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3| OUT OF PLACE
publish date:
2026-03-25 15:47:34Valerie’s POV
The security guards did not hesitate. Their hands were rough as they grabbed the back of my wheelchair, jerking me around with such force that my neck snapped back. The laughs of the crowd filled the air, clearly thinking I was unstable but the only thing I could desperately wish for was for Cassian to look at me. But he was in the arms of his real wife and I was nothing but his gateway to riches. "Wait! Cassian, look at me!" I screamed, my voice cracking under the weight of the humiliation. “Sorry for the inconveniences.” I heard Cassian say loudly to the crowd as I was being rolled outside. “We will make sure to make the security tighter next time to avoid beggars coming in here unannounced." Oh god. The cameras continued to flash, recording my downfall for the entire city to see. I looked back one last time, hoping for a glimmer of regret, but Cassian only watched me with an expression of pure boredom. He didn’t have a single care for me. The guards shoved me through the doors of the lobby and out onto the concrete sidewalk. I nearly tumbled out of the chair as they let go, the wheels skidding against the pavement roughly as they didn’t care I couldn’t walk. "Stay out, lady," one of the guards spat, pointing a warning finger at me. "Before we call the police to take you to the asylum where you belong." They left and closed the door with a bang but I remained there. I couldn’t move or breathe, I just sat there, shaking in pain as the tears I had been holding finally came loose. As I cried, I heard the door open, followed by heavy footsteps and the click of heels. I already knew who it was before I looked up. Cassian and Lydia walked through the door, looking every bit like the golden couple of the year. Lydia rested her head on Cassian’s shoulder as her cold and malicious gaze swept through me. "Quite the performance, Valerie," Cassian said, his voice dropping the facade of the confused billionaire. He looked down at me with a smirk that made my skin crawl. "I must admit, your timing was impeccable. You chose the one day I was ready to be done with you anyway." "Why?" I choked out, my chest heaving painfully as it felt as though my heart was being trampled on. "I gave you everything, Cassian. My heart, my father's money... I raised your children!" "My children," Lydia interrupted with a sharp laugh. "Did you really think a man like Cassian would want a family with a vegetable? You were a convenient nanny and our gateway to getting rich, Valerie. Nothing more." I whimpered as more tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I had planned to surprise Cassian but I was the one being surprised. Cassian stepped closer, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. "I never loved you. Not for a single second. You were just a means to an end and your father's startup assets were the fuel I needed to build this empire, and I knew exactly how to play the grieving, lonely heiress." Hot tears slid down my cheeks as I listened to his confession. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lit it and took a drag, before blowing the smoke carelessly on my face. I coughed and cried at his mercy. Hell, I didn’t even know he smoked. "It is a pity, really. I wanted to lay my hands on that multi-billion dollar inheritance before I tossed you to the side like the trash that you are. If you hadn't been so slow with the probate, I might have kept the charade up for another month." “What have I ever done to deserve this?” I cried. “Well, let’s just say your father was a hard nut to crack and I really needed someone naive and inexperienced to help my course move faster.” He said, a knowing smirk playing on his lips. It took a moment for the words to register and when they did, I was shaken. "You... you caused the accident," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. If I had been in pain, this was agony. Cassian's smirk only grew wider. "Think whatever helps you sleep at night, Valerie. But do not bother coming back to the penthouse. I have already had the locks changed. Your disgusting clothes and your pathetic things have already been disposed of." "You can't do this! We are married!" I cried in agony, reaching out to grab his sleeve. I desperately hoped he would tell me this was all a prank but the look in his eyes said otherwise. "Are we? You might want to check those papers again, darling. I had the marriage certificate forged years ago. You have no claim to me, no claim to this company or the one you gave me, and certainly no claim to my house." Lydia checked her watch impatiently. "We should go, baby. The press is waiting for the rest of the tour." "Of course, my love," Cassian replied. He looked at me one last time, his eyes devoid of any feelings. "Don't let me see your face again. If you show up at my door or my office, I will make sure the rest of your life is spent in a prison cell." Just then, we got some company and it was the evil twins, Leo and Lexi, who had a striking resemblance with Lydia, their real mother. “What is this filthy woman doing here?” Lexi asked, throwing a disgusted look at me. “She was just about leaving, baby.” Lydia said, ruffling her hair playfully. “Is she finally going away, daddy?” Leo asked Cassian. “Yes, son.” Cassian said, turning his back on me like I didn’t matter anymore. “Let’s get back to the press meeting as one big family.” I could only cry bitterly as they shut the door in my face.
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Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 80| PROJECT WHEELCHAIR
Dante's POVThe file came through at seven in the evening.I had it on the laptop on the kitchen table. Valerie sat beside me and we read it together. Neither of us spoke for the first twelve minutes.Her father had been meticulous.Dates. Names. Transfer records going back twenty-two years. The documentation of money leaving the St Claire estate through management fees that were too large.Investment decisions that moved funds into entities that should not have had access to them, and a paper trail that was layered and careful and had been built specifically to be difficult to follow.But he had followed it."He was thorough," I said."I told you," she said. "He read the full manual.""This took years," I said. "This is not something you build in months. He was watching this for a long time before he started documenting.""He knew something was wrong," she said. "He just needed to be able to prove it."I scrolled further. The middle section was the case file itself. The sequence of t
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 79| SOMEONE BIGGER
Valerie's POVWe did not go inside immediately.We sat in the parked car outside the building, the city went on around us and neither of us reached for the door."He said someone pointed him at your father," Dante said. "Someone with an interest in the estate.""Yes," I said."Is he telling the truth?" he said. "Your honest read."I had been asking myself the same question since I walked out of the supervised room. "He has told me things that turned out to be true," I said. "The gate confession. The visitation room. The open court testimony about the tires. Every time he said something I could not verify immediately, the verification eventually came.""So his track record supports it," Dante said."His track record on the things he eventually confessed to supports it," I said. "But he also has a track record of saying things specifically designed to keep me coming back. The full truth, one more meeting. There is always one more thing.""Both can be true," Dante said."Both are probabl
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 78| ON THE DRIVE BACK
Dante's POVShe was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive.Not the processing quiet. The sitting-with-it quiet. The kind that meant she had taken in more than she could immediately sort and was letting it settle before she touched it.I drove and let her have it."He was not the beginning," she said finally."No," I said."He was the instrument," she said. "Someone pointed him at my father and he went.""That is what he says," I said."Do you believe it?" she said.I thought about it honestly. "I believe it is possible," I said. "Cassian is capable of planning things himself. He proved that for years. But the specific targeting of your father. The timing. The knowledge of what your father was building legally. That level of information about a private individual's legal activities." I paused."That takes access Cassian may not have had on his own.""Someone with access to the estate management structure," she said."Or access to your father's legal communications," I said. "Hi
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 77| THE LAST ROOM
Valerie's POVThe supervised visit room was smaller than the glass room.One table. Two chairs on opposite sides. A guard stationed at the door with the door open. A camera in the upper corner of the wall. Everything recorded, everything visible, nothing hidden.I sat down first.He was brought in two minutes later. He had lost more weight since the open court session. His clothes were the facility's.His hands were folded in front of him when he sat down and he did not immediately speak.I waited."Thank you for coming," he said."I am here because the court ordered the visit," I said. "Say what you have to say."He looked at his hands. "I know why you are here," he said. "I am still grateful.""Cassian," I said. "The note said the full truth. So say it."He looked up at me. "I need you to understand that I did not know the full extent of it until much later," he said. "What I arranged was the accident. The tires, the brake line. That was mine. I have told you that.""Yes," I said."
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 76| THE NOTE
Dante's Pov"The full truth will destroy everything you think you know," she said. "That is the line.""Yes," I said."What does that mean?" she said."It means one of two things," I said. "Either he has something real that genuinely changes the picture. Or he is using the language of something real to get you in a room one more time.""The second option is more likely," she said."Yes," I said. "Statistically. Given his history.""But the first option is possible," she said."Yes," I said. "It is possible."She put the note down on the table. The photograph Marcus had taken of it. The handwriting she had known for years still recognisable even in a photograph of a photograph."He said what I told you in the visitation room was not everything," she said. "He told me he changed the tires himself. He said he needed me to need him. He named Webb.""He named Webb as being present," I said. "But he also said someone helped him. The person who was present and the person who did the work mig
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 75| WHAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWS
Valerie's PovThe forensic consultant's report came through at eleven in the morning.Forty-two pages. I read every one of them. Dante read them beside me without being asked, which was the way things worked between us now.The chain of custody was clean. Every transfer documented. Every signature present. Every timestamp consistent with the sequence of handling.The consultant had gone back to the original investigation archive and traced the tire samples from their initial collection point forward through every stage to the recent lab analysis.No gaps. No anomalies. No indication of interference."It is clean," I said when I finished."Yes," Dante said. He had finished a few minutes before me."Cassian's team is going to challenge it anyway," I said."They have already challenged it," he said. "The planted claim is filed, but the documentation responds to that claim directly. The court will see both.""And decide," I said."Yes," he said. "And the documentation is very strong."I p
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 72| THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT TALK
Dante's PovThe witness's name was Gordon Hale.I pulled everything we had on him in forty minutes. Former early-stage investor in Thorne Industries.In at the ground level when the company was still called Thorne Capital Group and had three employees and an office the size of a large cupboard. He
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 71| THE NAME HE SAID
Valerie's PovWe found a quiet room off the main corridor.Two chairs and a table and a window onto a side courtyard. The kind of room that existed in courthouses because people needed somewhere to sit between things.Marcus was on the phone outside. Our legal team was with the DA's office. Dante a
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 68| BEFORE THE HEARING
Dante's PovThe prosecutor's team sent the hearing documents at seven in the morning.I was already at my desk. I read through the full package while Valerie was on the phone with Marcus in the other room.The hearing was in four days, not the full trial. A preliminary hearing to determine the admi
Making My Ex-Husband Crawl 67| WHAT HE SAID IN THAT ROOM
Valerie's PovWe drove back without speaking. Dante did not push it.He drove and I looked out the window, the city went past and neither of us said anything until we were back at the apartment and sitting at the kitchen table with tea neither of us had asked for that he had made anyway."He said h
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