Alle Kapitel von No Second Chances, Ex-husband: Kapitel 191 – Kapitel 200

LAUREN'S POV “I’ve got something,” the head IT guy finally said, breaking through the suffocating silence that had swallowed the entire room. Everyone’s head snapped toward him. For a second, it felt like the air shifted that fragile silence now filled with a sudden jolt of hope and fear. Roman and Tessa rushed to his side, while I remained frozen for a heartbeat before my legs caught up with my pulse. “Talk to me,” the investigator demanded, his voice sharp and controlled. The IT guy’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, his eyes darting across lines of code. “I was able to get a ping of her location from the IP address,” he began, his tone careful, almost hesitant. Then he swallowed hard. “But… there’s a small issue.” My heart clenched. An issue? Those two words hit harder than any punch. My entire body tensed, and the faint hope I’d begun to feel trembled at the edge of collapse. I didn’t want to hear anything that had the word “problem” in it not tonight, not when every second

LAUREN'S POV The ride felt endless. Every second dragged like an eternity as I laid there cramped inside the trunk, counting the rhythmic hums of the tires against the asphalt. My back ached from the hard metal floor, but I didn’t dare move too much. The smallest sound might give me away. All I could do was hold my breath and hope I’d made the right choice sneaking along. Minutes bled into hours. I could feel my anxiety climbing higher with every passing moment, the air inside the trunk growing warmer, thicker like it was closing in on me. My palms were damp, clutching at the side of the trunk for balance each time the car swerved or slowed. I tried to distract myself by focusing on Aria — her laugh, her sweet voice when she’d call me Mommy. I had to hold on to that image. It was the only thing keeping me sane right now. Finally, the car jerked to a stop. My breath caught. The hum of the engine faded into silence. For a moment, everything was still. Then I heard doors opening — one

LAUREN'S POV My eyes snapped up to Sophia’s face. No. Not this time. Not after everything. The memory of Elena’s empty room, the hollow stillness that followed, still haunted me, but it no longer had the power to crush me the way it once did. I cared too much now, too many people depended on me. Tessa believed in me. Roman stood by me. And Aria… Aria’s tiny hands wrapped around my finger in the dark had become the reason I dragged myself up every morning. I would not let that love be wasted tearing me down. “You should have just stayed out of the country,” Sophia spat, the words like acid, “because now that you’ve come back here, I’m going to send you to see Elena one last time forever. And after that, your boyfriend and your daughter will join you.” Her threat should have sent me back into the darkness and should have seeded that old, paralysing grief but instead something else swelled in me: a hard, hot ember of defiance. Tears that had been gathering in the corners of my eyes dr

LAUREN'S POV“Back up has arrived, Ethan. Your wife Sophia has been arrested as we speak, so have all your men. There’s nowhere for you to go, just let her go, man.” The inspector’s voice cut through the backyard like an order. More uniformed officers poured into the yard now, rifles slung, boots thudding against the patio. Heads bent over radios, commands barked and acknowledgments returned. For a breath the scene looked like something from a film precision, authority only it wasn’t a film. It was my daughter's life on the line.Ethan didn’t flinch. He looked almost… relieved, in a way that made bile rise in my throat. “I’ve already made my mind up,” he said calmly, as if reading a prepared speech. “There’s no way I’m escaping this since the moment you guys burst into here. But even if I go to jail, I’ll go knowing the bitch that ruined my life is in pain and sorrow.”“Please, rethink this,” I begged, my voice thin and shaking. “This won’t give you the satisfaction you think it will.

LAUREN'S POV It’s been two days now since Ethan and Sophia got arrested, and everything around me has been completely chaotic, especially the news. I thought I’d had a bit of fame before, that people recognized my name here and there, but now? After what happened two days ago, I’m pretty sure half the city knows who I am. My name, Ethan’s, and Romans were plastered all over every news outlet, TV, blogs, social media, you name it. Everywhere I turned, I saw our faces and heard the reporters talking about the case like it was some movie drama. Today was Ethan and Sophia’s court sitting, and I’d been restless since morning. I wanted to hear their sentences before I went back to my own place. Yes, I was still staying at Roman’s mansion. As much as I wanted to leave, I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling I had ever since that smirk he gave me before the police took him away. That expression, it wasn’t something I could forget easily. It carried a kind of quiet confidence that made me d