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Chapter 71: The Silent Treatment
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2026-06-30 18:29:35
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Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 120: Cassandra Byrne
Xena."Your phone's been buzzing for ten minutes," Dante murmured against my hair, his arm still heavy across my waist, neither of us having moved from the couch since sometime after midnight. "I've been ignoring it on your behalf.""You're a terrible influence.""I prefer generous." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder, unhurried, like the world outside the blanket still hadn't fully earned its way back in. "Five more minutes."I gave him three, tucked against his chest with his heartbeat steady under my ear, before the phone buzzed again and I finally reached for it without sitting up. Victor's name on the screen. I felt Dante go still beside me, not tense exactly, just alert, the way he went whenever something threatened to interrupt whatever peace we'd managed to build."It's him," I said."Put him on speaker." Dante shifted so we were both upright, but he kept one hand resting warm against my back, grounding, present. "Whatever he says, you're not hearing it alone."I answered. "It'
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 119: Just This
Xena."Come here," Dante said, and didn't wait for me to answer before he pulled me down onto the couch beside him, my legs over his lap, like he'd been waiting all evening for an excuse."I have four unread messages from Hannah.""They'll still be unread in an hour." He reached for the throw blanket draped over the armrest and pulled it over both of us. Something in my chest loosened at the simple weight of it, his hand settled on my knee like it belonged there. "Put the phone down, Xena."I put the phone down."You've been running on nothing but adrenaline and cold eggs for three days," he said, tucking a strand of hair back from my face with a gentleness that undid something in me faster than any of his arguments ever had. "I'm not letting you do a fourth.""I don't know how to stop. I've forgotten what it feels like.""Then let me remind you." His thumb traced along my jaw, unhurried, like he had nowhere else in the world to be. "Nothing about tonight is a decision you have to ma
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 118: The Second
Xena.Axel was already leaning against his car when we pulled up, arms crossed, watching the entrance to the parking structure like he expected trouble to announce itself before it arrived."You didn't need to come," I said, getting out."I know I didn't need to. Dante asked anyway, and I wasn't doing anything more important than owing him one." He fell into step beside me, scanning the structure out of habit rather than real concern. "You trust this one? Herald?""More than I trust most people who've lied to me for a living.""That's not a high bar.""It's the bar I've got." I found the stairwell Herald had specified in his text — the parking structure adjacent to the West Loop building, third level, away from cameras that answered to anyone but him. He was already there when we came through the door, leaning against a concrete pillar, no suit today, just a dark jacket that made him look less like the man who'd sat across from judges and more like someone who'd finally stopped perfor
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 117: Foster Byrne
Xena."It's not just one wire," Hannah said, over speaker, the file already open on the laptop between me and Dante at the kitchen table. "There are four. All small enough not to trigger anything automatic. All routed through Ashgrove Meridian before they land.""Show me the dates," I said.Hannah walked us through it while Dante scrolled — March 2019, June 2019, October 2019, February 2020. Four payments, six weeks to four months apart, each one landing in an account under a name that traced back, eventually, three shells deep, to Diana."That's not a one-time thing," Dante said quietly. "That's a retainer."A retainer means someone was paying for something ongoing. I made myself keep looking at the screen instead of at either of them, because looking away from it felt like the kind of thing I'd regret later."Who's the source," I said. "Where does Ashgrove Meridian actually originate?""That's the part I didn't want to say over text," Hannah said. "It took Adrian and me four hours
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 116: What The Wire Shows
Xena."You're bleeding," Dante said, before he'd even said hello, before I was fully through the door."I'm not." I looked down at my own hand anyway — nothing there, just the place where I'd been gripping the strap of my bag hard enough to leave a mark that wasn't blood, just pressure. "I'm fine, Dante.""You don't look fine." He was already crossing the kitchen, and when he reached me he didn't pull me into anything dramatic, just put both hands on my shoulders and looked at me, checking for damage he couldn't see from across a room."I'm not hurt. I'm just—" I didn't have the word yet. "Full. Of things I didn't have this morning.""Sit down. Tell me."I sat. He pulled the chair around so he was beside me instead, which told me more about where his head was than anything he could have said."He admitted it outright," I said. "The window, Reeves, all of it. No hedging. I asked him to say it plainly and he did." I watched Dante's jaw work through that and hold. "And then Herald made h
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 115: What Diana Knew
Xena."You're lying," I said, though even as it left my mouth I didn't believe it. Nobody built a lie that specific. Nobody handed you a federal judge's blind spot as an opening move unless they meant it as exactly what he'd called it."I'm not." Victor didn't blink. "Check it yourself if you don't trust me. Cook County property records, 1887, parcel four-one-one through four-one-four. The Osei name is spelled differently — Ossei, one S — but it's the same family. Immigration clerk's error, never corrected. Nobody's looked hard enough to find it because nobody had a reason to.""Except you.""Except me." He said it without pride. "I've had forty years and nothing to do but read old paper."Herald shifted by the door, the first movement he'd made since I sat down. "Tell her about Diana."The room went a degree colder. Victor's hands, which had stayed folded and still through everything else, moved apart on the table."That wasn't part of what we agreed to," he said, and for the first t
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 5: I Had Married A Dead Man
Xena.The ceiling in Dante's room was different from the one in the guest room.I noticed that first, which probably said something about the state of my brain. I stared at it and waited for regret to arrive.It didn't.What arrived instead was a very thorough physical awareness of every decision
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 4: Will You Satisfy Me?
Xena.The night air hit me the moment we stepped outside and I realized it was the first clean breath I'd taken in hours.Dante's car was already waiting. The long black car didn't need a logo to tell one it cost fortunes. A driver stood at the rear door without being summoned and I got in without
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 3: Where Do I Sign?
Xena.I have had some strange experiences in my lifetime.Being born illegitimate into a family that kept me like a footnote. Being sent to a wedding that wasn't mine with twenty minutes of notice. And spending three years married to a man who looked through me at dinner every night.But none of th
Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle Chapter 2: I Have A Deal For You
Xena. Was Hannah drunk?I stood there waiting for the punchline. April Fools was months away but maybe someone had lost track of the calendar. Maybe this was some elaborate Yale family bit that I hadn't been briefed on. Maybe —Adrian crossed the room to stand beside her."It's true." He turned to
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