Golden Cage Mommy Mutiny (Elyse) novel Chapter 71

Chapter 9

For years, I had pushed myself to keep pace with Adrian, draining every ounce of energy until I became a ghost of myself–hysterical, hollow, barely human.

It wasn’t until I escaped that suffocating world, until I was free of his control, that I finally began to rediscover who I really was.

Now, my life is simple and full. I’m content.

Fame, wealth, even Adrian himself–none of it matters anymore. All of it feels like a set of chains

I’ve finally learned to live without.

But to Nora, my peace sounded like mockery.

Without a thought for her eight–month pregnancy, she grabbed a vase from the counter and hurled

it at me.

Adrian stepped in before I could move. The vase shattered, blood spilling down his temple and staining the collar of his white shirt–a crimson bloom against snow.

Nora’s face drained of color. She stammered, panic rising in her voice. “Adrian, I—I didn’t mean to,

I swear-”

But his tone was sharp, colder than I remembered, cutting through her excuses. “I told you never to bother Lillian again,” he said. “Never to interfere in my affairs.”

“Are you ignoring my words, or are you just too comfortable with your life now to remember what happens when you cross me?”

The same words. The same threat.

After all these years, he still hadn’t changed.

Nora had believed that winning him meant victory that she could finally rest easy atop the mountain she’d clawed her way up.

She never realized she’d traded her freedom for a cage.

The olive branch Adrian offered her years ago was gilded iron. The moment the illusion of transcendence cracked, she’d discover just how easily he could send her back to where she came

from.

I didn’t bother arguing. I pulled out my phone and called the police.

History had a strange sense of humor–only this time, the roles were reversed.

Now, Nora was the unstable one, paranoid and frantic.

Chapter 9

64.29%

Pregnant, desperate, clinging to what little control he had left, she could no longer even stand up

10 the man she’d once stolen.

For weeks afterward, she spiraled.

She hired thugs to smash the windows of Lillian’s Deli. She screamed through the neighborhood, calling me a homewrecker.

She even mimicked my past–sending anonymous letters to Summit University, trying to tarnish

Adrian’s name.

But things weren’t the same anymore.

This time, I wasn’t the trembling woman trapped under Adrian’s shadow. I had roots here, a life, people who knew the truth.

The neighbors had watched us grow up together–they didn’t buy her accusations.

And the university, burned once by scandal, quietly warned Nora to back off.

Cornered and unraveling, she lost her last shred of reason.

She set fire to my shop.

If it hadn’t been for Stella, who smelled the smoke and dragged me out in time, we might not have

made it.

I called the police immediately and refused to settle.

Adrian handled the aftermath efficiently. He didn’t defend her, didn’t plead for mercy.

He turned her in himself.

That was how Nora, once the beloved of a professor, ended up behind bars.

When it was all over, Adrian waited outside the police station. The setting sun washed his face in

gold, softening the lines that years of ambition had carved into him.

“I’m sorry, Lillian,” he said quietly. “I know my apology doesn’t mean anything. But I don’t know what else I can do.”

“If you ever need help, with anything, I’ll do whatever I can. You have my word. It’s what I owe

you.”

He confessed that he’d grown to despise Nora long ago–but his reputation, his standing, his obligations left him trapped.

The board had warned him: no more scandals. No more mistakes.

So he’d kept living beside her, bound by the same golden cage he’d once built for me.

Chapter 9

64.29%

The future was already written

The sun dipped below the rooftops. I pulled my cool tighter and shook my head with a faint smile.

” need,” I said

We had finally reached the point where strangers meet and pass without turning back.

That, perhaps, was the best ending we could ever hope for.