Married to The Ice King: Pampered Princess' Survival Guide-Chapter 189: Her Last Moment

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The only sound in the room was the slow, rhythmic tick of the clock on the wall, steady and cruel, like a countdown.

"Dad..." Jasmine’s voice cracked. "You don’t have to do this."

Owen’s finger hovered near the trigger, his expression unreadable. "You should’ve stayed quiet," he said flatly. "You should’ve stayed gone."

"I’m not afraid of you anymore," she whispered. "Not after everything you’ve taken from us."

Something dark flickered in his eyes, rage, maybe, or something colder. The faint tremor in his hand betrayed him, but the gun never wavered.

"I’ve never taken anything from you," Owen said, his voice low and trembling with restrained fury. "You being stupid is what made you lose everything."

Jasmine let out a shaky breath, blood trickling slowly down her temple where the glass had struck earlier. "If that’s what you need to believe to sleep at night," she said, her tone faint but cutting, "then I pity you more than I hate you."

"I don’t really care about your hate, Jasmine... think again..." Owen’s hand was still straight, pointing at her with a gun, "You blamed me about everything, when literally you did it by yourself, you willingly sacrificed for me... and now you came here, provoking me, expecting me to surrender?"

Jasmine’s breathing grew shallow, her chest rising and falling unevenly. "I didn’t come here to make you surrender," she said softly, tears glimmering in her eyes. "I came here to make you face what you’ve done."

Owen scoffed, the sound sharp and bitter. "Face what I’ve done? You think you can lecture me after ruining everything I built?"

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t look away. "You didn’t build anything, Dad. You used us. You used Matthew, me... everyone... just to feed your greed. And look what happened to him."

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Watch your mouth."

"You turned your own son into a puppet," Jasmine pressed on, trembling but relentless. "He lost his mind trying to be the man you wanted him to be. You destroyed him—"

"Shut up!"

Jasmine took a shaky breath, her voice trembling but unyielding. "You think I don’t know what really happened to Matthew? You pushed him until he broke. You made him believe your empire mattered more than his life."

"Stop talking..." Owen’s tone deepened, almost a warning. His finger twitched against the trigger.

But Jasmine didn’t stop. "You destroyed your own son, and now you want to destroy me too... just so you can keep pretending you’re still in control!"

"Enough!" he roared, the word ripping from his throat like thunder. His face flushed with fury, his hand tightening on the gun. "You ungrateful fool! I gave you everything! I made you!"

Jasmine’s tears spilled over, but she stood her ground, voice breaking. "No, Dad..." she whispered, closing her eyes as if ready for whatever consequence would come. "You didn’t make me. You built yourself a mirror... and now you can’t stand what you see."

Owen’s eyes blazed with a mixture of rage and disbelief. The words had struck him deeper than any insult, cutting straight through his carefully constructed pride. His hand shook violently around the gun, the veins in his neck standing out as he took a step closer.

"You..." he hissed, voice raw, "you ungrateful—"

The rage made him pull the trigger and the sound echoed to every corner of the room.

Jasmine’s body jerked, her eyes flying open in shock, but even when the bullet hit her chest in that instant, a small, defiant smirk lingered on her lips. She staggered backward, hitting the edge of the table, the vase tipping over and shattering across the floor.

Owen dropped the gun instantly, his chest heaving, his hands trembling. For a long, suffocating moment, he simply stared at her. The room felt impossibly silent, the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Jasmine slumped to the floor, crimson staining her blouse, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something more.

Jasmine’s lips quivered as the last words barely escaped her throat, faltering mid-sentence. "D-Dad... I—I live str—eam..."

Owen froze, a cold dread creeping through him as he realized what she had almost said. The small, mocking smirk she’d worn even in pain seemed to mock him still, a bitter reminder of the defiance he could never crush.

Her body sagged against the floor, the blood spreading across the polished marble like a dark stain that wouldn’t wash away. The air was thick with the metallic scent of it, mingling with the shattered glass at her feet.

For a long moment, he just sat there, rigid, staring at Jasmine. His mind raced, trying to deny what had happened, to rewrite it in some twisted logic where he was still in control. But the truth was raw, unforgiving, and final. It pressed in on him like a vice.

The gun lay on the floor beside him, heavy and meaningless now. The silence was deafening, broken only by the faint, uneven rasp of Jasmine’s failing breaths.

Owen’s hands shook uncontrollably. "No... no, no, no..." he whispered, his voice cracking. "This... this can’t be..."

His gaze shifted, sharp and frantic, catching the glint of the phone tucked into Jasmine’s front pocket. He grabbed it, and his breath hitched as the screen lit up. The screen filled with the comments flooding in, live reactions to her final moments. A surge of fury overtook him, and he smashed the phone against the floor.

The room fell into a suffocating silence, broken only by the faint clatter of shattered phone and the steady drip of crimson pooling beneath her. Owen’s chest heaved, his wild eyes searched her still form, as if willing her to move and mock him again, to prove this wasn’t real.

Meanwhile, Theo and Daisy, watching the live from their house, froze in shock.

"Mom..." Daisy’s voice trembled, barely a whisper.

Then, as the horrifying truth sank in, her legs gave way. She pushed herself upright, her chest tightening, and a scream tore from her throat, raw, desperate, and filled with disbelief.

"Mom!"