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Chapter 71: Crossing the line
Dernière mise à jour:
2025-04-22 15:44:10
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My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 72: Real love
It was a Tuesday when I realized Daniel hadn’t stopped—he had simply changed tactics.The gifts started small. A bouquet of roses on the hood of my car, no card. A song request on the local radio station—our old song, of course—dedicated to “the one who got away.” A flash drive in the mail containing nothing but footage of us from years ago. Silent videos. Muted laughter. Kisses preserved in pixels like relics from a war only one of us was still fighting.He wanted me to remember, but all he did was remind me why I left.The police were sympathetic, but careful. “Until he breaks the order, we can’t make a move,” they said. But Callum’s friend, Miles, was less restrained.“He’s escalating again,” Miles told me one night over coffee and code. “You’re his fixation. He doesn’t care if he gets caught—he just wants you to see him.”“And if I won’t?” I asked, already knowing.Miles leaned back, lips tight. “Then he’ll try to make you.”—It was the podcast that changed everything.I hadn’t p
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-23My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 73: It was over
We thought it was over.The trial. The sentence. The fire pit where we burned his letter. We thought that would be the end of Daniel's reach—that prison bars could hold obsession the way they hold people.We were wrong.Because Daniel didn’t want me back. Not really. He wanted to destroy the version of me that lived without him.He wanted to ruin what he couldn’t own.He started small again—he always did. A new Instagram profile that followed both me and Callum, no posts, no bio. Just a name I recognized from a story we once told together. A callback, like an inside joke only we would get.I blocked it. Thought that would be the end of it.Then Callum started getting emails.At first, they were harmless. Vague phrases like, “Do you really know who she is?” or “Ask her what she isn’t telling you.”Spam folder stuff. Cowardly.But then came the photos.Old ones of me and Daniel. Ones I never remembered being taken. Private ones. Intimate. A weaponized version of nostalgia designed to tw
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-24My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 74: Richard Rhodes
The sky outside the kitchen window was a dull, overcast gray—clouds sagging like they carried secrets too heavy to keep. I stood by the sink, phone in hand, staring at the message I’d read over and over again.“I need to speak with you. Today. In person. – Richard Rhodes.”The name alone sent a knot curling in my stomach. Richard Rhodes—father of the late Emilia Rhodes, ruthless tycoon of Rhodes Industries, and the man who made sure I lost my job the moment my relationship with Callum went public. He’d always been a shadow in the distance. Now he was calling me into the light.I didn’t tell Mom or Ryan about the message. My mother was folding laundry in the living room, humming an old tune under her breath. My brother Ryan was sprawled on the couch, eyes glued to his phone, earbuds in. Peaceful. Ordinary.I didn’t want to worry them. Not when things were already tight. I’d been unemployed for weeks. The severance package had been insulting, and my name had been quietly dragged through
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-25My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 75: Public scandal
The next morning, I woke to the vibration of my phone against the nightstand. Not a message this time—a call. Unknown number.I hesitated.Then answered.“Hello?”A pause, and then: “You really told him no?”Callum.His voice was rough, low, and there was something brittle beneath it.“You talked to him,” I said.“Of course I did,” he said. “He didn’t mention the twenty million.”“I figured he wouldn’t.”Silence stretched.“He had no right,” I said, voice cracking just a little. “To do what he did. To offer that. To talk about Emilia like she—”“He’s desperate,” Callum cut in. “That’s what this is. A final swing. But it’s not about you or me. It’s about guilt. His, mine…”I closed my eyes. “And hers.”“I loved her, you know,” he said softly. “Just… not the way I should have.”“I know.”“I told her about you. Before we got married. She said she didn’t care. That she’d rather have part of me than none of me at all.”Tears pricked the back of my throat.“She wasn’t wrong,” I whispered. “
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-26My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 76: Report
The police officer stood in the living room, boots leaving wet prints across the hardwood floor, examining the broken glass and the threatening note like it was just another Tuesday.“We’ll file a report,” she said, slipping the evidence into a plastic bag. “But off the record?” She looked between me and Callum. “You should seriously consider leaving town for a bit. Maybe somewhere quiet.”Callum crossed his arms over his chest. “If we run, he wins.”The officer gave a small, tired shrug. “Depends on whether you value pride over breathing easy.”After she left, the house felt different — heavier, smaller. Even with the glass swept up, even with the windows boarded over, the air was poisoned.“Come with me,” Callum said suddenly.I looked up from the couch where I sat, wrapped in a blanket that didn’t quite stop the shivering.“Where?”“Somewhere he can’t touch us. At least for a while.”He was serious. It wasn’t fear in his eyes — it was calculation. A man who knew he was still standi
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-27My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 77: Fallen Titan
The emergency injunction arrived the next morning, delivered by a courier who didn’t bother to hide his discomfort when he handed it over. Will took the thick envelope from him without a word and shut the door firmly.We gathered around the kitchen table, the injunction spread between us like a bomb no one wanted to touch.“They’re accusing you of deliberately leaking confidential information,” Will said grimly, flipping through the dense legal jargon. “And slander, emotional damages, conspiracy—Jesus, they're throwing the whole arsenal at you.”I clenched my fists in my lap. “But we told the truth.”Will met my eyes. “That doesn’t always matter.”Callum leaned forward, his gaze razor-sharp. “How bad is it?”Will hesitated. “Bad. Richard’s aiming to bleed you dry with legal fees alone. Tie you up in court for years if he can’t crush you outright.”I looked at Callum, searching for fear in his expression. I found none. Only a burning, relentless focus.“We expected this,” he said. “Let
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-28My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 78: Injunction
The injunction came faster than we expected.By sunrise, court orders were in motion, and Richard’s lawyers — a small army of them — filed enough paperwork to drown us twice over. They were demanding retractions, apologies, gag orders. They threatened to freeze all of Callum’s remaining assets and sue me personally for “libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”It was brutal. It was overwhelming.And it was exactly what we had planned for."We need to counter," Will said, his voice hard as granite. He tossed a stack of papers onto the kitchen table where Callum and I sat, barely holding it together. "We knew he'd react like this. Now we make sure it buries him."“How?” I asked, my voice hoarse.Will leaned in. "By making sure the truth is bigger than the lie."Callum’s hand found mine under the table, squeezing tightly. I knew what that squeeze meant — Are you ready for this?I squeezed back. Always.We couldn't stay at the cabin anymore. Will said it was too dangerous
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-28My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 79: Fall of a Tycoon
The world was quieter now.Or maybe it just felt that way because the noise inside me — the fear, the anger, the constant thrumming of adrenaline — had finally dulled to a low, steady hum.Richard Rhodes was finished. Officially.The headlines blared it like a victory anthem:FALL OF A TYCOON: RICHARD RHODES INDICTED ON FEDERAL CHARGES.We should have been celebrating.But surviving wasn’t the same as winning.Not when the scars still felt so fresh.Callum and I sat in the tiny apartment we’d rented under fake names, peeling paint on the walls, a view of a crumbling alley below. Nothing like the sleek penthouses or boardrooms we used to know.And yet, somehow, it felt more real than anything that had come before.Will was there too, tapping away at his laptop, coordinating with journalists and watchdog groups to make sure the full truth about Rhodes Industries stayed in the public eye. Even with Richard gone, his cronies were scrambling to cover their tracks, rewriting history while t
Dernière mise à jour : 2025-04-28
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My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 93: Memory
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My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 92: Reclaim
The chopper thumped across the burning skyline like a bleeding heartbeat, rhythmic and urgent. I sat beside Callum, cradling him against my side, his blood soaking through my sleeves. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, and every time his eyes fluttered open, I reminded him, “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”Julian sat across from us, checking a battered tablet that had somehow survived the inferno. The glow on his face was pale and grim.“We didn’t get it all,” he muttered. “Their central servers were offline before we reached the lab. Everything in Callum’s head may be the last uncorrupted copy.”Will glanced over his shoulder from the cockpit, voice tense. “And now they know that. Which means we’ve got a target painted on our backs the size of a continent.”I turned my head, looking back at the black column of smoke curling into the sky. Calidus wouldn’t mourn the loss. They didn’t grieve — they adapted. A fallen lab was just another lesson. A reminder to harden the next one.B
My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 91: The Fire we bring
He looked at me like a dying man trying to remember sunlight.The flickering fluorescent light above cast shadows across his face, deepening the hollow beneath his cheekbones, making the bruises bloom darker on his skin. I reached out, but he flinched.“Callum,” I said again, gentler this time. “I know what they’ve done. I see it. But they don’t get to keep you.”He swallowed, and the sound felt deafening in the silence. “You don’t know what I’ve given them, Athena. What I had to give.”Julian appeared behind me, scanning the room with his weapon drawn, tense and ready. “We need to move. This place won’t stay quiet for long.”I looked back at Callum, still shackled to the cot. “We can’t leave him like this.”“There’s no time,” Will’s voice crackled through my comm. “Guards converging. Eastern hallway. You’ve got five minutes, max.”I turned to Julian. “Cut him loose.”Julian hesitated only a second before crossing the room. “He’ll slow us down.”“Then we’ll move slower,” I snapped.Ca
My Ex, the Widowed Billionaire Chapter 90: He's Alive
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