. But the second I stepped into his line of sight, his head snapped up.

His eyes, dark and intense, scanned my face, reading me in an instant. He stood up, pocketing his phone in one smooth motion. He didn’t say a word. He just opened his arms and wrapped one around my shoulders, pulling me into his side.

The solid warmth of him was an immediate anchor. I leaned into it, letting some of the weight I was carrying transfer to him.

He guided me a few steps away from the others, his voice a low rumble near my ear. "How was it?"

I took a shaky breath, my face half-buried in the soft wool of his coat. "She’s... broken," I whispered. "But she’s clear. She knows what he is now. She saved Denki. Says she loves him." The words came out in a quiet jumble. "He pointed the gun at her, Reomen. After she moved. He really was going to..."

I couldn’t finish the sentence. The horror of it was still too fresh.

He was quiet for a moment, just holding me. Then he asked the question I’d been asking myself. "And how do you feel about all of this? In general."

I gave a weak shrug, my shoulders tight with tension. "I don’t know. Numb? Weird?"

I felt his hand come up and start rubbing slow, firm circles on my back, right between my shoulder blades. It was a simple gesture, but it untied one of the many knots inside me. I took a deeper breath.

"I think," I said, my voice a little stronger, "I just made up with my sister."

Reomen let out a soft, surprised laugh. It wasn’t mocking; it was a sound of pure, genuine reaction. "Is that a good thing?" he asked, his tone gentle, letting me decide.

I thought about Payton’s hand clutching mine. The tears she didn’t try to hide. The way she finally saw the truth. "I think so," I said, realizing I meant it.

He nodded, his chin brushing against my hair. "Then that’s all that matters. If that’s how you feel, I’ll stand by you." He paused, and his voice dropped, becoming more intimate, a vow spoken just for me. "I love you."

The words, so simple and sure, settled the last of the swirling chaos in my heart. "I love you too," I whispered back, the truth of it a solid rock beneath my feet.

He pulled back just enough to look around the room. His gaze landed on my mother, who was sitting alone, looking small and lost. He looked back at me, his expression soft but serious. "I think you should talk to her."

My eyes fluttered closed. A long, weary sigh escaped me. One more. It felt like the last mile of a very long journey. But he was right. It had to be done.

I opened my eyes, gave his hand a final squeeze, and turned. Leaving the safety of his arms, I walked across the quiet room toward the woman who had once traded me for a legacy, and who now had nothing left.