Divorce me I'm done serving you (Ayla) novel Chapter 695

Troy pushed on, voice ragged. "When Draven was 12, maybe 13, he took a knife to his own uncle. The wound was close to the heart. The man almost died."

His eyes were bloodshot, his face drained white from blood loss, but he kept going. "You didn't know that, did you? He's never told you anything real about himself. He's not right, Ayla. He never has been. Don't go with him."

Troy and Garrett had met with Jeremy.

Garrett had handled the meeting the way he handled most things, neutral and unreadable, neither warm nor hostile. Troy had taken one look at Jeremy and felt immediate contempt.

Jeremy and Draven were uncle and nephew, but the resemblance ended at blood. Jeremy was exactly the kind of man Troy had grown up around and never respected, coasting on family money, performing status he hadn't earned. Troy had cousins like that. He had no patience for any of them.

Still, he needed information, so he swallowed his distaste and sat through it.

Jeremy had been delighted to see him. He made no effort to hide how much he wanted to watch the brothers destroy each other, how much he'd enjoy seeing Draven come apart.

Troy wasn't about to be anyone's weapon. He made Jeremy earn it, kept his tone flat, gave nothing back, offered no promises. If Jeremy wanted his cooperation, he'd have to show good faith first. And even then, whatever dirt he dug up on Draven might turn out to be useless anyway.

Jeremy thought to himself that Troy was every bit as difficult as Draven, that the two of them together were exhausting, but at least they hated each other. That was worth something.

Jeremy had carried his grudge against Draven for years and had no way to act on it himself.

Troy was a different matter. Troy had the reach and the resources to actually push back. Humiliating as it was, Jeremy told him about the knife, about the night it happened, about how close it had come.

Troy had been genuinely shaken. The Draven he'd grown up with had absorbed everything in silence. Beatings, insults, none of it provoked a response. Even as adults, Draven didn't start things unless Ayla was involved.

So the Draven who had gone back to his family and apparently lost his mind was someone Troy had never accounted for. It turned out, he didn't know him at all.

After the meeting with Jeremy, Troy was more desperate than ever to face Draven directly.

He looked at Ayla. She had been darkening steadily since they left the city, and he understood why. Draven had done too many things she hadn't expected, one after another, and each one had cost her something.

Max touched her arm gently. "Ayla. The children first."

Ayla had listened to Troy. Any other time, it would have sounded like slander, like a story assembled to damage someone she trusted. Before she'd found the surveillance, before she'd learned about the children, she would have dismissed every word.

She didn't dismiss it now.

Draven was still holding the gun. He had pointed it at his own brother and pulled the trigger, and whatever hatred or grievance drove him to that, it meant he was willing to gamble with a human life.

That was the line Ayla would never forgive.