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CHAPTER 5

last update 最終更新日: 2025-08-29 08:06:39

The darkness behind my eyes felt like a terrifying car crash at night. I was in the back of an ambulance, holding Angela’s small, cold hand. Her face was pale, a stark contrast to the dark blood matting her hair.

“Daddy’s coming, baby,” I whispered, my voice cracking with a lie I desperately wanted to believe. “He’s coming. He has the special blood. He’s going to make it all better.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “He promised… he’d read me a story…”

In the nightmare, I could feel the life seeping out of her, a slow, terrible leak. I chafed her hands, pulled my coat tighter around her, trying to keep her warm. “Stay with me, Angela. Stay with Mommy. Please.”

The hospital. The frantic rush. The doctor’s grim face.

“We need to operate now. She’s lost too much blood. We need the transfusion. Where is Mr. Arcony? We’ve paged him six times.”

My own voice, shrill with panic. “He’s not answering! He’s at dinner! Please, you have to find him!”

But he was unreachable. Seated at a candlelit table, laug
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    The name "Esposito" hung in the study like the smell of cordite after a gunshot. It wasn't just a name from a story anymore; it was a living, breathing threat that had just reached out and tapped us on the shoulder from the shadows."Tell Gwen the past isn't finished with her yet."The words echoed in the silent room, a venomous promise. Arthur was still braced against the desk, his knuckles white, his breathing shallow. The awe and conflicted hope he’d felt for Isabella had been utterly obliterated, replaced by a primal, protective fear."Michael!" I barked the name, my voice sharper than I intended.He was in the doorway in an instant, his hand resting on the concealed holster beneath his jacket. He took in the scene—Arthur's ashen face, the cracked phone, my own rigid posture."Mrs. Gonzalez?""We have a situation," I said, the legal strategist in me fully seizing control, shoving the terrified wife into a locked room in the back of my mind. "That was a threat. A direct, credible t

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    Arthur’s hand hung in the space between them, a silent, desperate plea for a connection that was fifty years too late. Isabella looked at it, then back to his face, her expression unchanging. She did not reach out. The moment stretched, taut and excruciating, until Arthur’s hand slowly fell back to the table, the rejection hitting him with a visible, physical weight.“There are practicalities to discuss,” she said, her voice returning to its businesslike calm. She reached into her bag again, and this time, she withdrew a simple, cream-colored business card. She placed it on the table next to the velvet box. “My contact information. I’m staying at The Regency downtown. I’ll give you time to… process.”Process. As if the resurrection of his dead child was a corporate merger.She stood, smoothing her coat. “I know this is a shock. But the past cannot be changed. Only the future can be managed.” Her eyes swept over both of us, finally lingering on me. “I look forward to speaking with you

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    The ringing was an assault. Each shrill tone was a needle piercing the tranquil bubble of our life, injecting a pure, undiluted dread. Arthur’s hand hovered, a tremor running through his fingers. His eyes, wide and clouded with fifty years of grief and confusion, were locked on mine, pleading for an answer I couldn't give."Don't," I repeated, the word a desperate incantation. "It's a phantom, Arthur. A trick. Let it go to voicemail."The rational part of him, the renowned surgeon who had navigated a thousand crises with a steady hand, warred with the ghost-ridden husband, the man who had buried a wife and a child in a single, devastating day. I saw the exact moment the ghost won. A desperate, wild hope, one I hadn't seen since he was a young man, flared in his gaze. He had to know.His hand closed around the receiver. He lifted it, his movements slow, deliberate, as if handling a live explosive."Hello?" His voice was rough, stripped bare.I couldn't hear the voice on the other end,

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  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 59

    The warmth of Arthur’s embrace was a homecoming more profound than any physical return. The tension of the past weeks didn’t vanish, but it softened, absorbed by the simple, solid reality of his arms around me. We didn’t speak of the lockbox again. It had served its destructive purpose and was now relegated to the past, a grim footnote in a story that was finally, blessedly, complete.Life began again, not with a dramatic flourish, but with a deep, settling calm. LJ’s presence at the foundation became a permanent fixture. He didn’t just manage; he innovated, his architectural mind designing a new, open-air studio that brought the ocean breeze and the scent of jasmine into the creative space. He was no longer the heir to a cursed fortune, but a steward of a living, breathing legacy of healing.One evening, he brought a young woman to dinner. Maya was an art therapist with calm eyes and a quick laugh. Watching him with her, so easy and unburdened, was a balm to my soul. The ghosts of hi

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