All Chapters of OWNED BY MY EX-HUSBAND’S STEPBROTHER : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The clock on the wall struck nine, and Gloria’s husband still wasn’t home.She forced a smile and turned toward her daughter. “It’s getting late, sweetheart. Let’s go to bed.”Seven-year-old Annabel sat curled up on the couch in her pink Barbie birthday dress, her eyes fixed on the front door as if sheer will could make it open. The balloons Gloria had tied around the living room drifted quietly above her head, their ribbons swaying with each hum of the air conditioner.“No,” Annabel said softly. “Daddy said he’d come before we cut the cake.”Gloria’s chest tightened.“He will,” she replied gently, stroking her daughter’s hair though her throat felt dry. “Maybe he got stuck in traffic.”Annabel didn’t argue, but her little fingers twisted the fabric of her dress anxiously. They’d been waiting since five. At first, Annabel had raced to the window with every flash of headlights. By seven, she’d started asking when her father would arrive. By eight, she’d stopped asking altogether.Now s

Victor's mind snapped into focus, his vision and hearing sharpening instantly. He frowned, staring at Gloria in disbelief."Yes," she said venomously, forcing herself to appear confident and unyielding, not the desperate wife he always dismissed. "I won't repeat myself again. I want a divorce."Victor had cheated on her and stopped having sex with her since she was six months pregnant. He complained that she had gotten fat and had stretch marks all over her stomach. Gloria clung to that betrayal to steel her resolve. She wasn't the one at fault.But God knew how her heart ached as she thrust the papers at him. One signature from him, and their marriage would end.“You want to divorce me?” Victor asked. He was obviously shocked; he never expected his obedient wife to ask him for a divorce.The word ignited something in Victor. He blinked rapidly, scanning the document. And it was real, a legitimate divorce filing.Gloria meant it, but divorce was the last thing on his mind. He would ne

Gloria sat in the taxi. She felt dizzy. She thought about Victor and how to explain their divorce to her daughter. She wanted Annabel to not be too shocked when she learned her parents were splitting up.In Gloria’s mind, Annabel was the real victim of their divorce. In every divorce, kids suffered the most. Gloria knew this pain; she had experienced it when her own parents divorced. She was just ten years old. Her mother cheated on her father with their neighbor. After the messy divorce between her parents, her father remarried and relocated to another state with his new family. While her mother turned their house into a mini brothel, bringing different men into the house every night, she locked Gloria and her siblings inside another room."Victor was her safe place when her parents split; he was there to comfort her, even buying food for Gloria and her siblings. What went wrong?" She asked herself in a low voice.The taxi driver looked at her through the rearview mirror. "Ma'am, are

I hate you so much Victor," Gloria said coldly. "I thought I gave you the perfect opportunity to sleep with your mistresses as much as you want. You can fuck any woman you want now without feeling guilty. Isn't that what you wanted? Not that you ever feel guilt anyway."On the other end of the call, Victor sounded relaxed, almost amused by what Gloria was saying. "Honey, I will still fuck as many women as I want after this whole 'running away' thing you did," he said casually. "I just don't want my daughter thinking she lost her mom because of me. You know I love my daughter very much."Gloria's grip on her phone tightened; she was about to explode with anger."My daughter will never lose her mother," Gloria said. "But she already lost her dad a long time ago. So stop pretending like you care about her now."Victor didn't respond immediately. When he finally spoke, his tone was indifferent, like the conversation didn't matter to him at all. "If you say so, what's it going to be?""Fin

Gloria stumbled back, her mother-in-law's words hit her like a storm."Why are you acting shocked?" Her mother-in-law asked, sipping her champagne nonchalantly. "If you want to continue living the soft life, then you have to stick with my son. Go on your knees and apologize for your mistakes, kiss his feet if needed, or else once—""Even if he is cheating on me with different women and rarely comes home to his family?" Gloria asked. Cutting her mother-in-law off.Perhaps her mother-in-law was saying such words because she didn't know that her son has been torturing Gloria emotionally for the past eight years, Gloria thought.Gloria wanted to say another word, but someone knocked on the door. A young shirtless man in his late twenties entered the room. He flashed a flirty smile at her mother-in-law."Here you are, baby. I have been looking for you everywhere." The young man said as he walked straight to her mother-in-law and kissed her.Gloria couldn't believe her eyes at what she was