All Chapters of My Billionaire Husband's Last Mistake: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ElenaThe SUV sat at the end of the drive for what felt like an hour and was probably ten seconds. Then its lights swung away from the gate, and it reversed, slow and deliberate, and disappeared down the road like it had never been there at all.I stood at the window with my heart still slamming and no answers to show for it. Whoever that was, they'd wanted me to see them leave as much as they'd wanted me to see them arrive.I didn't sleep. I lay next to Marcus with my eyes open in the dark, replaying the night in pieces, the photograph, his voice saying *whatever's out there*, the curtain he'd closed himself without ever once looking surprised. Somewhere around four I finally drifted, and when I woke he was already gone, his side of the bed cold, like he'd never been there at all.Had he been there at all.I sat up too fast, my head swimming, and tried to remember the actual feeling of him beside me instead of the story I'd told myself about it. I remembered the weight of the mattres

ElenaNeither of us said much after that photo. There wasn't anything to say that didn't sound like panic pretending to be a plan."We shouldn't be seen together again," Damian said, still staring at his phone. "Not until we know who's watching. I'll take a different way back.""And if it's Marcus?""Then he already knows what he needs to know. There's nothing we can do standing on this street that we can't do apart." He looked up at me. For one second his face went soft, worried, before he pulled it back. "Go home. Text me when you're inside."I drove back with my hands sore from gripping the wheel too hard. I kept checking the mirror at every light. Nothing there. That scared me more than something would have. An empty mirror just meant they were better at this than I was.The house was quiet when I got in. Quiet had stopped meaning safe a long time ago.I heard voices before I saw anyone. Low. Fast. Coming from the sitting room. Something in the sound made me stop in the hall inste

Elena Didn't sleep. Just lay there running the whole night back through my head. Trying to hold onto what the phone had already taken from me. The file was gone. The messages were gone. Whatever proof I'd almost had, gone before I could even read half of it. Somewhere around four in the morning it hit me properly. This wasn't just about Marcus hiding things anymore. Someone else was out there, actively protecting them. Watching close enough to catch the second something slipped through. I got up and found an old notebook, the plain kind, nothing hidden about it, and started writing down everything I still had before my own head started doing what the phone did and losing pieces too. Adaeze Nwosu. Varner's warning. Sophia, cut off mid-sentence. The way Marcus's face had gone still weeks back, just for a second, when I brought up something about his father and he changed the subject too fast for it to mean nothing. They could erase files. Fine. They couldn't erase what

ElenaTook me two days to figure out how to get back to that clinic without Marcus knowing.Two days of watching him watch me. Asking where I was going before I'd even said I was going anywhere. Small questions, soft voice, but they added up to something that felt a lot like a leash if you looked at it straight on.Told him I had a hair appointment. Booked one for real, just in case, and slipped out the side after twenty minutes with the excuse that they'd double-booked me.Called Varner from the car first. Hadn't heard from him since the night the file vanished off my screen.Rang four times before he picked up. Voice low, fast, like he was somewhere he didn't want to be talking at all."Can't stay on long," he said. "They traced it back close to me. Not all the way. Close enough.""Are you safe?""For now." A pause, and something in it made my chest tighten. "Stop calling this number for a while, Mrs. Blackwood. Please."Line went dead before I could say anything else. Sat there gri

ElenaMarcus kept his hand at my back the whole way in. Not resting there. Holding. Like something he'd decided to keep close after last night.He hadn't said a word about the man at the gate. Not one word all week. But I felt it in how he stood near me now, how he introduced me to people I already knew, how his eyes checked the room every few minutes like he was counting something.The ballroom was full of light and noise and people who all smiled the same smile. I smiled it back. Five years of practice made that part easy."You look pale," Marcus said, close to my ear, still smiling at someone across the room. "Are you alright?""Fine," I said. The headache had already started behind my left eye, a dull press building toward something worse. I'd learned to talk right through it by now."Good." His hand moved to my elbow. Steady. Firm. Not affection. Something closer to a leash.We made our rounds. Handshakes. Small talk. A toast to some deal I didn't care about. I kept my eyes movin