All Chapters of The Woman He Lost : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Ava did not stop when she turned away from Lucas. She held Liam and Eliana tightly against her, one arm around each of them, and kept walking down the corridor. Her steps were steady, controlled, and fast enough to signal urgency but not panic. Behind her, Lucas did not move at first. He just stood there watching her take them.Eliana buried her face in Ava’s shoulder. Mommy, don’t leave again, she whispered. I’m here now, Ava said softly without slowing down. Liam kept looking over Ava’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on Lucas. He’s just standing there, he said quietly.Ava didn’t look back. Don’t watch him.Liam hesitated, then lowered his head slightly. Eliana tightened her grip around Ava’s neck like she was afraid she would disappear again. Behind them, Lucas finally stepped forward. Ava.His voice carried through the corridor, low and controlled. Ava stopped, but she didn’t turn around. Don’t follow me. Lucas stayed still for a moment. You can’t just walk out. Now she turned her head

The courthouse steps were already crowded before sunrise. Reporters lined the front entrance behind metal barricades, while vehicles continued to arrive one after another beneath the gray morning sky. Cameras flashed constantly. Lawyers moved quickly through security checkpoints carrying stacks of sealed files. At the same time, news anchors spoke into microphones about corporate corruption, custody disputes, and the sudden public collapse of one of the country’s most powerful families.Ava sat silently inside the backseat of the vehicle as the chaos unfolded outside the tinted windows.She had not slept.Not even for an hour.The fight with Lucas kept replaying in her head alongside the sound of Eliana crying and Liam trying to act stronger than he was. Every thought circled back to the same terrifying realization now.This was no longer private.The twins were becoming part of a public war.“Ava.”She looked up slowly. Mia sat across from her holding a tablet filled with court filin

The words Lucas left behind in the courtroom did not fade. They followed Ava out of the building, down the marble steps, into the waiting vehicle, and all the way back to the safehouse where silence felt heavier than any legal defeat.“I just don’t want them to lose either of us.”That sentence kept repeating in her mind in different tones, sometimes cold, sometimes exhausted, sometimes almost broken.Ava sat in the backseat staring out at the moving city without truly seeing it. Rain had returned, softer now, turning the streets into blurred reflections of headlights and steel. Her hands were still clenched in her lap even though the hearing had ended nearly forty minutes ago.Adrian broke the silence first. “The ruling was temporary.”Ava didn’t respond immediately.“Temporary,” he repeated more carefully. “It can be challenged. We will challenge it.”“I know,” she said finally.But her voice lacked force. Mia sat in the front passenger seat glancing back at her. “Ava, we can escala

The supervised visitation room felt colder after the twins finally settled beside Ava. The silence pressing against the walls was not peaceful. It was heavy with things nobody inside the room knew how to explain to children.Eliana sat curled against Ava’s side with both small hands gripping her sleeve tightly, refusing to loosen her hold even for a second. Liam stayed quieter beside them, close enough for his shoulder to touch Ava’s arm but still carrying that lingering hesitation in his eyes, like part of him feared this moment could disappear if he trusted it too much.Ava wrapped one arm around each child instinctively. Protective. Steady. Grounded.Across the reinforced glass partition, Lucas watched without moving.His expression remained calm, unreadable to anyone else observing him from outside the room, but internally something sharp kept tightening inside his chest. He had spent years mastering control, learning how to reduce problems into systems, negotiations, and outcomes

The news exploded before sunrise. By six in the morning, every major financial outlet was already reporting Ava's emergency shareholder protections against Carter Holdings. Analysts called the move aggressive. Investors called it dangerous. But inside corporate circles, everyone understood what it truly meant. Ava had officially declared war against Lucas publicly. Inside the executive conference room of Carter Global, tension filled the air while multiple screens displayed live market reactions across international sectors. Lawyers moved quickly around the table reviewing emergency filings while executives whispered anxiously over financial projections. Nobody looked calm anymore because everyone understood Lucas would retaliate immediately. Ava stood near the glass windows overlooking the city skyline, her expression unreadable as headlines continued flashing across the screens behind her. “He’s already contacting board members privately,” one executive reported carefully. “Several