Chapter 61 - The Secret She Hides

Ian's POV The charger was where she said it would be, coiled on the closet floor next to a travel bag with the zip half open. I picked up the charger. The bag's zip caught my eye only because a page had slipped its binding and sat crooked against the lining, and four words showed before I could stop reading them. if you don't remember I stood there with the charger wound twice around my knuckles. Somewhere below, through the floor, I could hear Noah arguing with Emily about whose turn it was to choose the cartoon, and Mrs. Adele's voice smoothing it over without raising itself, the ordinary machinery of a house running despite everything missing from it. I didn't move for what felt like a full minute. I didn't touch the bag. I straightened, left the closet exactly as I'd found it — same angle on the zip, same fold in the strap — and carried the charger downstairs, and my hands did the ordinary thing hands do: plugged it into the socket by her side of the bed, coiled the exce

Chapter 62 - Went Successful

Elara's POV "Seven hours," the surgeon said. "Eight, if the vessel's stickier than the imaging suggests. I won't lie to make the morning easier." "Don't," I said. "I've had enough people manage me gently this month." She nodded once and went through the doors, and the doors swung, and settled, and became simply a wall. Noah sat with his knees drawn up, a puzzle book open and untouched. Emily pressed against my side, her hand closed loosely around two of my fingers. "Is Grandpa Dave going to wake up funny," Noah asked, pencil still. "He might sound strange for a day or two. Tired. Slower than usual." "Okay." He went back to the puzzle, and I watched the pencil not move for a full minute before it finally did. Ian came in an hour later with coffee and two juice boxes produced from somewhere without being asked. Noah took his without looking up. Emily took hers and said, "Thank you, Ian," in the tone she reserved for people she'd decided were permanent. He sat across from me in

Chapter 63 - The Boy

Elara's POV"Where's the boy?"His voice came out cracked, eyes still shut, tubes still taped to the back of one hand."Which boy?" I leaned closer to the bed."The one who keeps stealing my chess pieces. Small. Loud." His eyes opened halfway, unfocused, sliding past me twice before catching. "Grace?"My stomach dropped. "It's Elara.""Elara." He said it like he was testing whether it fit his mouth. Then, sharper, suddenly present: "Where's the boy.""Noah's outside with Mrs. Adele. He's fine. You had surgery, Sullivan. Do you remember the surgery?""I remember a doctor with very cold hands." A pause, his gaze drifting to the IV line, following it up to the bag, down to the vein. "And I remember telling someone I owed them an apology I hadn't finished.""You finished it. In the hospital, before all this. You told me everything.""Did I?" Not a question, exactly — more like a man checking an inventory he couldn't fully see. His hand moved, found mine on the blanket, gripped harder than

Chapter 64 - Guardianship

Ian's POV"You said later. It's later."Elara stood in the doorway of the guest room, arms crossed, Sullivan three days into recovery and finally lucid enough that the house had exhaled for the first time in two weeks. She hadn't come to ask gently."It's paperwork," I said. "Guardianship contingencies. For the children, for SM Group, in case anything happens to you before Claire's found and things are — unsettled.""Show me."I took the folded page from the drawer and held it out, and she crossed the room and took it, and I watched her read it standing up, unwilling to sit for whatever it turned out to be."This names you as interim guardian," she said, flat. "Interim executor of SM Group voting shares. Interim everything, Ian.""Interim. If something happens. That's all it is.""Why would you draft this without asking me.""Because if I asked you, you'd say no on principle before you'd read a word of it, and then something would happen, and Noah and Emily would end up in a courtroom

All Chapters of Ex Husband, Prepare To Burn : Chapter 61 - Chapter 64

Chapter 61 - The Secret She Hides

Chapter 62 - Went Successful

Chapter 63 - The Boy

Chapter 64 - Guardianship