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CHAPTER 8

Penulis: AMEDRIANNE STORIES
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-15 21:15:05

The name Elara hung in the air around me, a spell that had broken Stella’s smug facade and now seemed to hum with its own power. Elara. It was elegant, unusual. Not a common name. Not like Eva. It was a real clue.

I drove back to my apartment in a daze, the priest’s warning a faint echo in the back of my mind. The past can be a dangerous thing to dig up. But the present was a graveyard, and the future was a war. I needed this weapon.

My apartment felt different. It was no longer just a hiding place. It was a command center. I booted up my laptop, the glow of the screen the only light in the dim room. I typed “Elara” into the search bar, adding “missing person,” “disappeared,” and the name of the city. The results were a scattered mess—mythology, astronomy, a few random social media profiles that led nowhere.

Frustration gnawed at me. Lanc had billions and a team of investigators. I had a laptop and a desperate, bleeding heart.

My phone buzzed, shattering the silence. A number I didn’t
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  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 64

    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

  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 63

    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

  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 62

    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,

  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 61

    The name hung in the air between us, a ghost made sound. Isabella. The world, so solid and peaceful a moment before, tilted on its axis. The gentle lapping of the waves below the deck now sounded like a relentless, mocking tide.“Your… what?” The words were ash in my mouth. My heart was a frantic, trapped bird beating against my ribs. This wasn’t happening. This was a cruel joke, a nightmare clawing its way up from a past we had buried deep.Arthur didn’t move. He just stared at the phone in his hand as if it had transformed into a venomous snake.“Arthur!” My voice was sharper now, frayed with a panic I hadn’t felt in a lifetime. “Talk to me. Who was that?”He blinked, slowly, and his gaze lifted to meet mine. The shock in his eyes was being rapidly replaced by a dawning, sickening horror. “It was a woman. Her voice… she sounded young.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “She said… ‘Tell Arthur Gonzalez that Isabella is calling. His daughter.’”“That’s impossible,” I stated

  • FORSAKEN WIFE, NOW A BILLIONAIRE'S GREATEST REGRET   CHAPTER 60

    The finality was a soft, settled thing, like dust motes dancing in a sunbeam. There were no more deliveries, no more ghosts at the door. The journal from Rosa Esposito was the last page of a long and painful book, and I had gently, firmly, closed the cover. We did not speak of it again. Its truth was absorbed into the tapestry of our lives, a dark thread that, once integrated, no longer stood out but simply contributed to the strength of the whole.Decades, in the end, are made of small moments. They are the scent of Arthur’s coffee every morning for forty years. They are the sound of LJ’s children—our grandchildren—shrieking with laughter as they chased waves on the same stretch of sand where their parents had married. They are the quiet pride of watching the Angela Gonzalez Foundation open its tenth location, a beacon of hope in a city that had once only known our family for its scandals.I grew old. My hands, which had once clutched legal briefs and a cold, hard gun, now grew tende

  • 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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