<h4>Chapter 72: The Truth</h4>


    In the dimly lit sanctuary of Eliana’s bedroom, the space around them felt smaller than ever, the shadows of themplight pooling in the corners like secrets that refused to stay hidden. Eliana Bet stood by the door, her fingers twisting at the hem of her cotton nightshirt as though the fabric could anchor her trembling hands. Her eyes stayed fixed on Rafael, wide and unsteady, a storm of questions shing in them. She thought she had imagined it all—the brush of his lips, the weight of his confession—but now, with him here in the sanctuary of her bedroom, she could barely hold herself upright.


    Rafael sat in his wheelchair just inside the threshold, every sharp line of his face carved in focus, every ounce of his being honed on her. His grey eyes—those eyes she had sworn were blind—seemed to pin her in ce. The air between them grew heavy, so thick with unspoken truth that it felt like she was breathing through water.


    She cleared her throat, the sound small, almost childlike against the thundering silence. "Rafael... what is it you’ve been trying to tell me? You’ve got me tied in knots over here." Her lips quivered around a nervous half-smile. "You said it would change everything. Is it... is it about what you said earlier? About your feelings?"


    Her words slipped out like a fragile offering, and Rafael felt them pierce straight through the armor he had worn his entire life. His heart pounded like a drum in battle, each beat louder, more insistent. For years, he had yed the role the world demanded: the helpless man in the chair, the recluse locked away in shadow, the blind tyrant who let whispers rece truth. He had hidden his sight, hidden his strength, buried every trace of what he was beneathyers of control and deception. And yet, here she was—Eliana, trembling but unyielding, forcing him to consider what it would mean to finally strip himself bare.


    His palms grew damp against the worn leather of the armrests. He inhaled, steady but slow, calling on the cold discipline that had kept him alive when trust was nothing more than a knife at the throat. But this wasn’t a battlefield. This was Eliana. And she was watching him with those eyes that held a fragile kind of faith he wasn’t sure he deserved.


    Then, with a surge of decision, Rafael’s hands shifted from gripping the armrests to bracing against them. Eliana blinked, not understanding—until she saw the movement, saw the tension ripple through his body like a bowstring being drawn back. Her breath caught, frozen in her lungs.


    And then he rose.


    Six feet three inches of solid,manding presence unfolded before her, like a storm breaking free of its shackles. His dark, wavy hair slipped over his forehead as he straightened, shadows dancing across the nes of his face. The crisp white of his shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders, the fabric pulling in protest as though even the clothing couldn’t contain him.


    Eliana gasped, her back pressing instinctively against the door. The man she had pitied, cared for, held in her arms with tenderness she thought he could never return—was now striding toward her with the controlled grace of someone who had never once belonged to a chair.


    Her lips parted, her words lost to the thunder of her heartbeat.


    And Rafael kept walking.


    Each step closed the distance, deliberate, unhurried, as though he was giving her time to breathe—time to understand. But the truth roared louder with every footfall: the man before her was no prisoner.


    "Eliana," he said, his voice low, rough, carrying the weight of a thousand locked doors finally breaking open.


    Eliana’s world lurched violently, as though the floor had been ripped out from beneath her. Her honey-brown eyes flew wide, her lips parting in a gasp that refused to find sound. For weeks she had lived in the certainty of Rafael Vexley’s condition—the chair, the blindness, the careful routines of a man broken by tragedy. That had been the foundation of her very presence in this house: she was here because he needed care, because he couldn’t stand on his own.


    But he was standing now.


    And not just standing—he was walking, striding toward her with a power and steadiness that shook her to her core. His steel-grey eyes, once thought lifeless and unseeing, locked directly onto hers with unnerving rity. They drank her in—every line of her face, every tremor of her lips, every freckle dotting her warm brown skin—as if he had been watching her all along, hidden behind the greatest lie of all.


    Her knees gave out under the crushing weight of realization. She crumpled, her body folding like a marite with its strings severed. The carpet caught her fall, soft but unyielding, the fibers pressing against her palms as her world spun in dizzy disbelief. Her mind rebelled, a chaos of questions battering her thoughts: How? Why? Who is he really?


    "Eliana!" His voice cracked with rm.


    In an instant, Rafael was there, closing the distance with effortless speed. His arms—strong, solid, terrifyingly real—scooped her up as though she weighed nothing. She yelped, a startled sound slipping past her lips as her hands flew to his shoulders, gripping tightly against the swell of muscle beneath his shirt.


    He held her to his chest, bridal style, his embrace both protective and overwhelming. The heat of him seeped through her thin nightshirt, his heartbeat pounding fast and strong against her cheek. The air was thick with his cologne—spiced wood and something darker, sharper—that wrapped around her senses, dizzying her further.


    In three sure strides he carried her to the bed, lowering her onto the plushforter with deliberate care. But his hands lingered, reluctant to let her go, his fingertips grazing her arm as if afraid she might shatter.


    "Eliana," he murmured, kneeling beside the bed, his tall frame folding with unexpected gentleness. His steel-grey eyes searched her face with raw intensity, his voice a low rumble threaded with concern. "Are you hurt? Talk to me—are you alright?"


    She pushed herself up on trembling elbows, her breaths shallow, uneven, each inhale scraping against the tightness in her chest. Her pulse thundered in her ears, loud enough to drown out reason. She could barely form the words, but they spilled out anyway, broken and desperate.


    "Rafael... what—what did I just see? You stood up. You walked. And your eyes..." Her voice wavered, cracking as she searched his face for denial, for some exnation that made sense. "You’re looking at me. You’re really looking at me. You can see me? This whole time—"


    Her voice faltered, caught between disbelief and betrayal, as if saying it out loud made the lie too heavy to bear.


    "How is this possible?" she whispered, her fingers curling into theforter to ground herself, her heart wing against her ribs.


    Rafael hesitated, his jaw clenching as he met her gaze head-on. The vulnerability in his expression was raw, a crack in the armor he had worn for so long. "Yes, Eliana. I can see you. I’ve been able to see you all along. And I can walk. The paralysis... I faked it. All of it."


    Suddenly, it was like her mind reeled, fragments of memory piecing together like a shattered puzzle. Suddenly, like a jolt of electricity surging through her veins, she remembered that night—the drunken haze of vulnerability they had shared a week ago. In the dim light of his bedroom, fueled by too much wine and pent-up emotions, he had confessed it then: his ability to walk, to see. But the alcohol had blurred the edges, burying the truth in the fog of her hangover. Now, it all flooded back—the way he had risen from his chair that night, his eyes clear and intense, his words slurred but sincere. Everything clicked into ce, the lost memory igniting like a spark in dry tinder.


    "But... why?" Eliana stammered, her voice trembling as she sat up fully, pulling her knees to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes, a mix of betrayal and confusion. "Why pretend to be blind and crippled? If you don’t need a caregiver, why am I even here? Why hire me, why put me through all this—the arguments, the closeness, the... the everything? Is this some kind of joke, Rafael? Are youughing at me behind my back, ying games with the poor girl from the wrong side of town?"


    Rafael’s face darkened, shadows tightening the sharp lines of his jaw, but his voice stayed steady—a controlled rumble threaded with urgency. He moved closer, perching on the edge of the bed. The air shifted with his presence; Eliana could feel the heat radiating from him, unsettling in its intimacy.


    "No, Eliana. God, no," he said firmly, his gaze locked on hers. "This isn’t a game. I would never—never—toy with you like that. Everything I’ve hidden... it wasn’t vanity, or cruelty. It was survival. I’ve done what I had to do to stay alive in a world where everyone’s waiting to sink their fangs into weakness."


    His words cut sharp, but his tone held something softer—pleading, almost desperate.


    Eliana’s curls bounced as she shook her head fiercely, her hands flying up, frustration spilling through every gesture. "Survival? Rafael, this doesn’t make any sense! Do you realize what you’re saying?" Her voice trembled, caught between disbelief and fury. "People have talked about you for years—whispers in the halls, gossip in the papers, entire myths built around your ’condition.’ Everyone knew: blind, paralyzed. Tragic, untouchable Rafael Vexley."


    Her breath hitched, anger colliding with hurt. "And all this time—it was a lie? You built an entire life around it, around deception. Why? Why carry on such a performance?"


    Rafael reached for her then, his hand pausing midair, inches from hers. The longing was there, in his eyes, but he pulled back, as if burned by the invisible wall her shock had raised between them. He sped his hands instead, veins taut beneath the skin.


    "You’re right," he admitted quietly, and that quiet almost shook her more than if he had shouted. His eyes softened, storm still swirling, but anchored now with something raw and unguarded. "I was blind. Completely. Since I was nine years old. A car ident took it all—sight, light, color. For years, there was nothing but darkness. Nothing."


    Eliana’s lips parted, her protest dying on her tongue as his words pulled a new thread of truth.


    "But..." His voice lowered, carrying weight, every syble deliberate. "Two years ago, there was a surgery. Risky. Experimental. No promises. No guarantees. I told no one. Not family. Not doctors outside my circle. I couldn’t risk it being used against me if it failed—or even if it seeded. But it worked, Eliana."


    He leaned forward, the intensity in his eyes nearly unbearable. "It gave me back my sight. Piece by piece, day by day. Until I could see again."


    Her chest tightened painfully, air refusing to move.


    "And the paralysis?" she pressed, voice barely above a whisper. "The crash—the story everyone knows..."


    Rafael’s jaw tightened. His eyes flicked down, then back to hers, hard with conviction. "The crash was real. Every headline, every photograph sshed across tabloids—yes, it happened. But paralysis?" He shook his head slowly. "That part was fiction. An illusion I allowed the world to believe. Because a crippled man, a blind man—he’s underestimated. He’s dismissed. He’s pitied. And a man underestimated is a man protected."


    Eliana’s confusion deepened, her brow furrowing as she searched his face for answers. The room felt smaller, the air thicker, charged with the electricity of revtions unspoken. "A surgery? Okay, fine, but even if that’s true, why keep pretending you’re blind? Why add the paralysis on top? What’s the point of all this deception? It doesn’t add up, Rafael. You’re a billionaire, a CEO—powerful, untouchable. Why hide behind disabilities you don’t have?"


    Rafael’s gaze dropped for a moment, his fingers tracing idle patterns on the bedsheet as memories wed at him. When he looked up again, his eyes were haunted, shadows of past betrayals flickering in their depths. "Every decision I’ve ever made about my real and fake disabilities... it all started with my stepmother, Mirabel."


    Eliana blinked, the name hitting her like a cold wave. Mirabel Vexley. The name alone made her pulse falter. She saw her clearly in her mind’s eye—the woman of whispered power, every movement poised, every smileced with poison, a figure who moved through the halls of this estate with elegance sharpened into a weapon. Rafael’s stepmother. Her mother.


    Eliana’s throat tightened. Her lips parted, words tumbling out in a shaky breath. "Your stepmother? What does she have to do with any of this?" Her voice wavered, pleading now, though tinged with fear she couldn’t mask. "Rafael, you’re scaring me. Just—please, exin."


    He leaned closer, the distance between them copsing until his presence filled every inch of her space. His eyes locked onto hers with a raw, piercing intensity that rooted her in ce. For once, there was no mask of cold indifference, no sarcastic armor or detached calction. Just... vulnerability. A rare fracture in the unshakable man she thought she knew.


    His voice dropped low, unsteady in a way that scraped against her chest. "What I’m about to tell you, Eliana—about my life, my choices—it’s something I’ve kept buried deeper than the scars you can’t see. I’ve only ever shared it with two people in this world." He paused, his jaw tight, as though he was fighting himself every step of the way.


    "My brain is screaming at me right now: Don’t trust her. Don’t trust anyone. Keep your walls high and your circle closed. That’s what’s kept me alive. That’s what’s kept me sane." His hand curled into a fist, his knuckles brushing the quilt beside her as though anchoring him.


    "But..." His voice cracked, and he exhaled sharply, fighting through it. "I’m choosing to take a leap of faith with you. To believe, for once, that someone might not use my truth as a weapon against me. I’m praying—God, Eliana, I’m praying—that you’ll prove me wrong about people. That you won’t betray me like the others."


    Eliana’s stomach plummeted, icy dread pooling low and heavy, dragging her down. Her breath stuttered, shallow and frantic, as though the very air had turned against her. Her mother. Her mother. The woman who had abandoned her and her ailing father without a backward nce, who had left Eliana to patch together a life from scraps and shadows. And now Rafael was telling her Mirabel was woven into his lies? Into thisbyrinth of secrets?


    The thought chilled her blood, curling through her veins like frostbite. Her heart hammered, and the room seemed to tilt, the warm glow of themp suddenly harsh, spotlighting truths she wasn’t ready to face. Every corner of the room seemed too sharp, too exposed, as if the walls themselves were leaning in, listening.


    And Eliana wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear it.