All Chapters of Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

74 Chapters

Chapter 51: I Did Everything You Asked.

Reeves.The bourbon was two fingers and going warm.I left it on the desk and picked up the phone."Move him tonight," I said when the line connected. "There's a property outside Elgin. I'll send the address in twenty minutes." I looked out the window. The woods outside were doing nothing. "Keep him breathing."The line went dead.I sent the address and put the phone down and picked up the bourbon.It had gone past warm into something else. I drank it anyway.Gerald was next. Now people would say I’m working with a list. No, there was no list. Gerald was next because Gerald was always next, always the variable that needed managing before it managed itself into something inconvenient. I'd learned that about him in the first year. He was useful the way a door was useful — functional, necessary, and incapable of deciding anything about where it opened.He picked up on the third ring."It's late," he said."Thursday meeting," I said. "Adrian confirmed?"A pause. Gerald arranging himself.

Chapter 52: Everything Will Be Mine

Reeves.The word sat in the hallway between us.Uncle.I looked at Hannah's face. She was doing the thing she did when she'd committed to something and was waiting to find out what it cost her — chin up, shoulders back, eyes steady in the specific way of someone performing steady because the alternative was visible."Where did you hear that?" I said."The records room." She didn't flinch. "The visit in March. Two years ago. You left me waiting for forty minutes and I got bored and the cabinet wasn't locked and—" She stopped. "You know what I found.""I know what you think you found.""I found your adoption certificate." Her voice was even. "I found the Yale family tree with your name on it. I found a letter from the patriarch to his lawyer about restructuring the inheritance after Gerald and Dante were born." She looked at me. "I know what I found."I looked at her for a long moment.Then I moved past her down the hallway toward the kitchen.She followed. Of course she followed. Hanna

Chapter 53: Being Hannah

Xena.I woke up knowing three things.My name was Hannah Cross. I had been released from custody after questioning. And somewhere in this penthouse Adrian Yale was already awake, working and filing things about me that I hadn't given him permission to file.I lay on the ceiling for a moment.Get up.The guest room was nice. Everything in it was correct and none of it had the quality of somewhere a person actually lived.I sat up.Hannah in the morning. Hannah woke up slowly and deliberately. Hannah took up space in a bathroom like she'd paid for it. Hannah never rushed and never looked like she was thinking too hard about anything.I could do that.I brushed my teeth and looked at my face in the mirror and had the specific experience of seeing myself and seeing someone else simultaneously. Same face. Different person underneath.Thursday, I thought. Just get to Thursday.He was at the desk when I came out.Jacket off, sleeves pushed to the elbow, consortium documents spread in a speci

Chapter 54: Such A Bother

Dante.The club had no sign outside.That was the point. If you needed to know where it was someone had already told you and if nobody had told you then you didn't belong there. I'd been a member for eleven years and had used it exactly four times — each one a conversation that couldn't happen anywhere with walls that talked.Tonight made five.Axel was already there when I arrived.Of course he was. He'd chosen the corner table — back to the wall, clear sightline to both entrances, nobody within comfortable earshot. I noted that when I crossed the room. Whatever else Axel Darwin was he wasn't careless.He watched me sit down without saying anything.The server came. We both ordered without looking at the menu. The server left and the room went back to its particular quality. "You look terrible," Axel placed his hands on the table."Thank you for coming," I said.He looked at me with the expression of a man who had decided how he felt about being here and wasn't going to perform oth

Chapter 55: The Consortium

Xena."The glass," I said.Adrian looked at me."I knocked it off the table." I held his gaze with Hannah's specific steadiness. "Reaching for my clutch. It was an accident." A beat. "Margaret was dramatic about it."Something moved across his face.He looked at me for three seconds. He had weight in every one of them.Then he looked back at the document in his hand."She was dramatic about it," his smile dropped a bit."She's a dramatic woman."He turned the page.I looked at the window and let my shoulders do absolutely nothing that would tell him what the last thirty seconds had cost meThursday arrived the way days arrive when you've been dreading them. Even I didn’t get it, all of a sudden it was morning and the consortium building was waiting somewhere on the other side of it.I stood in the guest bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.Hannah Cross.I'd spent the last two days becoming her in the small ways that mattered. The way she held her coffee. The way she moved thro

Chapter 56: Xena

Dante.I knew before I sat down.The second my eyes found her across the table the information arrived with the specific clarity of something that doesn't require processing. The posture was Hannah's. The earrings were Hannah's. The way she held the water glass with both hands was practiced enough to be convincing to anyone who hadn't spent six weeks watching the person she was imitating do it differently.Xena held a glass by the stem.Always.I pulled out my chair and sat down and said nothing and looked at the presentation screen like it was the most interesting thing in the room.It wasn't.She was two seats to Adrian's right and she hadn't looked at me since I walked in. That restraint alone told me she'd clocked me the moment the doors opened. Xena not looking at something she was aware of was its own kind of looking.I opened the folder in front of me.What are you doing here?Was she here because someone had put her here.The divorce. The timing of it. I felt it when the door

Chapter 57: Late Or Not?

Axel."It's a farmhouse," Henry’s voice came out rough. "Single structure. Access road off the county route. No neighbors within two miles.""Activity.""Vehicle tracks shows that someone's been moving in and out regularly." A pause. "Axel I don't know what you're into but—""Send me everything you have."The line went dead.I looked at my phone. The files came through in three separate attachments. A satellite imagery, property records and a rough sketch of the access road my contact had pulled from county surveying records.I called Dante.He picked up before the second ring."I have it," I said.He arrived twenty minutes later.No knock. I'd left the office door open and he came through like the space had already decided to accommodate him before he arrived. Victor was two steps behind him with a jacket and the specific expression of a man who had already assessed the room before entering it.I slid the satellite image across the desk.Dante looked at it. Victor leaned over his sh

Chapter 58: What The Hell Is Cross Doing Here?

Dante.The guard was smoking.Victor was already moving before I finished clocking him. Axel started forward and I put my hand on his arm without looking at him.We watched.Victor crossed the open ground in the specific way he moved when the situation required it. The guard heard something at the last second — started to turn — and then Victor's hand was on his neck. He was down without a sound.Victor looked back at us.We moved.The front door was unlocked."Someone left in a hurry," Axel said quietly behind me.I didn’t respond to that as we walked in. Inside Axel made a sound. "Smells like food. Coffee. People were here recently.""Recently isn't now," Victor muttered. Axel was about to make a comment but he shut it the moment Victor glared at him. Jeez I was too old for all these drama. We moved through the ground floor. Three rooms. All empty. Kitchen with dishes still in the sink. Study with the desk lamp on and nothing on the desk — they'd taken whatever was on it and left

Chapter 59: First Crack

Hannah.I'd stopped trying to sleep an hour ago.The bed was fine. The room was fine. Everything in this house was technically fine in the way of things chosen for function rather than comfort and I'd learned the difference between those two things early enough in life that I stopped expecting them to be the same.I was looking at the ceiling when his phone rang.Not the first call tonight. Reeves made calls at hours that had nothing to do with whether the rest of the world was awake. I'd learned his patterns the same way I'd learned everything about this house — by listening through walls and filing what I heard and saying nothing about any of it.This one was different.The calls usually ended and then there were footsteps. This time the call ended and there were no footsteps.Just silence.I sat up.His study door was open.That was the first thing wrong. Reeves didn't leave doors open. Every room he occupied he closed behind him. But the door was open.I stopped in the hallway.He

Chapter 60: The Truth Between Us

Xena.The phone rang twice before I picked up.I nearly frowned when I saw the name. Reeves. I looked at the screen for one second then answered."Your father is gone," he said.I sat up."Someone got to the property tonight." His voice had a quality I hadn't heard before. "The arrangement we discussed is no longer—""Gone how," I said."Removed.""By who."A pause that had weight in it."That's not your concern right now.""It's entirely my concern." I was already standing. "You told me he stays breathing as long as I stay useful. You told me—""The arrangement has changed.""Is he alive?"Silence."Reeves." My voice came out flat. "Is my father alive?""As far as I know," he said. "Yes."The guest room held its expensive quiet around me. I stood in the middle of it with the phone against my ear and looked at nothing in particular and let that land.Alive.As far as he knew."The agreement is void," Reeves said. "You're free to—"I hung up and stood there.Then I called Dante.It ra

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