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Chapter_227
The room was chaos. What was meant to be a night of celebration had turned into a nightmare, and Whitney stood frozen in the middle of it all, her mind racing as panic erupted around her. The once joyous atmosphere had dissipated, replaced by urgency and fear. Bryce, his face pale with concern, knelt beside his father, Hunter, who was struggling to breathe, his face ghostly with distress.
“Call an ambulance! Now!” Bryce’s voice trembled with a raw intensity, panic cutting through his usually composed demeanor. His hands, normally so sure and steady, shook as he tried to assess his father’s condition, but the situation was spiraling beyond control.
Whitney’s heart pounded, a cold dread settling in her chest. Her thoughts raced, jumping from one chaotic reality to the next. This wasn’t just a medical emergency—it was everything else too. The accusations. The paternity test. The video. Gunner’s malicious smirk. Everything had come crashing together, a storm that had swept away the fragile semblance of peace she had tried to hold onto.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and for a moment, it wasn’t Bryce, but Gunner, stepping forward like a shadow in the turmoil. His expression was one of twisted satisfaction, the chaos seeming to fuel his delight. Whitney’s stomach twisted, the sense of dread growing deeper.
But then Bryce, ever the protector, turned, his gaze icy and commanding. “Get out, Gunner,” he ordered, his voice low and dangerous, cutting through the confusion like a blade.
Gunner hesitated, the sharpness of Bryce’s fury making him reconsider, though he wasn’t done yet. “But—” he started, his arrogance rising in an attempt to argue, but Bryce’s unwavering glare silenced him in an instant. With a dismissive scoff, Gunner finally turned and left, but not before the damage had been done.
As the noise around her grew, Whitney’s thoughts felt disconnected, as if she were standing on the edge of the world, watching it all unravel. The whispers, the doubts, they were all consuming her. Gunner’s accusations still echoed in her mind, a constant reminder that her life had been flipped upside down in a matter of hours. She could feel the eyes of the room on her—judgment, suspicion, and confusion swirling around her as the weight of everything bore down on her shoulders.
Bryce, doing his best to maintain some semblance of order, barked orders at the staff, guiding the medical team as they rushed Hunter out of the room. He turned back to the guests, his voice firm, commanding attention. “Enough! This isn’t the time for this kind of nonsense,” Bryce said, his authority rising above the chaos. “We’ll sort this out later. Right now, my father needs medical attention.”
But his words barely registered. The murmurs continued, laced with disbelief, and Whitney knew that the media would soon catch wind of it all. Gunner’s accusations, amplified by the flashing cameras, would soon become the next headline, casting doubt on everything she had built.
Bryce turned to Whitney, his eyes filled with a mixture of concern and frustration. “Don’t say anything right now,” he said, his voice a low command. “I’ll handle this. Just stay calm.”
Stay calm? Whitney’s chest tightened, a cold knot of fear gripping her heart. How could she stay calm when everything she had worked for—the trust she’d fought to earn, the future she’d envisioned—was slipping through her fingers? She wanted to explain herself, to fight back against the lies, but her voice felt trapped, the words too tangled in her throat.
The ambulance finally arrived, whisking Hunter away, but the tension lingered in the air. Bryce, his face a mask of determination, turned to lead her out of the ballroom. His grip on her arm was firm, but there was an undercurrent of something else in his touch, something that made Whitney feel both protected and more vulnerable than she had ever felt before.
As they moved through the now-empty hallway, Whitney’s mind swirled with questions, her pulse racing. Could she trust him? Could she trust anyone anymore? Every corner she turned seemed to reveal another layer of doubt, and she felt like she was spiraling out of control.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” she whispered, her voice cracking with the weight of it all.
Bryce stopped abruptly, his face softening for the first time since the chaos began. He cupped her face gently, his thumb brushing across her cheek, his touch tender, almost reassuring. “We’ll fix it together. We have to,” he said, his voice low and sincere.
Whitney nodded, though her heart wasn’t sure what to believe. She wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that they could weather this storm together, but the seed of doubt had already been planted deep within her. She wasn’t just caught in a web of lies; she was trapped in a labyrinth of emotions, each path leading her further from the truth.
The night, once filled with promises of a bright future, now felt like a dark abyss, its edges blurring with every passing moment. Whitney’s heart ached—not just from the crisis unfolding around her, but from the sense of isolation that now gripped her. Could she ever escape the tangled mess of betrayals, accusations, and secrets that had become her reality?
As Bryce led her into the uncertain future, Whitney couldn’t shake the feeling that everything she had once known was slipping away, piece by fragile piece.
