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last update Veröffentlichungsdatum: 08.06.2026 23:05:05

CHAPTER 27 the gym is gone

Liana’s POV

The USB drive had given me answers.

But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.

I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.

What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do w
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  • One night with my brother inlaw    28

    CHAPTER 27 the gym is gone Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind

  • One night with my brother inlaw     27 the gym is gone

    Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind accessible to anyone who kn

  • One night with my brother inlaw    26 words unsaid

    Liana’s POVThe USB drive sat on my nightstand for two days before I touched it again.Not because I forgot it was there.Because I was afraid of what it contained.Or worse, afraid of what it didn’t.On the third morning I woke up before five, lay in the grey dark staring at it, and decided that fear was a luxury I was done affording.I took my laptop to the bathroom. Locked the door. Sat on the cold tile floor with my back against the tub the same position I had found myself in more times than I could count in this house, the floor being the only place that ever felt honest and pushed the drive in.One folder.Titled with a date from eight months ago.I opened it.It took me a long time to understand what I was reading.Not because the language was complicated, it wasn't. Whoever had compiled this had been thorough and precise. Dates. Names. Transaction records. Correspondence. A paper trail laid out with the patience of someone who had been building toward something specific.I r

  • One night with my brother inlaw    25: staying strong

    Liana’s POVThree days passed.Then four.Then a week.And somewhere in that week I made a decision — not dramatic, not announced, just a quiet internal shift — that I was not going to fall apart over a man who had packed his bags before I woke up.I was not going to be that woman.I had already been too many versions of broken in this house. I was not adding Maxwell Reyes to the list of men who had reduced me.So I got up every morning.I ate.I moved through the house with the practiced composure of someone who had been performing fine for years and could do it for a few more weeks without breaking.I was fine.I was absolutely fine.The visitor arrived on a Tuesday.I heard him before I saw him — a heavy voice in the hallway below, the particular boom of a man who assumed every room wanted to hear him. Matteo’s response was warmer than usual which meant this was someone who mattered in whatever world Matteo actually inhabited.I came downstairs composed. Dressed appropriately. The

  • One night with my brother inlaw    24 His baby 2

    Liana povA baby?A woman in London?Pregnant.I looked at the book in my lap.The words on the page had stopped meaning anything several seconds ago. They were just shapes now. Just marks on paper.Some woman he’s been with.I thought about the night. About his hands and his voice and the way he had looked at me afterward, are you okay, like it mattered. Like I mattered.I thought about something came up on a folded piece of paper.Something came up.A baby came up.A whole woman in London came up.A whole life I knew nothing about came up.I pressed my fingers flat against the page of the book.“Liana.” I looked up.Matteo was watching me with mild irritation. “I said, did he eat before he left? Maria mentioned the kitchen was used late.”I held his gaze.“I don’t know,” I said evenly. “I was asleep.” I knew he was asking silly questions to understand my mood He studied me for a second longer than felt comfortable.Then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Back to his phone.I looked back a

  • One night with my brother inlaw    24: his baby

    Liana’s POVI had forgotten what this felt like.Not the heartbreak, I knew heartbreak. Matteo had introduced me to that in the first year of our marriage and refined it steadily ever since. I knew heartbreak the way you know a recurring illness, its patterns, its duration, how long before it became manageable again.This was different.This was the specific pain of someone who had been starving for a long time, who had finally been handed something real and warm and nourishing, and then had it taken back before they had finished.That kind of hunger doesn’t return to where it was before.It returns worse.Because now it knows what it’s missing.I moved through the morning like a woman underwater. Slow. Muffled. The edges of everything are slightly blurred. Maria brought breakfast and I sat in front of it and ate some of it because my body required it, not because I tasted anything.I kept thinking about small things.Not the night, I couldn’t think about the night yet. That was st

  • One night with my brother inlaw    012: always coming to my rescue

    Liana povAt first, I didn’t answer.I wasn’t ready for anyone to see me like this—blood on the floor, my body trembling, my mind spiraling between too many things I couldn’t name. Was I In paIn? Was I heartbroken? Was I still burning with the shameful desIre that had haunted me in the garden?I di

  • One night with my brother inlaw    011: lost in my list

    Liana POV Warm fingers slid Into my haIr, pulling It gently to the sIde. The touch was smooth, deliberate—too familiar. My breath caught before I even turned. I already knew who it was. HIs hand trailed downward, slipping over my shoulder, brushIng along the edge of my top. The thin fabric dipp

  • One night with my brother inlaw    010: seeing her fears

    Maxwell povAm beIng careless agaIn. I dIdn’t mean to talk to her so rude, It just slipped out. Truth is, I wasn’t expectIng to see her so soon, not here, not like this.While I was outsIde wIth Matteo, I’d mIstakenly spilled my drInk on myself. Embarrassing enough, but worse, It left me stIcky and

  • One night with my brother inlaw    009: the weight of silence

    “Madam, It’s Steph.”The voIce was muffled through the door at fIrst, soft but persIstent.“Please… should we go on preparIng the food, or… or can you do it yourself?”I blinked rapidly, draggIng myself out of the fog of my own thoughts. Steph. My maId. She and Maria are The only familiar, steady p

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