Chapter 256: Chapter Two Hundred And Fifty Six

Her name on his lips was a soft whisper, a breath of pure relief that brought him back from the peak of his exhaustion. Ryan murmured, "Hmm, it’s me," his voice a low, raspy sound, thick with a sorrow he could no longer contain. He tried to smile, to reassure her, but he knew it was a hollow, broken thing.

Suzy, now fully awake, immediately sensed it. Beneath the weariness, beneath the relief of his safe return, was a current of profound, unshed grief. "What’s wrong, Ryan?" she asked softly, shifting in the bed to face him completely, her hand coming up to rest on his arm. "You’re crying," she said, her voice filled with a gentle concern as her thumb brushed away a single, stray tear that had escaped to trace a path down his streaked cheek. The sight of it, the sign of his inner turmoil, made her own heart ache. "Did something happen out there? Something terrible?"

Ryan looked at her, his strong, handsome face, usually calm and stern, now utterly shattered. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come at first, trapped behind a wall of grief. He took a shaky breath, his gaze dropping to their joined hands on the coverlet.

"Byron is dead," he finally said, the words falling like lead stones into the quiet room. "I... I killed him, Cassandra."

Suzy went very still, her mind reeling in confusion. Byron, dead? At Ryan’s hand? It made no sense. She didn’t speak, didn’t know what to say, so she simply watched him, her expression one of silent support, giving him the space to continue.

"He was the murderer," Ryan continued, his voice cracking, the confession tearing from him in ragged pieces. "The one I’ve been searching for all this time. He killed them all. Evan, Doris, the others... even our father. He was under my nose this whole time, my own brother... and I kept missing it. I kept making excuses, thinking his was by my side all this while... I didn’t know his revenge mattered more to him than me." He let out a dry, humorless laugh that was more like a sob. "I was a fool."

Her heart broke for him. She slid closer, her hands coming up to cup his face, her touch infinitely gentle as she guided his gaze back to hers. "No," she whispered fiercely. "You are not a fool. You are a good man who could not imagine such darkness in your own family." She stroked his cheek, her touch a silent offering of comfort in the face of his immense pain.

He leaned into her touch, his eyes closing for a moment as if her presence was the only thing anchoring him. "His body is at the palace now," he went on, his voice a monotone of grief and exhaustion. "I don’t know what the King will decide to do with it. The shame... it’s too great. I can’t even give him a proper funeral, a burial in the family crypt. He’ll be interred in some unmarked grave or even discard like how the king treats criminals, his name will be blotted out from all records." His voice grew thick with a fresh wave of sorrow.

"The case is officially closed. The King has promised to suppress Byron’s name, to avoid his crimes tainting the Blackwood family legacy, to protect our mother’s memory from his... madness."

Suzy thought of the original Cassandra, the woman whose life had been so brutally cut short by Byron’s deed at the well. She thought of Doris, her friend, who had been a terrified pawn in his cruel game. A quiet, somber sense of justice settled in her heart. "Finally," she thought, her silent tribute to the women who had suffered at his hands, "Doris and Cassandra... you finally have your justice. He can harm no one else."

Ryan’s next words were filled with a desolation so profound it felt like a physical wound in the room. "I don’t have a father anymore," he whispered, his gaze lost, unfocused. "Or a mother. And now... not even a brother. They’re all gone, Cassandra. I’ve lost everyone. I’m... I’m all that is left." The weight of being the last of his line, the sole carrier of his family’s history and its terrible, newly discovered sins, seemed to crush him.

Seeing his utter despair, his profound loneliness, Suzy knew that words were not enough. She leaned forward, bringing his lips to hers, and gave him a soft, lingering kiss. It was not a kiss of passion, but one of deep comfort, a promise that he was not alone, that his pain was her pain.

When she drew back, she took his large, strong hand, the one that had held a pistol just hours before, and gently guided it to her own softly rounded belly. She pressed his palm against the place where their child grew, he felt the little one moving round his touch.

"Not everyone, Ryan," she said, her voice soft but firm, filled with love. "You haven’t lost everyone. You still have us. Me... and this little one. We are your family now. We are right here."

Ryan stared at her, his eyes wide, as if seeing her, seeing their future, for the very first time through the thick fog of his grief. Her words, her touch, the gentle pressure of his hand against the life they had created, seemed to break through his despair. A shuddering sob escaped him, and he lowered his head, pressing a trembling, wet kiss against her belly, against the spot where his hand rested. He stayed there for a long moment, his shoulders shaking with the release of so much pent-up sorrow.

"Thank you, Cassandra," he finally whispered, his voice muffled against her gown, his breath warm. He looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed but now filled with a dawning light, a flicker of hope.

"Thank you for everything. For saving me, for coming into my life." He took a deep, steadying breath, his hand still resting possessively, protectively, on her belly. "I promise you," he said, his voice now clear and strong with a vow, "I promise I will love you, and I will love our child, with every fibre of my being, until my very last breath. I will build a new family with you, a better one. A safe one."

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read