Four Babies and a Billion Dollar Lie のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 60

Pulling outThe night was heavy with silence. The kind of silence that wasn’t peace, but pressure dense, suffocating, waiting for something to crack.Ayisha sat cross legged on the couch, her eyes fixed on Tessa across the room. Tessa had been pacing for the past ten minutes, her fingers running through her hair, her lips moving silently as if repeating words to herself. Her restlessness filled the room like static electricity.Finally, Ayisha spoke. Her tone was calm, but beneath it was steel. “Tessa, sit down.”Tessa froze mid step, her eyes darting to Ayisha’s face. The firmness there made her shoulders sag. With a defeated sigh, she lowered herself into the armchair, curling into herself like a child caught in mischief.Ayisha leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped. “You’ve been avoiding me, avoiding the truth. But I can’t stand by while you walk off a cliff with your eyes wide open. Talk to me. Really talk.”Tessa’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Her voice came out

The Wrong KnockThe house was unusually quiet that evening, the air thick with a kind of nervous anticipation. Tessa had spent the entire afternoon pacing the polished tiles of the grand sitting room, every sound magnified. The tick of the antique clock on the wall, the distant hum of traffic from the boulevard, the occasional clatter of pots from the kitchen where Ayisha was busy.The house itself was no small house. Its wide, glass paneled windows looked out over trimmed hedges and a stone driveway. High ceilings arched above the dining hall, chandeliers glittering like captured starlight. The home was a fortress and yet tonight, Tessa felt exposed, vulnerable. She was about to open the door to Ares himself.When the bell finally rang, her stomach dipped. She froze in the foyer, fingers curling at her sides. For a second, she almost told Ayisha to say they weren’t home. But then she remembered the children—Jamal, Kamal, Beauty, Pretty. Their faces…She had only seen them once, when

The Court of FireThe days that followed blurred into a storm.Tessa’s footsteps carried her back to the one woman she had sworn she would never seek again. It was almost laughable how her promises had dissolved in the acid of desperation. When she first arrived at the mansion gates, the guards looked her up and down with suspicion. But when they carried her name inside, Lady Bianca summoned her at once, like a hunter who already smelled prey.The meeting was not filled with theatrics. Tessa sat stiff in the cold parlor while Lady Bianca poured herself tea, not offering her guest so much as a drop of water.“You came,” Bianca said finally, her voice smooth and dripping with triumph. “I knew you would.”Tessa didn’t flinch. “I need your help. I can’t take it anymore. He’s keeping my children like they’re trophies in a cage. I want them back.”Bianca’s smile was sharp enough to cut glass. “Now that’s the language I understand.”Within hours, the wheels began to turn. Lawyers were calle

FracturesThe morning sun poured across the estate like a spotlight, but inside Ares’s mansion the brightness felt cruel, mocking. His head pounded from the whiskey he had consumed through the night, and his body sagged where he sat in the living room, still in yesterday’s shirt, crumpled and reeking faintly of smoke and despair.The gavel’s echo from court still reverberated in his ears: Custody awarded to Tessa Monroe. Ten years imprisonment for Chloe. The words circled endlessly, grinding into his mind until they bled into the silence of the house.That silence broke with the crisp sound of high heels against marble. Lady Bianca entered without knocking, as though the mansion belonged more to her than to him. Dressed in immaculate cream silk and pearls, her expression was calm, purposeful, as if yesterday’s chaos had been a business deal rather than a family tragedy.“Ares,” she said, her tone clipped but oddly gentle, “you need to stop wallowing. It’s time to move forward.”Ares

Stones and ShadowsThe sky was a pale, washed out blue when Tessa decided she and Ayisha needed to go shopping. She told herself it was necessary—groceries, household supplies, things for the kids’ new rooms. But deep down, she knew it was more than that.She wanted to be seen.For years, she had been painted as the absent mother, the woman who had abandoned her children to Ares and Chloe. Now, she was the one who had fought, clawed, and “won” them back. She believed she deserved acknowledgment. Respect. Even sympathy.But the world was not ready to give her that.The trip started normally enough. The mall’s polished floors gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights, the cool blast of air conditioning carrying the faint scent of expensive perfume and roasted coffee beans. Shoppers buzzed around, carts rolling, children tugging at their mothers’ hands.Ayisha trailed beside Tessa, her expression unreadable, pushing the shopping cart half heartedly. She had been quieter than usual since the