Semua Bab Traded For His First Love : Bab 191 - Bab 200

Jennifer POVThe Goodwin mansion stood like a fortress under London’s dreary sky, its stone walls cold and unyielding, the windows flickering with faint light. My heels clicked sharply on the cobblestone drive, each step a drumbeat of rage and resolve. The tribunal had been my masterpiece—a calculated strike to tear Elliot from Reese—but it had backfired spectacularly. They were married again, their love a sickening beacon, and I was left in the ashes, humiliated. But I wasn’t finished. I had one last card, one final gambit to rip Reese out of Elliot’s life for good. Florence Goodwin, Elliot’s mother, was my key, and with Elliot, Reese, and their bratty kids off in Chicago for Alice Davies’s wedding, she was alone—vulnerable. Perfect. I clutched my purse, nails digging into the leather, and pressed the doorbell, a venomous smile curling my lips. This was my moment.The door creaked open, and there she was—Florence, her silver hair scraped into a severe bun, her navy cardigan buttoned

Elliot POVThe ICU at St. Mary’s Hospital was a sterile cage of white walls and incessant beeping, a place where hope hung by the thread of a monitor’s pulse. I slumped in a plastic chair beside my mother’s bed, my hands clasped tightly, staring at her frail, bruised face. Florence Goodwin, the unyielding matriarch of our family, looked like a ghost of herself, her silver hair tangled, tubes snaking from her arms, a ventilator’s hiss marking each breath. The doctor’s words—coma, severe head injury, critical—looped in my mind, each one a weight on my chest. A fall down the stairs, they said, discovered by the mansion staff the next morning. But the explanation felt hollow, the pieces misaligned. Mom was careful, the mansion her domain. My gut churned with worry, a son’s fear for his mother tangled with guilt for our past—her role in poisoning my first marriage to Reese, her slow atonement since. I rubbed my eyes, exhaustion clawing at me, but leaving her side wasn’t an option.The cl

Reese POVThe Goodwin mansion’s study was a battlefield of shadows, the London night pressing against the heavy curtains, the air thick with tension and the metallic tang of fear. Jennifer stood over me, her gun trained on my head, its cold barrel a constant threat as I knelt by Elliot’s open safe, stuffing cash and jewels into duffel bags. Her manic smile gleamed in the dim light of the desk lamp, her eyes wild with a mix of triumph and rage. Sammy and Avie were asleep down the hall, their innocence a fragile shield against this nightmare, and my heart pounded with the desperate need to keep them safe. The phone on Elliot’s desk had been ringing, its shrill tone cutting through the silence, and Jennifer’s glare sharpened, her voice a venomous hiss. “Don’t even think about answering it, Reese. One move, and you’re dead.”I froze, my hands trembling over a stack of pounds, but my mind raced. That call—likely Elliot, still at the hospital with Florence—was my lifeline. If I could answe

Elliot POVThe roar of the engine filled my ears, a relentless pulse matching the fear coursing through me as I sped through London’s pre-dawn streets. The hospital’s sterile lights faded in the rearview mirror, Mom’s rasping warning—Jennifer pushed me… she’ll kill Reese—a fire in my chest. My hands gripped the wheel, knuckles white, as I wove through the sparse traffic, the city’s sodium-lit blur a backdrop to my singular focus: Reese, Sammy, and Avie, alone in the Goodwin mansion with a woman driven mad by vengeance. I’d called the police from the hospital lot, my voice clipped as I relayed Mom’s accusation and Jennifer’s threat. They’d promised to swarm the estate, but every second stretched taut, the dread for my family a weight I could barely carry.The city gave way to the winding roads near our home, the mansion’s silhouette a dark promise in the distance. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat, but I ignored it, eyes locked on the road. Then, a flash of headlights—a black car

Reese POVThe courtroom air was thick with the hum of anticipation, a sterile scent of polished wood and old paper underscoring the gravity of the moment. I sat in the front row, my hand clasped tightly in Elliot’s, his steady presence a quiet anchor as we faced the woman who had nearly destroyed our family.Jennifer Durham stood in the dock, her once-glamorous blonde hair dulled and limp under the harsh fluorescent lights, her face bare of makeup, the orange prison jumpsuit stripping away her veneer of charm. The sight of her—so diminished, so exposed—was a bitter kind of triumph.Her inner ugliness, the malice that had driven her to attack Florence, invade our home, and threaten Sammy and Avie, now seemed to seep through her skin, plain for all to see. Today, justice would finally claim her, and the weight of that truth settled over me like a long-delayed exhale.Elliot’s thumb brushed over my knuckles, his green eyes fixed on the judge’s bench, but I felt the tension in his grip. On