جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

In a heartbeat, it felt as though every drop of blood in my body had run cold. Then, with a soft click, the bathroom door was pushed open. Vincent Bennett walked out, wrapped in a towel, his abs still bearing the faint red marks I had clawed at him in the heat of the moment earlier.Holding a glass of warm water, he leaned over and held it to my lips. "Here, have some water to soothe your throat."At that moment, I looked into his deep, unreadable eyes, remembering how I had spent five years losing myself in the affection those eyes once carried. Three years ago, in order to support his career as an instructor, I'd willingly resigned from my position as an editor at a publishing house. I'd become a homemaker, looking after his parents and managing everything at our home. During our five years of marriage, we were often apart more than we were together because of his role as a military instructor at the university. He had always told me that absence made the heart grow fonder, s

The call had gone through, yet as soon as the word rolled off my tongue, Vincent snapped. He snatched my phone and hurled it violently against the floor. "Helena, have you lost your mind? Since when do you have a father?"Vincent didn't know that my father was Kai Sutton, a notorious figure in Jovelle's underworld. When my mother was still alive, she never allowed me to contact him. She'd merely told me he was a man who lived by the blade and that he was no good. However, on the day of my mother's funeral, that man in the black overcoat had stood outside the memorial hall and smoked through the entire night. At dawn, he slipped me a business card and said, "Kid, if you're ever in trouble, call this number."I had kept his card for five years and had never dialed it once because back then, I thought having Vincent was enough. I never imagined that the first time I would ever call my father would be because Vincent had cheated on me. Looking at my shattered phone on the floor, I

The day after Vincent was released on bail, a suspension notice from the University of Jovelle was plastered all over the bulletin boards. Dad's legal team was incredibly efficient. My injury assessment, evidence of domestic violence, and the asset division agreement were handled seamlessly.But I didn't give him room to breathe. I brushed my fingers over the scabbed wound on my temple. It still throbbed with a dull ache, constantly reminding me just how hard Vincent had kicked me that night. Armed with the collected transfer records, chat screenshots, and the screen recording of that night's livestream, I headed straight for the University of Jovelle's annual awards ceremony. It was supposed to be the day Vincent went on stage to receive his "Outstanding Instructor" award. When I arrived, he was backstage in a brand-new instructor's uniform, bowing and scraping to the university officials backstage in a desperate, final attempt to save himself. The moment he spotted me, his pupil

Vincent wanted me to spare him? Who did he think he was? I stared at the ridiculous question on the screen and sent him the address of a cafe. Half an hour later, I watched the man I had loved for five years appear before me. He looked like a stray dog, his appearance haggard and worn. There were heavy dark circles under his eyes, his stubble was unshaven, and his entire being radiated the dejection of someone who had reached the end of his rope. However, the moment he sat down, the first words out of his mouth were still delivered in that same superior, chauvinistic tone. "Helena, you've had your fun. Now, quit it."He pulled a stack of printed papers from his briefcase and pushed them toward me before threatening me, "These are the things you wrote to me in the past, along with some of our family matters. I'm sure you wouldn't want others to see these, right?"I lowered my gaze and found the love letters I had written to him in the early days of our relationship, along with sev

As expected, Mrs. Jensen was no pushover. She charged straight from her hometown to Jovelle, wielding a wooden club thicker than her arm, and stormed into Vincent's parents' home without uttering a single word.I saw that debt-collection scene, which was nothing short of a farce, in a local news short. In the video, Mrs. Jensen's hair was disheveled as she maniacally smashed Vincent's security door with her wooden club. While pounding away, she wailed and cursed in her local dialect, demanding they compensate her for the "loss of her daughter's youth", or else she would die right there on their doorstep. The comment section was filled with netizens egging her on."Damn, that woman's a menace! It's such a shame she's not using that energy to go after homewreckers full-time.""There are no good guys here, just villains eating their own."Dad's call came in almost at the same time as the news. His voice was tinged with a hint of epicaricacy. "The old couple were so enraged that they