The Prisoner Son Returns as the Medical Saint

Chapter 2: Criminal

Edward looked at her for a long moment, his eyes darkening with something she could not quite name.

She really said that. A convicted criminal.

As if she had forgotten who had knelt on the floor three years ago, her and her parents, hands pressed together, voices breaking, begging him to please take the blame for her brother. 

Her brother who had drunkenly run a car into someone and panicked like a coward.

They had begged Edward because they said the family could not survive the scandal. And he had loved her. So he said yes.

He served every single day of that sentence without complaint. And now she stood in front of him in a designer coat and called him a criminal.

He let out a short, dry laugh. "Am I a criminal, Eliza? If I had not taken the blame for your brother that day, would you even have a company to put on the market right now?"

The words landed hard. Eliza's jaw tightened, and for just a second something cracked behind her eyes, a flash of something raw. Then it sealed over again. She smoothed the front of her coat, lifted her chin, and kept her gaze just slightly above his.

"I will compensate you fairly," she replied evenly, her tone the same one she probably used in boardroom negotiations. "Ten million dollars and the villa. That is more than enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life."

Edward stared at her.

Then he laughed again, this time more openly, because the sheer absurdity of it hit him all at once like a cold wave.

The villa. She was offering him the villa as though it were a generous gift. The villa his parents had left him before they died. The one that had been in his name before he ever met Eliza Norton.

"That villa was left to me by my parents," he answered, his voice calm but carrying an edge sharp enough to cut. "It has nothing to do with you. It was already mine long before you came into the picture."

The silence that followed was sharp enough to sting.

Eliza pressed her lips together and looked away, her expression tightening almost imperceptibly.

Cathy, however, was far from finished. She crossed her arms and looked at Edward the way someone looks at something unpleasant they found stuck to the bottom of their shoe. Her lip curled slightly, her eyes dripping with open contempt.

"Do you even hear yourself right now?" Cathy snapped, her voice laced with venom so casual it was almost impressive. "You think you have any ground to stand on? Eliza has real men lining up for her. Successful men. Men with actual futures and actual worth. And you? You walked out of prison with a paper bag and a bad attitude." She tilted her head, eyes sweeping over him slowly and deliberately. "You are garbage, Edward. You are an absolute leech who clung to her name for years and now wants to stand here and act like the victim. It is embarrassing, honestly. You should be ashamed just to breathe the same air."

Her eyes glittered with satisfaction as she continued.

"You know who she is with now? Peter Henderson. Heir to the Henderson family. He has done more for her company in two months than you managed in your entire useless marriage. So please, for everyone's sake, stop humiliating yourself."

Edward turned his gaze slowly to Eliza. She did not flinch, did not deny a single word.

She simply looked at the agreement in Cathy's hands and pushed it forward, her face blank and resolute, already somewhere else in her mind entirely.

"Sign it," Eliza instructed quietly, her eyes finally settling on his with that cold, indifferent steadiness. "This is better for both of us."

Edward looked at her for one long, unhurried moment. He looked at the woman he had once loved enough to trade his entire freedom for.

Her eyes were focused and distant, already calculating the next move, already thinking about press releases and stock prices.

He reached out and took the ten-million-dollar check from the folder.

He tore it cleanly in half.

Then he picked up the pen, pressed it against the bottom of the divorce agreement, and signed his name.