Semua Bab THE DIVORCED WIFE RETURNS TO TAKE BACK WHAT’S HERS : Bab 101 - Bab 110

ELENA I sank onto the couch slowly, like my bones had suddenly forgotten how to hold me upright. The cushions dipped beneath my weight, and I stared at my hands, at the faint tremor in my fingers. I didn’t trust my voice yet. If I spoke too soon, I might scream, or cry, or say something I would never be able to take back.“Explain,” I finally said, lifting my eyes to my mother. Cathy. The woman who raised me. The woman I called Mom. “Start from the beginning.”She hesitated, standing across from me like a defendant waiting for a verdict. Then she sat down opposite me, clasping her hands together so tightly her knuckles turned white.“You were never supposed to find out like this,” she whispered.“Yet here we are,” I replied flatly.She took a breath. A long one. The kind people take before diving underwater.“Before you were even born,” she began, “your biological mother, your real mother fell in love with Arthur Blake.”My chest tightened at the name.“Her parents didn’t approve,” C

DAMIAN I barely slowed down as I turned into Elena’s street, but Angela noticed immediately. “Daddy,” she said from the backseat, her small face pressed to the window, “why are there so many people outside our house?” I followed her gaze. Cameras, microphones, flashing lenses already hungry for a story they didn’t fully understand. Journalists. My jaw tightened. “They’re reporters, sweetheart,” I said carefully. “They like to ask questions.” Her eyes widened, but not with fear, but excitement. “Are we going to be on TV?” I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror and almost smiled. “No,” I said gently. “Not today.” She gasped dramatically. “But reporters make people famous. Like in Princess Poppy Saves the City! Remember? The princess waves and then everyone claps.” I chuckled despite myself. “This isn’t that kind of movie.” She frowned, clearly unconvinced. “Maybe they just don’t know we’re important yet.” God. I reached back and squeezed her hand at a red light.

ELENA I dragged a shaky breath into my lungs and wiped my face with the back of my hand, angry at the tears, angrier that they kept coming anyway.“So what now?” I asked, my voice eerily calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that comes right before something breaks. “What was your brilliant plan this time, Dad?”The word tasted foreign, heavy, and dangerous.Garrick lifted his head slowly, as if any sudden movement might make me shatter. His eyes searched my face, my real face for permission to speak.“I wasn’t planning on coming back the way you think,” he said carefully.I let out a humourless laugh.“Funny, because you’ve already come back once and it nearly got us all killed.”My mother flinched. I crossed my arms, forcing my hands to stop trembling.“There are people out there who still want you,” I continued. “Dangerous people.. hungry people. I can see it written all over this mess. So tell me, are you planning to fake your death again?”Silence. My stomach dropped.I straightened

ELENA If irritation were a currency, I’d have bought the damn building by noon. “Explain it to me again,” I said slowly, fingers pressed flat against the glass desk, my smile tight and dangerous. “Because maybe I missed the part where they get to dictate my company’s future.” The conference room went silent, way too silent for my liking, but this was better than being at home in my family drama... but still. Across the table, Mr. Laurent, third generation French luxury distributor, arrogant haircut, overpriced suit cleared his throat. “As we’ve said,” he began carefully, “Hart Capital Management terminating its European partnership with Blackwood Holdings places us in a… precarious position.” Precarious, he says. I almost laughed. “You mean inconvenient,” I corrected. “Precarious is a cliff edge. This is a speed bump.” He exchanged a glance with his legal advisor. “Our board disagrees,” he said. “Damian Blackwood is deeply embedded in our supply chain, our investments, our—”

DAMIAN Pain has a rhythm. I discovered that somewhere between the third and fourth time they poured water over my face just to wake me up again. The water dripped on my skin, burning through the wounds, but I could only breathe. My wrists were still bound behind the chair, the rope biting into skin already raw. The room smelled like damp concrete and iron, blood, mostly mine. A single bulb swung overhead, slowly, like it enjoyed watching me suffer. They still hadn’t told me where Elena was. When Elena still hadn’t confirmed that she was going to meet them, they got impatient and the man sent his sheeps to get her. That was the point, but they just wanted me conscious enough to think, to imagine, to rot in the uncertainty. I flexed my fingers, ignoring the sharp protest in my shoulders. I’d been trained for this. Not the fear, but the waiting, the psychological warfare, and the kind that crawls into your head and whispers that the people you love are already screaming. The door c