Chapter three

Elara’s pov

My hands stilled over the papers as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

DIVORCE SETTLEMENT.

The words blurred at first, then sharpened painfully when I forced my vision to hold. The date sat beneath it like a final insult. Five hours ago.

Five hours was all it had taken for everything I knew to be rewritten into something I could no longer recognize.

“You’ve embarrassed the Wilson family enough,” Nathan said.

His voice was flat, stripped of anything human I could hold onto. Not anger, not hesitation, not even discomfort. Just finality, like I had already been erased and he was only completing the process.

The door behind me opened, and I heard the steady rhythm of heels entering the room. Two pairs, unhurried and deliberate, as if the space belonged to them more than it ever had to me.

Mrs Martha walked in first and stopped beside me without a glance of acknowledgment. Her expression was sharp and openly contemptuous, as though I had always been beneath her tolerance. Vanessa followed her calmly, composed, her presence settling into the room like she had every right to be there.

Nathan did not look at me when he moved.

He opened his arms for Vanessa instead.

She walked into him without hesitation, as though the gesture had been practiced long before I ever stood in this room. His arms closed around her waist, and he held her like she was familiar ground.

Something inside me went painfully still.

“It’s done,” Nathan said.

There was no weight to his words, no emotional struggle behind them. He spoke as though he had finished something routine, something unimportant, something I no longer had a place in.

The silence that followed was heavy enough to press against my chest.

Mrs Martha finally turned her attention to me, her disgust unhidden.

“Are your hands broken?” she snapped. “Sign the papers.”

Her voice faded into the background as my focus locked onto Nathan. I searched his face for something, anything that still resembled the man I had known, even if only faintly.

“Look at me,” I said.

My voice came out softer than I intended, unfamiliar to my own ears, as though it no longer belonged to me.

Silence stretched again.

Vanessa tilted her head slightly, watching me with quiet amusement, while Nathan finally lifted his gaze to mine.

There was nothing there.

No anger. No guilt. No hesitation. Only an emptiness so complete it felt rehearsed.

The realization settled in slowly, heavy and suffocating.

“You planned this,” I said, my voice tightening as the words forced their way out.

Vanessa smiled faintly, as though she had been waiting for me to reach that conclusion.

“You’re just realizing that now?” she said lightly.

Nathan did not respond. He did not defend me, correct her, or acknowledge her at all. He simply stood there in silence, and that silence said everything.

I opened my mouth to speak again, but pain suddenly shot through my arm, sharp enough to cut off my breath. I flinched as Vanessa’s fingers tightened around my skin, pulling me closer with deliberate force.

She leaned in slightly, her voice low but clear.

“I am not going to entertain this,” she said, her tone sharpening. “You have ten minutes. That is all I am giving you.”

Her grip tightened briefly before she released me.

“Gather whatever dignity you have left and leave my house.”

For a moment, I did not understand what she had said.

The words hovered in my mind without meaning, refusing to settle into anything real. Then slowly, the implication landed, and something inside me cracked in silence.

Her house.

A short, broken sound left my throat before I could stop it. My vision blurred, not from weakness, but from the weight of everything collapsing at once. I had endured too much in this place, convinced it was still mine in some way that mattered.

I forced myself to straighten before my knees could betray me.

Vanessa stepped back slightly, watching me with a mixture of shock and satisfaction, as though she had not expected me to stand again.

My hand moved instinctively to my lower abdomen, a protective gesture I did not fully understand yet, but my body refused to ignore.

I lifted my chin and planted my feet firmly against the floor.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

For the first time, something shifted in the room.

Nathan’s expression changed slightly, just enough for me to notice. Vanessa’s composure cracked for a fraction of a second before she recovered.

Then Mrs Martha’s voice cut through everything.

“I have had enough!” she said sharply. “Get her out.”

Two men moved immediately.

Strong hands closed around my arms before I could react properly, pulling me upward and forward. Panic surged through me as I tried to steady myself, but the grip tightened, unrelenting.

I was dragged toward the door as my feet struggled against the floor. The room spun slightly as I tried to regain balance, but I could not match their force.

Outside, the air felt colder than I expected, harsh against my skin as I was pulled down the steps.

Pain flared through my body as I stumbled. My body forced forward without control as I missed a step and slipped out of their hold.

Landing flat on my stomach.