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CHAPTER Eleven

last update Last Updated: 2025-08-04 02:40:41

CLARISSA.

I'd been home for about three weeks, and I still hadn't disclosed the reason for my return, despite my father's coy attempts to get the truth from me. In order to cleanse my memory from the unfortunate incident that had happened, and to keep myself busy, I'd decided to put my free time to good use by rejoining my father's company, where I'd been working before I met and got married to Bruce. It was the perfect distraction for me, as the long hours spent at the office were used to work on numerous documents and to attend different board meetings. I had attended one of these board meetings on this particular day, a few days after I'd resumed duty at the office, and at the end of the meeting, I'd been going through a document on my laptop and scribbling something down in my notepad when I noticed his lingering stare. Every other member of the board had left the conference room, and it was just the two of us left.

“What's up with you, Clarissa?” he'd asked suddenly, startling me
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    CLARISSA.The first breath of open air hit me like a slap, too sharp and too cold after the burning metal stench of the collapsing tunnels. It tasted wrong on my tongue, and it made my lungs ache. I doubled forward, coughing until spots of light burst behind my eyelids. Dust still clung everywhere: in my throat, along my eyelashes, in the cracks of my chapped lips. It felt as though the underground was still inside me, refusing to let go.We stumbled into an open field, or what used to be one. The moonlight showed long patches of dead grass, and the ground cracked from years of neglect. Behind us, the earth trembled again, releasing a groan so deep it vibrated through my ribs. The entire lair was sinking, folding into itself, disappearing like a dying beast trying to swallow its own bones.I blinked through the blur and counted the silhouettes around me. Devan. Freda. Bruce. Marcus, slumped heavily between them. Four. Just four. My chest tightened.I turn

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    BRUCE. My instincts didn’t just rise the moment the ground convulsed under my feet, it detonated. The tremor shot up my legs, rattling through my bones, and before thought could even form, I lunged.Antonio barely had time to turn. I tackled him with the full weight of a man's hours of unresolved fury. We slammed into the metal flooring, dust exploding around us in a choking cloud. The ceiling screamed overhead, sheets of steel peeling away like paper. But I didn’t hear any of it. All I heard was Antonio’s breath hitching beneath me, the small, sharp sounds of a man losing control for the first time.I drove my elbow into Antonio’s ribs, pinning him by sheer force, my teeth gritted so hard that pain shot up my jaw. This wasn't me trying to be strategic; it was something that lived deeper than words, the impulse to end the threat before it could rise again.Antonio writhed, grabbing for leverage, but I slammed him back down, our bodies rolling through debris that cut into my skin.“St

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  • Divorced: Ex-wife Heiress Strikes Back   CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-NINE

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    CLARISSA.I hurried towards Devan first. My knees hit the cracked concrete before I even realized I had fallen. My hands, shaking, filthy, and scraped raw from digging, went straight to his face. Dirt crumbled beneath my palms as I swept it away, revealing bruises, a gash near his brow, and eyes still fogged with the disorientation of someone dragged too close to death.“Hey,” I whispered, my thumb brushing his cheek. “Hey, look at me.”Devan’s breathing came ragged, ripped from deep inside his chest, but he lifted his head anyway. When his gaze met mine, something inside me cinched tight, the way it used to whenever I saw him looking so weak and helpless. His body wavered, sway­ing toward collapse, and I slid an arm around him instantly.He leaned into me, not fully but enough to remind me that we had both stood for each other, even when everything else fell apart.Behind us, Bruce paced like an animal just releas

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