Semua Bab The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back): Bab 201 - Bab 210

HANNAH’S POV:It started as just a silhouette. The line of a shoulder. The way a skirt falls when the fabric has enough body to move with intention. The curve of a neckline I had been thinking about for weeks but had not put on paper yet. My hand moved across the wall and the lines came easily, more easily than I expected, like they had been waiting there inside me all this time and the blank wall was simply the surface they needed.I did not think too hard. I just drew.By the time the team started arriving at nine there were five designs on that wall in pencil. Rough and imperfect and completely full of life.Kate was the first one through the door. She walked in, stopped completely still in the entrance, grabbed Moses's arm beside her without even looking at him, and the two of them just stood there staring at the wall. Then Kate said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "Oh wow."Lily came in behind them and walked straight to the wall without saying a single word, tilting

HANNAH’S POV: "Where did you get this?" Elijah asked, his voice sharpening. "CCTV from the camera above the pharmacy directly across from the building," Lucas said. "I have a contact at the security management company that handles it. I asked him to pull the footage from the night of the fire and he sent me the sections that were relevant." "Lucas," I said slowly. "I know." He took the phone back. "But that is not actually the most important part." He swiped to the next image, which was the same scene but zoomed in with significant effort toward the rear of that parked car. The image was grainy and the digits were not all perfectly sharp but you could make out enough of a number plate to work with. "We have the plate number?" Elijah said. "We have most of it," Lucas said. "My contact is working on cleaning up the image further. We should have the complete plate by tomorrow morning at the latest." The three of us sat with that information for a moment. The car was quiet except f

ELIJAH'S POV.I have never in my life considered myself to be a patient man.I have tried to be. I have worked on it. Hannah would tell you that I have gotten significantly better and she would be right, which honestly still surprises me sometimes. But patience as a natural personality trait has never been something I could honestly claim. When I want to know something, I want to know it now. When there is a problem, I want it handled. When someone comes at what is mine, the part of me that was raised in a boardroom and sharpened by years of watching my father move through the world like a chess player starts calculating before I have even consciously decided to start calculating.So when Lucas sent through the partial plate number the morning after he first showed us the CCTV image, I was on the phone within ten minutes.Hannah had already left for the warehouse. She had kissed me on the cheek at six forty-five in the morning before I was fully awake and said something about the ligh

ELIJAH’S POV: "A connecting service that came in from Frerus," Kojo said. "Landing at ten fifty-eight that morning. Fifty minutes before the car was picked up." I said nothing for a moment. "Elijah," Kojo said carefully. "Is that significant?" "Yes," I said. "It is very significant. Do not share this with anyone else yet. I need to think." "Of course." I hung up and stood in the hallway with the phone in my hand and the sound of the twins still debating pencil case ownership drifting through from the kitchen and all I could think about was one word. Frerus. Hannah had lived in Frerus for seven years. She had built her life there from nothing. She had been pregnant and alone and frightened and she had gone to a city she did not know and she had made something extraordinary out of the worst starting conditions you could give a person. I knew that. I knew the broad shape of those years even if I did not know every detail, because Hannah had told me things over time, quietly, in

ELIJAH’S POV:The question landed differently than I expected. I had been preparing for something easier, a question about whether there was more trouble coming, whether the building fire was going to affect our lives, whether their mother was going to be okay. Those I had answers ready for. But that question, direct and quiet and completely without any kind of judgment in it, caught me off guard in a way that very few things catch me off guard anymore.I looked at him for a moment.Then I said, "Yes. A little bit."Andrew nodded like that was a perfectly reasonable answer. Amelia, beside him, reached over and took her brother's hand without even looking at him, which they did sometimes, this automatic reaching for each other, and every time I saw it I felt something in my chest that I did not have a proper word for."What are you scared of?" Andrew asked.I thought about how to answer that honestly without giving him more than he needed to carry. "I am scared," I said slowly, "becaus