All Chapters of Never Forgive You, My Ex-Husband: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

HANNAHNico had a way of filling a room without even trying. Maybe it was the cologne that clung to him like smoke. Maybe it was the way he carried himself—chin high, shoulders back, as if the world still belonged to him. Or maybe it was just me, still too attuned to his presence, like my body hadn’t learned yet that he was poison.I told myself I was here for evidence, not him. Just evidence. Nothing more.But when he smiled at me across the table of the hotel suite he’d rented for our “talk,” my pulse betrayed me. It remembered the man he used to be, or maybe the man I thought he was. And that was dangerous.“You look good,” Nico said, his voice smooth, almost gentle. “Healthier. Stronger.” His eyes scanned me the way they always did—cataloguing, claiming. “Berlin must have done you some good.”I forced a smile. “I’m not here to talk about Berlin.”“Then what?” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. A gold watch gleamed at his wrist, the same one I gave him for our thi

SYDNEYI’d been patient long enough. Too patient. Watching Nico circle back to Hannah like a moth to flame while Veronica waved it off as nothing but paranoia had me grinding my teeth at night. They both thought they could outmaneuver me—Nico with his arrogance, Hannah with her little “hesitations.” But patience runs out. And mine snapped the moment I saw her slip out of that hotel lobby. Alive. Breathing. Moving like she still had some kind of right to exist in the world we’d built without her.I didn’t go screaming to Veronica right away. No, I let it simmer. I let the images sit in my phone like a loaded gun, every pixel proof that Hannah wasn’t some tragic headline or a ghost from the past. She was here. She was playing her games again. And I’d be damned if I let her win.So, when Veronica brushed me off during breakfast—eyes glazed, muttering that Nico was “just distracted”—I pulled out my phone and slid it across the marble table. No words. Just the photos.Her fingers froze on t

DAVIDThe second I heard she’d been inside that house, I lost it.“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” The words were out before I even thought them. My fist slammed the edge of my desk hard enough to rattle the glass of water sitting there. “Tell me you didn’t actually set foot in that cage.”Hannah stood in front of me, arms crossed like she was bracing for impact. Calm. Too calm. That alone made me angrier.“I told you,” she said, voice maddeningly even. “Dinner. That’s all it was.”“Dinner? With Nico?” My laugh was sharp, ugly. “That’s like saying you went swimming with sharks and only lost a little blood. He locked you in those walls once—what the hell makes you think he won’t do it again?”Her chin lifted, stubborn as ever. “Because I didn’t let him. Because I walked in on my own terms, and I walked out on my own terms.”“You think that matters to him?” I stepped closer, heat burning through me. “To Nico, your ‘terms’ are a joke. You walk in there, you hand him exactly what he wan

HANNAHIn the corridor to Nico’s study, a new keypad glowed. I slowed. Nico didn’t. “Upgraded security,” he said. “Safer.”“For who?”“Us,” he said, like the word ever included me on equal footing.He guided me past the study door. It was closed. The coded click sounded heavier than locks should sound. My skin crawled.“Do I have a code?” I asked.“You don’t need it,” he said easily. “You’ll tell me what you need and I’ll get it.”I filed the sequence of his fingers away anyway, the rhythm of them. I’d felt those rhythms before on doors and not-doors. People repeat patterns. I repeat survival.Before dinner I texted David from the bathroom with the fan on high.Me: In. East wing. New pad on study. Four digits. Pattern 2-2-1-3. DAVID: Got it. Routes mapped. Don’t test it tonight. Me: I’m not touching the snake. DAVID: Two taps if anything shifts. Elise has three exfil options. Don’t be a hero. Me: I’m playing wife, remember? Heroes cry at the end.I put the phone under a towel when

HANNAHI knew it was a test the second Alvarez said, “Ms. Veronica would like to see you in the blue parlor.” Veronica never “liked” to see anyone. She summoned. And she never used the blue parlor unless she wanted the room to help her.The fire was already lit, though the night didn’t need it. Low, expensive flames, the kind that hiss politely and make everything feel controlled. Veronica sat with her back to the window so I’d have to face my own reflection while I talked to her. Pearls. Thin smile. A teacup she had no intention of drinking.“Sit,” she said.I did. Obedience in small things makes people underestimate you in big ones. I folded my hands, tried to look easy even though my stomach had been a fist since I came back into this house.“You’ve adjusted quickly,” she said, stirring nothing. “I’m relieved.”“I said it was a trial,” I answered. “I’m trying.”Her eyes skimmed me like a scan. “Trials strain what is already fragile. And grief is… fragile.”There it was. The pin, sh