All Chapters of Dear Ex-husband, I Don't Love You Anymore : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The drive was silent.Mikhail kept his hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, every movement measured. A few bottles of dye had worked, now he was hoping that he could act. The afternoon had settled warm and soft, wrapping the city in a blanket of stillness. Diana sat beside him, her fingers clasped in her lap, staring out the window. He didn’t look at her often, afraid that if he did for too long, she’d see the difference.He wanted to win her trust, because he wanted her to die thinking that Jaylen had tortured and killed her. When they arrived, the safe house stood hidden at the edge of the woods. Its walls were glass and concrete, the kind of place Jaylen might have chosen. It was minimal, warm light spilling from the inside, comfortable but not excessive. She stepped out first, wrapping his jacket around herself as the cold wind brushed against her face. He was the same size as Jaylen but she was shorter, so the jacket was oversized.“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly and he wo

The thought hit me out of nowhere, it was sharp and wild. What if the person downstairs was Jaylen?Without thinking, I rushed to the basement door. Even Mikhail could not stop me from opening it.I yanked the door wide and the rotten air rose up like a wave. The stench burned my nose and my eyes watered. My fingers shook as I grabbed the railing and ran down the winding stairs. The cold dampness clung to my skin and the shadows swallowed everything until I reached the bottom.I froze.There was a man tied to a dentist chair in the corner. His head hung forward, limp, like he had been asleep or unconscious. His shirt was soaked with sweat and blood. His breathing was shallow, barely there. A chain clinked softly as he shifted.I stepped closer and my heart cracked open. It was Nathan.He looked like a ghost. Pale. Hollow. His lips were split and dry. His wrists were rubbed raw against the ropes.He tried to lift his head but only managed an inch. His eyelids fluttered.“Diana?”His vo

“I want a renegotiation.”The words tasted like rust in my mouth.Mikhail stood on the last step, half-shadowed by the dim basement light. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He only looked at me the way a wolf studies a trembling animal that still thinks it has choices.“Alright,” he said. Calm. Flat. Almost too calm. “I am listening.”Nathan’s breathing was ragged beside me, a thick, wet sound like air dragging itself through broken glass. I could barely look at him. His skin had gone pale, lips starting to turn bluish, his head slipping sideways.“Mikhail, please,” I whispered. “He’s getting worse.”But Mikhail didn’t look at Nathan. His eyes were fixed on me, sharp and unblinking, like I was the only living thing in the room.“Speak, Diana.”I swallowed hard. My hands were shaking so badly I had to press them against the concrete floor.“I’ll give you what you want,” I said. “Just… please, don’t let him die.”“Oh?”There was a subtle shift in his tone, something dangerous sliding open i

My chest tightened, but I forced myself to breathe. I forced the tremor to run through me without trying to stop it. I could not afford panic. Not anymore. Not after everything that has happened.My mind kept going back to Nathan. The way his eyes were weak and losing colour, it was as if Neah was staring at me… pleading for me to help her. It was as if I had one more chance at redemption.It was my chance to get rid of the nightmare that had been haunting me for so many weeks now. It would be a way of saving someone when I had the chance to. After all, Nathan was my family. We were divorced but now it didn’t matter.I was guilty, I had brought him here. I needed to survive this and I needed Nathan alive.Mikhail stood near the doorway, silent, watching me as if I was something delicate that he didn’t know how to handle without breaking. Or maybe he thought that I was dangerous.The second thought gave me a kick of confidence.Mikhail’s eyes tracked every step I took into the bedroom

I woke before he did.My mind clawed its way out of sleep the way someone trapped beneath ice reaches upward. Blind, frantic, instinctive. The room was still warm from the night. Too warm. The sheets beside me were slightly indented where his body had been pressed close without touching. My heart thudded hard, thinking he might be awake and watching me already… but then I heard it.The soft, deep, slow breathing of a man asleep.Mikhail was snoring, who could have thought that he was human. I didn’t move for the first few seconds. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was, trying to remember why my body wasn’t screaming. Why I was lying on a bed beside a man who could break me in half with two fingers. Why my chest didn’t feel crushed with terror.Then everything came back at once.Nathan.The deal.The lie I sold him.The soft way he’d told me he needed me close enough to “see.”The absurd warmth of the room.Not safety.A cage wrapped in domesticity.