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Home / Romance / After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back / Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

All Chapters of After the Divorce, My Ex Husband Came Crawling Back: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

116 Chapters

21

*ARIANA*Durrell standing in my office doorway at nine thirty at night felt like a complication I did not need.“I didn’t schedule you,” I said.“I know.”He walks in after firmly closing the door behind him without asking, not aggressively but with quiet, deliberate intention.I leaned back in my chair. “This better not be about Maxwell.”“It’s not.”“Good, because I’m tired.”“You look it.”I didn’t answer. My desk was buried in Blackbridge reports. Frozen accounts. Contract reversals. Legal notices drafted and redrafted until every word could survive a courtroom.Durrell’s eyes scanned the stacks. “You’re pushing yourself.”“There’s nothing to ease into.”Silence pressed between us.“There’s something I’d like us to discuss,” he said.“I don’t like that sentence.”“The Lakebridge logistics, Blackbridge expansion, and your father’s compliance review, they all intersect.”My stomach dipped. Literally. I opened my drawer, took out my medication, and swallowed it dry. The same pills I’

22

*SELENE*The call came from my father early in the morning."We need to talk. Come home today." He said in a tone that said it was not a request, and hung up without waiting for a response from me. His usual way of forcing his decisions on me, whether I liked it or not.I sat up slowly, dread settling in my stomach.The drive back home took forty minutes. My mother was at the kitchen table, and my father was standing by the window, with neither smiling."Sit."I sat.He placed a folder on the table."Open it."Bank statements. Loan documents. Foreclosure notices.My hands went cold. "What is this?""This is what happens when you fail."I looked up. "What are you talking about?""Maxwell Cox." My mother's voice was quiet. "He's broke, Selene."The words didn't make sense. "No, that’s not right, he has money, companies. He’s the heir.""Had," my father corrected, and turned his phone toward me.‘VICTOR COX RESTRUCTURES HOLDINGS: SON MAXWELL STRIPPED OF INHERITANCE’I read it twice, and

23

*MAXWELL*The numbers didn't lie. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, brainstorming ways to end this Blackbridge chaos caused by Ariana.Contractors would start asking questions in a few days, and investors would follow suit.One of my options was to beg her. The word alone irritated me. So I should actually walk into her office, admit I need access to capital she now controls, ask her to unfreeze what was once mine. What was the guarantee that she would grant my request. No. That would be humiliating to say the least.Option two is my Offshore. I pulled up the private dashboard on my tablet. The holding company still sat untouched. Diversified accounts layered through jurisdictions Victor had no direct authority over.There was enough to stabilize for short-term operations, but not enough to complete the expansion. And if I moved too much, too fast, it would light up like a flare during Ariana's audits.She was reviewing everything now, every corridor, and every tra

24

*MAXWELL*The address Caleb sent wasn't a restaurant.It was a warehouse in the industrial zone near the port. The kind of place that didn't show up on maps, with no signage and no security cameras pointed outward. Just a loading dock with a single steel door.I parked three blocks away and walked.The air smelled like diesel and salt water. A cargo ship sat dark in the distance, half-unloaded.I knocked twice before the door opened.A man I didn't recognize looked me over, then stepped aside.Inside, the warehouse had been gutted. No equipment. No inventory. Just concrete floors, metal beams, and a single freight elevator at the back."Third floor," the man said.I stepped into the elevator. It groaned upward.When the doors opened, I wasn't in a warehouse anymore.The third floor had been renovated. Polished floors. Leather furniture. A bar along one wall. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the port, tinted dark enough that no one could see in.Caleb stood near the windows with a

25

*MAXWELL*Caleb walks back toward me."Maxwell, these two issues we're clearing soon, we're letting you in on as notice. Now that you've taken this step to go deeper with us, you need to know we don't joke around. Learn to keep your house in order, or we'll do it for you. Either way, our business moves unhindered. Not by anyone, and certainly not by you. Make good use of the two weeks."The threat hung in the air.I swallowed. "Two weeks.""Two weeks," Caleb confirmed. "After that, if Blackbridge isn't moving product, we pull out. And when we pull out, we clean up. Everyone involved becomes a loose end."He turned and looked at me directly."The Syndicate doesn't leave loose ends. You understand that, right?"I nodded."Good." He gestured to the door. "Meeting's over."I stood slowly.My legs felt unsteady.The silver-haired man spoke one last time as I walked toward the elevator."One more thing."I stopped."Victor Cox has been making inquiries. Quiet ones. Through lawyers. Offshore

26

*ARIANA*The big gate opened slower than I remember.The house used to feel so big when I was a child, but now it somehow gives an empty feeling.I stepped out of the car before the driver could open the door. The house stood exactly the same.Home.Durrell came around the other side, already scanning the driveway. His men moved with a quiet efficiency. “Stay close,” he said.“I grew up here.”“That doesn’t make it safe.”I didn’t argue.The front door opened before I rang the doorbell. The nurse assigned to my father froze when she saw the security detail behind me. Two of Durrell’s men stepped inside first, backing her into the house. She clutched her tablet like it could protect her.“I’m his daughter,” I said gently. “You don’t need to be afraid.”Her eyes darted to the men again.Durrell stepped forward, voice calm. “No one here is your problem. Do your job.”She nodded too quickly as I walked in.The familiar scent hit me, it was lemon polish and old wood, mixed with the faint

27

*ARIANA*I didn’t process the sound at first. It was too sharp, too loud and too close.The room filled with screaming and breaking glass and the metallic smell of something burning.Then came another shot, and several others followed in series.I tried to crawl toward my father, who was still seated in his chair, a dark bloom spread across his left chest.Durrell held me back. “Stay down!”“Dad…”Another crack split the air.And this time I saw it.The bullet tore through his head.Dad jerked and his body went still.For one second, the world stopped.He looked surprised.Then he fell sideways out of the chair.I screamed.I don’t remember deciding to move. I just did. I tore out of Durrell’s grip and crawled across shattered glass. My knees burned. I didn’t feel it.“Dad.”His head was turned at an unnatural angle.There was red.Too much red.I pressed my hands against him like I could hold life inside his body if I tried hard enough.“Dad,” I whispered. “Dad, wake up.”Bullets wer

28

*DURRELL*When we arrived at the hospital, she was taken straight to the emergency unit before I had her moved to a VIP ward and requested for the family doctor.She is not crying, and that scares me more than anything.There is blood on her hands. It has dried in thin lines along her fingers, and she is staring at it like she is studying evidence.“Blood pressure stable,” the nurse assigned to her room is saying.Stable. As if that word means anything tonight.“We’ll run an ultrasound,” the nurse continues.“Now,” I say.She nods.I step out into the hallway to answer a call and get updates on the shooting and the Chase family preparations.When I walk back into the suite moments later, she is sitting upright on the hospital bed. Cleaner now. Someone has wiped the blood from her skin, but not from her memory.She looks smaller in white, smaller than I’ve ever seen her, smaller than she was even in junior high when she made herself small on purpose.The OB specialist is moving the wan

29

*MAXWELL*The news came from my assistant."Sir, Theodore Chase was shot again. He didn't make it."I stopped mid-step in my office."What?""The Chase family residence, less than an hour ago. It's all over the news."I grabbed my jacket and was out the door before he could say more.The drive to the Chase residence felt different from the hospital run weeks ago. That time there was hope, but this time, there was only the weight of what I was walking into.The street was already blocked when I got close to their house.Police cars were lined up on both sides, with lights still flashing but muted now, like even they knew it was over. News vans clustered at the police barricades, cameras were aimed at the house I'd stood in a dozen times during my marriage. I parked three blocks away and walked.The front gate stood open, with officers moving in and out.Inside, the house felt wrong, like the building itself was holding its breath.I found them in the living room.Juliana sat on the co

30

*Maxwell*When I stepped off the elevator onto the private floor, I saw them immediately.Two men in dark suits flanked the door to a corner room. Durrell's men. I'd seen enough of them lately to recognize them.Durrell himself stood outside the room, speaking into his phone, watching me approach like he'd been expecting this. He ended the call as soon as I got close."Maxwell.""Durrell.""I'm here to see Ariana.""You’ll need to be brief, she needs to rest."I paused and stared at him with an amused surprise."I'm very aware of that. I was married to her for three years."Something flickered across his face, but he stepped aside."Five minutes."‘You have got to be joking right now.’ The thought was so loud I almost said it out. Instead, I laughed, small and disbelieving, and brushed past him into her room.The curtains drawn, and in the bed, small against the white sheets, was Ariana.She looked different, tired, and hollowed out, like someone had scooped out whatever usually fille

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