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Home / Romance / I AGREED TO MY HUSBAND'S OPEN MARRIAGE RULES / Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

All Chapters of I AGREED TO MY HUSBAND'S OPEN MARRIAGE RULES: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

154 Chapters

CHAPTER 123

MIACHEL'S POVThe phone’s vibration against the mahogany desk wasn’t a sound. It was a tremor. A fault line opening beneath my perfectly ordered world. I glanced at the screen. Stacy. A cold wire of alarm tightened in my chest, sharp and immediate.I answered, my voice already edged with command. “Stacy?”Her words were a frantic, breathless jumble. Millie. School. Matt. The approved list. The code. An emergency.The cold wire turned to ice. Again? My mind flashed to the previous false alarm, the one where Henry had been the surprise pick-up. This had the same frantic shape. A misunderstanding. A system error. But the pitch of her voice—that was different. This was raw terror, not confusion.“Breathe. Slow down.” I forced calm into my tone, even as my other hand was already moving, tapping a silent alert on the secure desktop console. Davis. My security lead. Move. “Where are you exactly?”She told me. Oak Grove Preschool. My jaw clenched. I listened to the story—the man on the list,

CHAPTER 124

Micheal's POVThe silence on the line stretched. Thick. Heavy. I could feel it, the shock radiating through the digital void. He hadn’t expected me to know. He’d thought his little voice modulator and his hired hands made him untouchable. An anonymous bogeyman.He forgot who taught him how to play this game.Then, a sound. A sharp, staticky inhalation. The distortion wavered for a split second, and I heard him. Lionel. His real voice, raw and pissed off before the modulator clicked back on.“You’re bluffing,” the metallic voice snarled, but the rage underneath was pure, undiluted Lionel.“Am I?” My voice was flat. Calm. The kind of calm that comes right before you snap a neck. “Let’s see. The bid acceleration on the Centennial project required board-level access to our internal timelines. The spy in Stacy’s office needed payroll codes only family accounting could provide. And this… this theatrical kidnapping with a separate holding cell? That’s not a crime of passion, cousin. That’s a

CHAPTER 125

STACY'S POVThe first thing I felt was the cold. A sharp, metallic cold circling my wrist. Then the ache—a deep, throbbing pulse in my cheek where his hand had landed. My eyes blinked open, the world swimming into focus.No.I was on a bed. A large, impersonal bed with a dark gray cover. My right arm was stretched out, shackled to the bedframe by a thick, padded cuff. Not rough. Almost professional. Like something from a hospital. Or a very expensive prison.I tried to move my left arm. Free. My legs—both free, but tangled in the covers. I scrambled to sit up, my heart pounding against my ribs.He was there. Sitting in a chair a few feet away, watching me. Matt. His legs were crossed, one ankle over the other. He had that smile on his face—the one I’d seen at breakfasts, at parties, when he knew he’d won something. A smile that didn’t touch his eyes. Those eyes were just… looking. Hungry. Possessive.It’s creepy. It’s so creepy.“Let me go,” I said. My voice was hoarse, dry. It sounde

CHAPTER 126

STACY'S POVThe cold around my wrist was a constant reminder. The ache in my cheek pulsed with every heartbeat. Matt’s words hung in the air like a poisonous cloud. I’m going to sleep with you again.My mind screamed. No. Not again. Never again.He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me on the bed. His eyes were dark, focused. Not on my face. On my body. On the silk blouse tangled against my skin. On my legs, trapped by the covers. He was looking at me like I was a thing. A thing he was about to use.I have to move. I have to do something.My free hand scrabbled across the mattress. The sheets. Nothing. My eyes darted around the room, desperate. The bare walls. The high window. The door. The small table… and on it, a large ceramic vase. Simple, ugly. Probably cheap. But it was heavy. It was there.Matt was leaning in now, one hand reaching for the covers near my thigh. “You’re going to be quiet,” he murmured. “You’re going to be good.”Good. Obedient. The words were triggers. They

CHAPTER 127

STACY'S POVThe shaking wouldn’t stop. It was in my bones, a constant, low hum of terror. Michael’s arms were around me, solid and warm, but the cold from the shackle seemed to have seeped into my blood. I kept seeing it. Matt’s hand reaching for the covers. The look in his eyes.“It’s a joke,” Michael said suddenly, his voice a low rumble against my ear.I blinked, pulling back just enough to see his face. “What?”“What I said. About breaking up.” He tried a smile, but it was tight, strained at the edges. “It was a bad joke. A stupid one. This isn’t the time.”The words didn’t compute. My brain, still fogged with panic, latched onto the wrong part. A joke? He’s joking about leaving me? Now?A sob tore out of me, raw and ugly. “This isn’t funny! None of this is funny! How could you… how could you even think that was a thing to say?” The tears came hot and fast, blurring his face. “Your family just… they attacked us. They took Millie. They hurt her to get to you. And your solution is t

CHAPTER 128

MIACHEL'S POVI watched them from the doorway, my heart a tangled knot of relief and fury. Stacy knelt on the floor, her arms wrapped tight around Millie. Their dark curls mingled. Stacy’s tears soaked into Millie’s hair. My daughter, so small, so brave, patted her mother’s cheek and whispered, “Don’t be sad.”The forgiveness in that simple gesture was a clean, sharp pain in my chest. She shouldn’t have to forgive. She shouldn’t have been put in that position.My phone vibrated silently in my pocket. I pulled it out, my movements slow and deliberate. A message from my assistant, Sandra. Matt is in custody. At the hospital under police guard. Charges filed: kidnapping, assault, attempted rape.I typed back, my fingers cold on the screen. “Good. Ensure the charges stick. No leniency. No deals.”I sent it. The action felt hollow. Legal consequences were a bandage on a wound that needed surgery.My eyes drifted back to Stacy. She was rocking Millie gently, her body shuddering with each so

CHAPTER 129

STACY'S POVI woke to the smell of coffee and the soft murmur of a morning news program. For a second, I just lay there, my body heavy with a deep, foreign sense of rest. The memories of the night before—the shackle, the fight, the terror—were there, but they felt… distant. Wrapped in a thick layer of exhaustion and the solid warmth of Michael beside me for most of the night.I pushed myself up. A dull ache lingered in my wrist, a purple bruise blooming under the skin. My cheek was tender. But I’d slept. Really slept.He stayed. Through all my shaking, my nightmares. He held on.A flush of embarrassed gratitude warmed my neck. I’d been a mess. A sobbing, trembling mess. And he hadn’t flinched.I found them in the kitchen. Millie was at the small table, coloring intently on a placemat. Michael stood at the stove, his back to me, wearing simple gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that stretched across his shoulders. The sight was so normal, so utterly domestic, it made my throat tight.

CHAPTER 130

STACY'S POVThe corridor was sterile white, smelling of antiseptic and quiet dread. Two uniformed police officers stood at the entrance to Room 312, their faces impassive. One nodded at me, recognizing me from the reports. “He’s inside, ma’am. Unconscious. Doctor’s just left.”My heart was a cold, hard stone in my chest. I walked past them, my shoes making soft taps on the linoleum. The door was open.The room was small, dim. A single bed under a window with blinds half-closed. And there he was.Matt.He lay flat, a sheet covering him to his waist. His head was bandaged, white gauze wrapped around his temple where Michael’s kick had sent him crashing into the wardrobe. His eyes were closed. His face, usually so sharp and arrogant, looked slack. Pale. A machine beside the bed beeped softly, tracking his heart rate. A tube ran from his arm to a bag of clear fluid.I stood there, just inside the door, and stared.Is this real? Or is this another act? Another performance?He was a master

CHAPTER 131

CLARA'S POVThe smell of the hospital lingered in my nose—that sterile, dead scent of bleach and despair. I walked fast through the parking garage, my heels clicking a sharp, angry rhythm on the concrete. My head was a mess of buzzing thoughts.He’s arrested. Actually arrested. And in the hospital.Matt. The idiot. Going after Stacy like that, in some crude, brute-force kidnapping. It was so… unrefined. So beneath the subtle games we used to play.I’d gone to the hospital to see. To assess the damage. Not out of concern. Never that. But to gauge the risk. To see if his failure would splash back on me. The police guard at his door told me everything. I couldn’t get close. I’d stood down the hall, pretending to check my phone, and watched a doctor leave his room. The man’s face was grim. That wasn’t good.He’s not in good condition. Serves him right. The thought was bitter. After everything we did together, the elegant manipulations, the careful corruption of that naïve wife of his… for

CHAPTER 132

STACY'S POVThe cold satisfaction was a living thing in my chest, sharp and sweet as a shard of ice. I watched Clara’s slumped form in the chair, her head lolled to the side, dark hair plastered to her pale cheek. The single gardenia lay on the concrete floor where I’d dropped it, a spot of violated purity in the gloom.I don’t want this to stop. I want her to marinate in this fear. To taste it like I did for years.“Again,” I said, my voice flat in the damp air.The man standing in the shadows—Marcus had assigned him, a silent mountain of muscle—stepped forward. He held a plastic bucket. Without a word, he upended it over Clara’s head.A torrent of icy water crashed over her. She jolted awake with a choked scream, her body convulsing against the ropes. She gasped, sputtering, her eyes flying open wide with fresh, disoriented terror.“Welcome back,” I said, taking a slow step closer.She blinked water from her eyes, her gaze scrambling to find me. When it did, the panic deepened. “Sta

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