All Chapters of Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Xena.Victor calling me Mrs. Yale in front of Adrian changed the entire atmosphere of the room.You could actually see the moment it landed.Adrian's shoulders tightened slightly. His grip around the flowers shifted. And something dark flickered across his face fast enough that someone not looking directly at him would've missed it.Unfortunately for him, I was looking directly at him.Victor walked toward us calmly like he hadn't just accidentally stabbed my ex-husband with two words.“Mr. Yale,” he greeted Adrian professionally.Cold. Flat. Very Victor.Adrian recovered quickly enough to nod once.“Victor.”The silence afterward tasted expensive and uncomfortable.Interesting combination.Victor's gaze shifted toward the folder in my hand before returning to me.“Mr. Dante asked that I bring you home when you're finished here.”I looked at Victor carefully.“You're escorting me now?”“I'm ensuring your safety.”“That's a yes with a better suit.”Behind me, I heard Lila choke on laug

Dante.The library should have felt safer after Xena left.Instead, I found myself staring at the dark window for the third time in ten minutes.The security lights still cut across the estate grounds. Guards still moved along the perimeter. Cameras still watched every entrance and exit. Nothing outside had changed, yet my attention kept drifting back to the phone sitting on the desk.Forty-seven seconds.That was all the call had lasted.Forty-seven seconds and somehow it had managed to make thirteen years of preparation feel incomplete.I picked the phone up again even though there was nothing new to see. No missed notifications. No messages. No miraculous explanation that hadn't existed five minutes ago.The knock at the door came before I could stop myself from checking the screen again."Come in."Victor entered carrying a tablet.One look at his face told me the update wasn't good news.Victor rarely looked frustrated. Tonight he looked like he wanted to personally insult severa

Twenty-FiveXena's POVI kept running until my lungs stopped arguing with me and started cooperating out of necessity.The city moved around me in blurred fragments. Headlights cutting through damp air. Tires hissing against wet asphalt. Voices that rose and fell but never stayed long enough to become anything I could hold onto.Hannah’s voice still sat in my ear like she hadn’t stopped speaking.You’re not home.I slowed down only when my legs stopped pretending they were willing to continue on the same terms as my panic.The street I ended up on wasn’t familiar, but it wasn’t unfamiliar either. The kind of place you pass enough times to recognize without ever belonging to it. A row of low-rise buildings, dim lights, quiet storefronts that had already started preparing for the kind of night that didn’t need witnesses.My phone was still in my hand.No new call.No follow-up message.Just silence that felt deliberate.I pressed my back against the nearest wall and tried to make my bre

Xena.I woke up before sunrise.For a few seconds, I didn't remember where I was.The mattress was softer than the one in my apartment. The room was bigger. The curtains were heavier.Then the memories arrived one after another.My eyes drifted toward the ceiling.I was back in the Yale house. Again.The realization sat strangely in my chest. Like a piece that had been removed from a puzzle and then fitted back into place without anybody discussing it.I rolled onto my side and stared at the digital clock on the nightstand.6:14 a.m.Sleep wasn't happening again.Not after last night. Not after watching three years of my life burn from the opposite side of a police barricade.I pushed myself upright and swung my legs over the side of the bed.The room was quiet. The entire house felt quiet.For a moment, I sat there and let myself think about the studio.The scratched drafting table I'd bought secondhand and spent three days refinishing myself.The wall of fabric samples.The coffee m

Xena.The city blurred as we drove through the cold night. I looked out the window, my mind drifting.What was with that smile?I'd never seen Hannah smile that way before. Not once in my entire life. Not when we were children, not at the gala, not in all the months she spent making my life inside the Yale household a calculated nightmare.This was different.My fingers tightened around my own arm without me telling them to.Beside me, Dante hadn't spoken since we got in the car. I didn't need to look at him to know that smile was sitting in his chest the same way it was sitting in mine. He had that quality of stillness that wasn't peace. The kind that meant something was running very fast underneath a very controlled surface.The city kept moving outside the glass.Neither of us said a word which somehow said everything.The house was quiet when we got home. The staff were still awake, but they'd started closing up.Even they had to rest from time to time.We walked in, and not a wor