Lahat ng Kabanata ng She died a wife, Returned a flame: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

The house was too quiet when I came back to myself. The sound of my own breathing felt loud enough to wake the dead. I sat at the edge of the study chair and stared into nothing, replaying everything like a film that would not stop. Her voice. The way she had looked at me when she said my name. The birthmark, the files, the video, the folders. The proof. The smell of burned wood and the memory of heat that had once been hers and was now mine to carry.How could I have been so blind?I had once been a man who read rooms for a living. I could tell when a partner lied, when a rival blinked too slow, when a board member tried to sell me a half-truth. I had built a career out of noticing the seams. Yet she had stood in front of me under my own roof and wove herself into the house like ivy—and I had let her. I had let a ghost become a presence, and now the ghost spoke like a woman and called me by the name I once dared to hate.My hands shook without permission. I poured another glass of sc

Adrian’s POVI sat in the dim study, the curtains drawn, the room thick with smoke and the bitter scent of whiskey. My fingers trembled as I poured another glass, spilling half of it across the papers littering the desk. Reports, contracts, financial statements,all meaningless now.The screens on my monitors flickered with headlines that made my stomach turn.DRAKE INDUSTRIES UNDER INVESTIGATION.INSIDER EVIDENCE LEAKED.**CEO TIED TO ILLEGAL ORGAN TRADE.Every word stabbed at me. Every flashing line of text felt like her laughter.She had done it. Even locked away, she’d managed to ruin me.I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles white, my reflection staring back at me in the glass of the whiskey bottle,wild eyes, an unshaven face, the image of a man unraveling. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.The house had gone quiet since I’d sent everyone away. The staff, the guards, even the cook,gone. I’d fired them all at dawn, shouting until my throat burned. I couldn’t stand the w

Sebastian’s POVSomething was wrong.I knew it the second the timer on my desk hit midnight and the screen stayed dark.Sheila was never late. Not once in the two months we’d worked under the same unspoken code. Every night she’d send a check-in,encrypted, timed, with a failsafe command that only the two of us understood.Tonight, nothing.The last message I received from her was short, barely a line: *“Uploading final proof tonight. If I don’t respond within six hours,”*The rest of it had cut off.I’d tried the signal tracker three times, pinging her burner’s encryption key through every relay I had. No response. Not even static. Whoever had found her had either destroyed the phone or buried it somewhere far enough underground to make it vanish.The silence pressed into the small apartment like another person sitting in the room.I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my temples, staring at the monitors. Her files were still there,copies of Adrian Drake’s offshore accounts, medical rec

Vanessa’s POVThe mansion was too quiet.Not the kind of quiet that felt peaceful,but the kind that made every heartbeat sound like a confession.Adrian had finally fallen asleep downstairs, or maybe he’d passed out. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The smell of liquor had become part of the air we breathed,thick, stale, suffocating.The baby was asleep in the nursery. The monitor blinked softly, steady and innocent, as if it wasn’t sitting in the middle of a house full of secrets.And me? I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d seen in the basement.Rachel,no, *Sheila.*Her voice, her eyes, the calm fury in her face even as she sat there tied up. It hadn’t been fear I saw in her. It was something else. Something sharper.It had been truth.Now, that truth wouldn’t stop echoing in my head.I paced my room for hours after leaving her there. Every step, every breath felt heavier. I should have told Adrian. Should have run. Should have called someone,anyone. But something inside m

Sheila’s POVI could hear shouting upstairs—Vanessa’s voice cutting through the storm, shrill with panic, followed by Adrian’s deeper roar. Then a crash. Something heavy shattered.Now or never.My wrists burned, but the rope finally gave way after days of grinding it against the metal hook. I slipped free, my fingers trembling as blood returned to my hands. Every sound from above pushed me faster. I didn’t think about pain or fear—just the door, the rain, and the hope of air that didn’t reek of damp and despair.The basement door creaked open. No one came running. I crept up the stairs, my bare feet silent against the wood. The lights flickered, shadows dancing along the walls like ghosts celebrating my rebellion.At the top, chaos had already erupted. The hallway was wrecked—broken glass, overturned furniture, and a trail of blood that led toward the living room. The baby’s cries pierced through the noise, desperate and terrified.Vanessa’s voice broke through next, “You’re insane,