Too Late, Mr. Cooper: Your Bride Ran with Your Baby novel Chapter 195

Not wanting to see Linton, Liliana locked herself in the upstairs guest room.

Linton didn't dare disturb her. He needed time to think—about the future, about his future with Liliana.

He stood alone on the second-floor balcony, a lit cigarette between his fingers, exhaling a slow stream of smoke that veiled his narrow eyes.

The phone in his pocket buzzed incessantly. Linton scowled, pulling it out. The caller ID made his gaze darken.

“Hello,” he said, his cool voice raspy, thick with a suppressed gloom.

Damian’s indifferent voice came through the line, devoid of any emotion. “Do you really think hiding her abroad is enough to keep her safe?”

Linton let out a cold laugh, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “You dare touch her, and see what happens.”

Damian was deeply disappointed. “It just goes to show, to raise an exceptional son, the mother’s genes are crucial. Your mother’s were inferior. I should have made your mother get rid of you back then.”

Damian’s tone was frigid, the words so callous and cruel he might as well have been speaking to an enemy.

He paused, as if summoning a shred of fatherly duty, and offered a cold suggestion.

“If you like her that much, just tie her up and lock her away,” Damian said, his voice completely heartless. “If she tries to run, break her legs. If she asks for help, get rid of whoever she asks. Make her a pariah, completely dependent on you. Do I really need to teach you something so simple?”

Linton’s eyes flashed with a lethal rage. “You want to be a psychopath, don’t drag me down with you. I’m not as twisted as you are.”

Damian scoffed. “I may be twisted, but are you some kind of saint?”

No one knew a son better than his father. A man who, in just four years, had systematically dismantled the gray-market empire he had built over decades—could such a man be a paragon of virtue?

Liliana had been sheltered her whole life, coddled and protected from that world. Her world was simple and beautiful, and she sought out beautiful things.

She didn’t need cunning or schemes. She could be carefree, do what she loved, love and hate with abandon.

There were things Linton had never dared to tell her.

He had seen too much darkness. He felt tainted.

The old man was right. He wasn’t worthy of such a beautiful girl.

And Damian was right, too.

A man as sullied as him was only fit to watch from the shadows as she smiled and fell into another man’s arms.