Page 50 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

“Want some?”

It smelled good. Salty and familiar, making my stomach react before my brain could stop it. If he was eating them, they had to be safe. Didn’t they?

My stomach tightened as I looked at the bag. My mouth had already started watering, but I shook my head. “No.”

Kai stopped chewing and stared at me. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“You know what.” He threw the bag onto the counter with a frustrated sigh. “I know exactly what you’re doing.”

He grabbed a bowl, poured some chips into it, then shoved it toward me. “Look. I’m eating them. They’re safe. They’re not poisoned. Just eat something, for God’s sake.”

I stared at the bowl without touching it. “The chips might not be,” I said quietly. “Maybe the bowl is.”

Kai froze. “What the—are you insane? Why would I poison the bowl?”

“I don’t know.” I looked away, feeling ridiculous even as I said it. “You Chinese people have been poisoning each other for thousands of years. I watched enough historical dramas with my mom. I know how this works.”

He stared at me for a long second. Then he rubbed his forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous. What good would it do me if you were poisoned?”

“I don’t know.”

And that was the truth. I didn’t know anything anymore.

He had drugged me once. Maybe it hadn’t even been his decision, but I had trusted him enough to drink whatever he gave me without questioning it. Now that trust was gone, and I didn’t know how to get it back.

“You drugged me once,” I said. “Who knows what you’d do again?”

His expression changed immediately. “I did that because your brother asked me to,” he said, his voice rising. “I did it to protect you. You ungrateful piece of⁠—”

“Shit, right?” I cut in.

The word landed harder than I expected.

Shit. That was what I was to him now. An ungrateful piece of shit.

Kai stopped as if he had heard the same thing I had. His anger faded almost instantly, replaced by something that looked uncomfortably close to regret.

“…Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean that.”

His voice softened as he looked at me. “I’m just hungry. And you’re not eating. It’s making me nervous.”

“I want to get out of here.”

His expression changed immediately. “You can’t.”

“Make me.”

His jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t leave.”

That was the problem. Shouldn’t. Can’t. Wait. Stay.

Every word sounded like an order, like I didn’t get a choice in what happened to me anymore.

A familiar tightness crawled up my chest as I looked around his penthouse. His people. His plan. His resources. Everything belonged to him, and I had no control over any of it.

I was on my own. No resources. No information. No way to make a move without someone else deciding whether it was safe.