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CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Author: Cherry Writes
last update Last Updated: 2025-09-16 22:35:45

Lucien’s POV

The email came at 2:14 a.m.

SUBJECT: A father should know

BODY: Look more closely at the story you’re selling. The poison wasn’t in her cup—it was in her script. Check the logs. Check the staff. You’ll see who placed the lines before you ever believed them.

No name. No threat. Just a scalpel slicing through the lie.

I stared at the message, jaw grinding, then looked at the photos Security had dumped on my desk: the tea, the trembling hand, Vanessa weeping like a saint for the cameras. The pieces fit too neatly. Too perfectly.

This wasn’t evidence. It was theater.

And I had been cast as the villain.

I closed my eyes and counted to five. In the dark I could see them all:

Vanessa rehearsing a sob before the mirror.

The Senator signing off on a smear that smelled like incense and rot.

A servant moving cups like chess pieces.

And Zara… somewhere in the house, swallowing her fury, pretending not to break because she would rather die than let me see her fall apart.

I opened my e
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  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE

    A MOTHER’S CHOICEZARA’S POVThe clearing felt wrong the moment they stepped into it.Cold.Still.Unwelcoming.Like it already chose who belonged… and who didn’t.Zara’s hand pressed to her stomach as Lucien moved protectively in front of her.The tent flap pushed aside.Her mother stepped out.Alive.Breathing.Real.Zara’s chest tightened. “Mom…”But before she could take a single step—Her mother walked right past her.Straight to Vanessa.“Baby,” she whispered, taking Vanessa’s face gently. “You’re hurt. My God, what did they do to you?”Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears instantly. “I’m fine, Mom… just—just a bullet—”“Shh.” Her mother cupped her cheek. “My strong girl. My brave girl.”She kissed Vanessa’s forehead.Vanessa broke.Zara stood frozen.Her mother hadn’t looked at her.Not once.Not even a glance.Lucien’s jaw tightened beside her.Adrian stepped forward carefully. “We have Zara here too—she needs—”Her mother cut him off sharply.“She can wait.”The words slammed int

  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT

    ZARA’S POVThe smoke rose like a warning.Thin.Straight.Controlled.Not a wildfire.Not a signal for rescue.A message.Zara felt it in her bones long before she understood it.Her mother was there.Waiting.Watching.Pulling strings she didn’t even know existed.Her stomach tightened—not from the pregnancy this time, but from something deeper, older… a fear shaped like abandonment and betrayal.Lucien’s hand pressed against the small of her back.“You good?”“No,” she whispered. “But I’m walking.”Vanessa staggered but nodded toward the smoke. Her face was pale, sweat slicking her forehead, but her jaw was hard.“She’s there,” Vanessa murmured. “She always goes where the danger is lowest… and the damage is highest.”Zara swallowed. “How long have you known she was alive?”Vanessa’s eyes flickered. “Longer than you.”Lucien stiffened at that.Adrian looked between them but said nothing. The woods were too still. Too listening.Every crack of a twig sounded like a trigger.Every gust

  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

    ZARA’S POVThe forest swallowed them whole.Branches snapped under their feet, leaves whispered warnings, the air felt too still—like the world itself was holding its breath, waiting.Zara kept walking.She refused to look weak.Not now.Not with a child inside her and death circling them from every direction.But every step made her chest tighter.Every breath burned.And the forest… the forest felt wrong.“Slow down,” Lucien murmured behind her.“I’m fine.”She wasn’t.Her vision flickered.Her stomach cramped.A cold sweat broke across her neck.Adrian glanced back at Vanessa—still pale, still stitched, walking slowly with one hand pressed to her bandaged side.“We can’t push like this,” Adrian said. “She’s not stable. Neither of them are.”Zara snapped, “I said I’m—”Her knee buckled.Lucien caught her before she hit the ground.“Zara!” His voice sliced through the trees. “Hey—look at me. Stay with me.”Her breathing stuttered. “I—just—need a minute—”“No.” His hand cupped the bac

  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX

    The silence that followed was the kind that could make you confess anything. Maybe it was the close shave of death or the timbre of the night, but the question that had been at the edges of everything they did—what do you have left when everything is taken?—saw fit to become a statement. Lucien’s hands, which had been rigid with the necessities of survival, reached and cupped hers. It was a small, defiant act of tenderness among ruins.“Lucien,” Zara said, breathless with something like courage, “if we don’t make it—”He cut her off with a sharp, rough kiss. It was not gentle. It was not ceremonial. It was the kind of hunger that had been starved for seasons. It was a claim and an apology rolled into a single motion. She answered because there was nowhere else to put the fear. Their mouths were fierce and immediate, each kiss an insurance against the world’s hunger.They moved back into the dark of the ravine like two bodies with a single heartbeat. Clothes were stripped with a clumsy

  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE

    They spent the first hour pretending everything was normal.In the cold light of the safehouse’s single lantern, Lucien straightened a blanket, checked the bolt on the iron door, and moved like a man who wanted the world to know he could make it safe by sheer will. Vanessa lay on the cot, bandaged and pale, staring at the ceiling as if it held answers she’d never been given. Adrian paced with an energy that looked like restlessness and discipline braided together; he refolded the same map for the tenth time, then shoved it into his jacket pocket as if secrecy could be folded into fabric.Zara did not pretend.Her breath came in small, sharp pulls now. The baby pressed against her, a pinch of life that made her stitches of courage unravel whenever it remembered to move. At first it was small, a tremor that made her mouth curve and ache at the same time. Now it was nausea in the morning, dizzy spells by noon, and a weird, constant tiredness that sat under her ribs even when she slept. O

  • Married To A Monster   CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR

    ZARA’S POVThe moment Vanessa collapsed, Zara thought she was dead.One second she was screaming at Adrian, clutching her chest.The next, her knees buckled, her eyes rolled back, and she dropped into the dirt with a sound that didn’t sound human.“Shit—Vanessa!” Adrian caught her before her head hit the ground.Lucien spun around, eyes wide, face draining of color.“No… no, no, stay awake—Vanessa!”There was blood.Everywhere.Warm, dark, pouring through her fingers.“We need a hospital!” Adrian barked.Lucien grabbed him. “No hospitals. They’ll track us in seven minutes.”“Then what—Lucien, she’s dying!”Zara stepped forward, voice steady even though her heart was racing.“I can take it out.”Both men froze.Lucien’s eyes snapped to her. “Zara—this is a bullet wound. Not a scratch.”“I know.”Her voice didn’t shake.Her hands didn’t either.“I grew up around my father’s men. I’ve stitched stab wounds since I was fourteen. I know what to do.”Lucien hesitated only a breath—then nodde

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