All Chapters of No Longer the Discarded Pawn: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

After we finished signing the divorce agreement, Anya Ellington walked me to the door for the first time."Do you want a ride home?" Her tone was polite and formal.I shook my head at once.She paused, faint surprise crossing her face. She clearly wasn't used to how cold I had become.Her gaze lingered on my shoulder for a moment. Then she opened the notepad on the table, wrote down a string of numbers, and handed it to me.My private number," she said.A faint, self-assured smile touched her lips. The meaning was clear enough. She was certain I would eventually come back to her.I froze for only a moment before I took the note and nodded my thanks.The moment I got into the car, I flicked my lighter and set the note on fire. I watched it burn to ash, inch by inch.It was the number I could never get before, no matter how much I begged or made a scene. Now, because of the divorce, I finally had it.How ironic.I had just started the engine when my phone rang.Lisa Stacy, th

Chapter 2

The Ellington family came from a long line of Grandmasters. But Anya had been autistic since childhood, and her own family had cast her aside because of it.My father couldn't bear to watch a prodigy wither away, so he brought her home.From then on, she had her own set of utensils in the Castellan household, her own desk, and even her own bed.Meanwhile, her mother, Dolores Lorn, came to collect her only once a year for a single dinner on New Year's Eve.Back then, Anya wasn't a champion. She wasn't even treated like a normal person. She was nothing more than an abandoned dog. Nothing changed until she won her first world championship, and even then, she didn't return to the Ellingtons.Instead, she dropped to her knees before my father and made a vow. "Grandmaster Castellan, in this lifetime, I will never let you or Mark down."My father merely smiled and offered her a few earnest words of advice. "This is only the beginning. You must guard against arrogance and impatience. The

Chapter 3

That night, Anya knelt at my feet and cried so hard she could barely speak. She clutched my hand and, in a hoarse voice, went through everything one thing at a time. She recounted every detail of the years we had spent growing up together.She promised to move my father to a better care facility. She also promised to talk to Dolores about letting me see the children.In the end, she slapped herself across the face and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. "Can we start over?"For my father's sake and the twins', I swallowed my bitterness and nodded, no matter how unwilling I still felt.Over the next few years, she seemed to settle down. She spent our anniversaries with me and accompanied me whenever I went to see the children.No matter how late training ran, she always came home. She even removed Harlan as her agent and hired someone else.Just when I thought everything was finally getting better, Harlan walked into the Castellan residence and slapped an ultrasound photo against m

Chapter 4

In that instant, I finally understood what it meant to suffer a fate worse than death.To quell the public backlash, Dolores forced Anya to terminate her pregnancy with Harlan's child.After Anya was discharged from the hospital, she never mentioned it to me again. She only apologized, her face pale and drawn.After that, she clung to me more tightly than ever and refused to leave me alone. For my father' and twins' sake, she insisted over and over that I forgive her.I thought that she was trying to make amends and truly regretted what she had done.But in bed, her gaze would turn dark and heavy, as though I were her enemy.At the time, I did not understand what she intended. I only found out three months after she learned she was pregnant.She sent people to tie me up, then called Harlan over.I begged her as tears streamed down my face."The baby!" I screamed until my voice gave out.Anya only found my pleas irritating and stuffed a piece of her underwear into my mouth to

Chapter 5

Unfortunately, Lisa's call went straight to voicemail. During chess tournaments, all phones were switched off to avoid distracting the players.Lisa kept her phone in hand and called dozens of times.It was not until Anya turned her phone back on during a mid-match break that Lisa finally got through. "Captain, you finally picked up! Marcus' villa caught fire, and it's burning badly!"Anya's brow furrowed slightly, but only for a moment.Her expression quickly smoothed out, and her voice sounded almost careless. "Ignore him. He's probably pulling some trick again. He knows Harlan is with me for today's warm-up match, so he's deliberately trying to get under my skin..."I knew it. All that coldness from him this morning was just an act. He was only waiting for me to cave first..."At the thought, she let out a scornful little laugh and stopped listening to whatever else Lisa had to say.She hung up with a sharp click.But for some reason, even after she hung up, unease kept gnaw

Chapter 6

Anya knew nothing about the news coverage. She floored the gas and sped straight toward the villa's front gate.Instead, she found a long line of fire trucks waiting outside.The sight of the soot-covered firefighters finally drove home the truth. Lisa hadn't been lying. The villa really had caught fire.Marcus hadn't deliberately treated her coldly, either. He hadn't been playing hard to get.Anya didn't even remember turning off the engine or getting out of the car. Her legs felt as heavy as lead.The moment she tried to take a step, her entire body pitched forward.Luckily, the property manager caught her before she fell. "Ms. Ellington, please take care of yourself..."Anya exploded with rage. She seized the property manager by the collar and refused to let go, her eyes bloodshot."What do you mean by that? What do you mean, take care of myself? Mark will be fine!"He's tried to kill himself so many times before, and he was always fine. He'll definitely be fine this time t

Chapter 7

Edwin's voice caught on a sob as he watched his older brother cry quietly.Only then did Anya remember that Marcus really had called her once, a few months earlier.At the time, Harlan's dog of five years had suddenly died, and Harlan had collapsed to the floor, sobbing so hard that he could not get up.She had been busy seeing the dog off and rushing Harlan to the hospital.Back then, she had assumed Marcus had simply run out of tricks. She believed he was using his own father's life and death as an excuse to lure her home.She had never imagined that her mentor could actually die.She had even mocked Marcus for it once. "He sleeps in a recovery pod that costs 10,000 dollars a night. He has it better than I do. Why would he possibly want to die?"That was the mentor who had given her a second chance at life, then thrown himself in front of a car to save her once again.When her own mother had abandoned her because of her autism, when she had lived a life worse than a dog's, he

Chapter 8

At that moment, Anya finally realized just how cruelly she had mistreated Marcus all these years.In the end, she had betrayed the trust her mentor had placed in her and failed to take proper care of his son.Tears streaked her face as she scooped up her two sons, one in each arm, and turned to leave."Where do you think you're going?" Dolores demanded. "Be careful. You'll frighten the children."Anya stopped but did not turn around. "From now on, I'm raising the twins myself. They should be calling Marcus Dad, not some homewrecker like Harlan!"Dolores glared at Anya, her displeasure plain on her face. "Nonsense! Marcus is already dead, burned until there was nothing left but a charred corpse."The Ellington family owes him nothing. His death was entirely his own doing!"His father stayed alive on the family's money. Marcus was nothing but a parasite who lived off us and did absolutely nothing. All he had to do was put in a little effort and give us a son, and just like that, h

Chapter 9

Time passed quickly, and before I knew it, a month had gone by.When I saw Anya again on the Castellan estate, with the twins standing behind her, I felt a flicker of shock. After all, I had paid a considerable sum for a staged-death service, and the agency had always had a solid reputation.I couldn't figure out how Anya had managed to track me down.For once, Anya seemed to understand what I was thinking without being asked.The moment she spoke, she answered my unspoken question. "I traced your financial transactions and found the agency that staged your death. That's how I found out what you'd arranged."I said nothing and simply nodded. It seemed I had been careless after all.But the thought passed quickly. Given the Ellingtons' wealth and connections, there had never been any real chance of hiding a staged death forever.When she saw how little I reacted, Anya spoke first. "Harlan and I... we're done."Her eyes were rimmed red.I nodded. "Oh."Anya's face went pale for

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