Chapter 8

Josephine pursed her lips and stared at him for a while before seemingly making up her mind.

She let go of his clothes and walked past him down the stairs, moving toward the sofa in the living room. She bent down, opened the drawer under the coffee table, and took out a divorce agreement that had been lying unnoticed inside.

Lewis trailed behind and caught sight of the papers too.

They had been there for a while now, but he never realized it. He had never even opened that drawer.

Suddenly, he looked at Josephine, his eyes filled with bewilderment and confusion.

She glanced back at him seriously, and everything she wanted to say was in her eyes—Let's get a divorce.

All of a sudden, Lewis laughed in anger. "Are you throwing a tantrum?" he asked.

Josephine waved her hand in denial and signed, "I'm not trying to make you angry. I've been meaning to give you this for a long time."

She had wanted to give it to him a long time ago, but she was struggling to muster the courage to bring it up. In that case, why was she doing it now? Was it because she was about to lose her friend, or was it because she had a fever so high that her mind was muddled? She wasn't sure. But when she took it out, she felt a sense of relief. It was like pulling out a thorn that had been stuck in her heart.

"Is it because of Avery that you want to divorce me?" Lewis asked, reconfirming it.

"It's not because of her. It's because I want to divorce you," Josephine expressed, her eyes firm and resolute. She was serious about this.

Lewis stared at her for a long time, then suddenly sat down on the sofa. "We can get a divorce, but you have to leave with nothing. All the money I've spent on you over the years must be returned. Only then will I agree to the divorce."

Josephine ran back upstairs again. The gloominess on Lewis’ face started fading away as he watched her retreating back.

After a while, she came back down and handed a card to him.

Staring at the card, his expression became tense again. He looked at Josephine with intense fury in his eyes.

"What does this mean?" he asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

Josephine placed the card on the table and gestured, "All the money you’ve ever given me is here."

"Did you mishear me? I meant all the money that was spent on you since your childhood until now, not just the money I’ve given you," he said in a low voice full of suppressed anger.

“I can repay it over time,” she responded.

Lewis laughed. "You're a mute. Once you leave this door, you won't be able to survive on your own. How are you going to repay me?"

With an unprecedented look of stubbornness on her face, Josephine took out the divorce agreement and placed it in front of him

"Once we're divorced, you can marry Sierra, and you two can…"

Her hands paused for a moment as if they were frozen, but she still stiffly gestured out the last half of the sentence—"be together forever."

"Enough!" He abruptly grabbed the divorce agreement and threw it at her. The papers were scattered all over the ground, and her hands paused in mid-air.

Lewis stood up and gazed down at her from above. Her fair complexion was marked with several red scratches from paper cuts, which stood out even more vividly against her disheveled hair.

He withdrew his gaze and added with a calmer tone, "When you've paid back the money, we can talk about divorce."

He left her with those words and turned to leave the villa.

Back in the car, he took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep breath. It was only then that the anger in his heart subsided slightly.

That mute woman had her own temper now. How dare she bring up divorce with him? He hadn't even mentioned it yet, and she dared to bring it up first?

Lewis had never been so angry with Josephine before. Perhaps even he himself didn't understand why he was angry.

Josephine stood still in the room, neither crying nor making a scene.

When she heard the car leave, she slowly squatted down and picked up the scattered pages of the divorce agreement.

Why did he change his mind when she had summoned enough courage to let go?

Her head was very dizzy, so she took more fever medicine. But this time, she couldn't fall asleep.

Lewis had left again, and Josephine was alone in the spacious villa.

She curled up on the sofa with no lights on in the villa, lost in thought.

Around ten o'clock, she received a call from Fred Norman.

Fred was Lewis’ good friend and knew that Josephine couldn't speak, so he was concise the moment she picked it up.

"Avery, come to Magic Cube. Lewis is going crazy!"

After saying this, he hung up the phone. Josephine heard some noise on his end, and she also seemed to hear Avery’s voice.

She got up from the sofa, changed her clothes, and went out.