All Chapters of His Useless Wife Was A Queen : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 31Nora’s POVRain washed against the glass walls of my office in soft silver streaks while the city below blurred into shifting lights and shadows, restless beneath the storm rolling across Manhattan. Evening had already settled over Hamilton Global, most of the executive floor emptied hours ago, yet tension still lingered inside the building like something alive beneath the silence.I stood near the windows with my arms folded tightly across my chest, replaying every word Margot had spoken earlier that afternoon; Sarah Lane. Not curiosity. Not a coincidence. Strategy.The realization sat heavily beneath my ribs because it changed everything. Sarah had not stumbled across Elena’s name accidentally during some shallow background search into Hamilton Global. She had hunted for it deliberately, moving through old connections one by one, careful enough to leave barely any trace behind.And the worst part was that I still didn’t understand why.Behind me, the office door opened q

Chapter 33Nora's POVJulian told me about Caleb's call on Thursday morning.He mentioned it the way he mentioned most things, briefly, factually, without editorial, standing near the window of my office with his tablet under his arm and his coffee in his hand while I reviewed the Sarah Lane background report on my desk."He called my direct line," Julian said. "He said he wanted five minutes. He said he was outside."I kept my eyes on the report. "What did you tell him?""That I'd pass the message along.""And?""I sent the standard response from the guest communications line," Julian said. "Property boundary reminder. Security instruction.""Good," I said.Julian was quiet for a moment in the particular way that meant he had something else to say and was deciding whether to say it."Julian," I said, still reading. "Say it.""He sounded different," Julian said carefully. "On the phone. Not the way he sounded in the interview. Not performing anything. He just sounded…" A pause. "Tired

Chapter 35Nora's POVThe name on the tablet was Victor Crane.I had not thought about Victor Crane in eight years. Not deliberately. The way you don't think about something you buried so carefully that the burial itself becomes invisible.Victor Crane had been my first business partner. Not at Hamilton Global, before it. When I was twenty-four years old and had nothing but a clear idea and the particular kind of stubborn energy that makes people either very successful or very broken, depending on which way it falls.We had built a small technology consulting firm together straight out of graduate school. Just the two of us, a shared office in a building that smelled like old carpet and ambition, working eighteen-hour days and arguing loudly about every decision and splitting every small success like it was gold.He was brilliant. Genuinely, frustratingly brilliant, the kind of mind that saw around corners and under structures and found angles other people missed entirely.He was also

Chapter 37Caleb's POVI didn't sleep.I lay on my back in the dark apartment staring at the ceiling with the photograph of Mia sitting on the kitchen table twenty feet away, and every time I closed my eyes I saw the timestamp in the corner. Four days ago, she had been walking out of school completely unaware, laughing at something on her phone, and someone had been standing at a distance pointing a camera at her.My daughter. Fourteen years old with curly brown hair, a dance bag, and a laugh that filled rooms.Someone had made her a subject in their strategy.I got up at four in the morning because lying still had become unbearable. I made coffee I didn't taste and sat at the kitchen table with Marcus's folder open in front of me, reading through everything again from the beginning. Not because I hadn't understood it the first time. But because I needed to keep my hands and my mind occupied with something specific before the anger found an exit it couldn't take back.Victor Crane.

Chapter 39Nora's POVI was in the penthouse kitchen making tea I didn't particularly want, moving through the small routine of it because sometimes your hands needed something simple to do while your mind worked on something complicated. Mia was in her room talking to Jade on the phone, her laughter drifting down the hallway every few minutes, easy and unguarded and completely unaware of the forty-eight-hour clock that had been ticking since I called Victor two nights ago.When my phone buzzed and his name appeared on the screen, I set the kettle down and answered immediately."Victor.”"Nora." His voice was measured. Careful. The particular carefulness of someone who had spent a long time preparing for a conversation and was now discovering that preparation and readiness were not the same thing."You have four hours left on the window," I said."I know," he said. "I'm calling."Silence stretched between us for a moment. Outside the penthouse windows the city was settling into the e