Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 229

(Aurora’s POV)

“For the wedding,” he said. “I wanted to get you something.”

I opened it.

A bracelet. Delicate silver chain, small stones set at even intervals. The craftsmanship was careful and the

piece was clearly not cheap.

I put it down and looked at him.

“Leo. Where did the money come from?”

“I earned it.”

“How.”

He explained it quickly, the way people do when they’ve rehearsed the explanation. He’d taught himself

some basic programming over the past two years – just small things, he said, nothing serious. He’d started

picking up freelance jobs online. Simple projects, well within his skill level. He’d been going to the internet

café because the connection there was more reliable than the school’s network after hours.

Not games. Work.

I sat with that for a moment.

He was seventeen. He’d been staying up late in an internet café, taking on freelance coding projects, to

buy his sister a wedding gift.

“You’re not in trouble,” I said finally. “But you need to sleep. That’s not optional. And no more late nights at the café, do you understand me? If you want to work on projects, you do it at a reasonable hour.”

He nodded, looking slightly relieved.

“I mean it, Leo.”

“I know. I will.”

I couldn’t be angry. I wanted to be, a little, because it would have been easier. But I just looked at my brother and felt something complicated and warm settle in my chest.

I showed Phineas the bracelet later, trying to keep my voice neutral and failing completely.

He took it from me, examined it for a moment, and handed it back.

“He made good choices with what he had,” Phineas said. That was all. But his tone was genuine.

The next morning, there was a package on the table for Leo. Phineas had put together a set of competition prep materials past papers and mock exams from top university programs, the kind that

weren’t commercially available. The stack was substantial.

< Chapter 194 A Brother’s Gift

Leo stared at it.

“Thank you,” he said, after a pause, in the tone of someone accepting vegetables they didn’t ask for.

Clam

Phineas said, almost as an aside, that he’d noticed Leo had a real aptitude for programming. That if he

wanted to develop it, there were structured pathways at Everett Group for exactly that kind of talent.

Leo looked at him. “I appreciate it. But I already have a direction I’m thinking about.”

Phineas went quiet for a second. Then something shifted in his expression – not quite surprise, but a

recalibration.

He nodded once, and said nothing more.

(Author’s POV)

Phineas’s phone buzzed.

He stepped aside and answered. Benny’s voice came through, quieter than usual.

“Mr. Everett. Neil Dawson is dead.”

Phineas’s eyes sharpened. “How.”

“He fell from a building.”

Silence. A few seconds, no longer. Then Phineas gave a short series of instructions in a low voice and

ended the call.

He stood for a moment, then moved toward the door.

Aurora came out of the bedroom at the same time. They met in the hallway.

Phineas stopped. He looked at her for a moment – just a moment – and something in his expression went

very still.

“Rory,” he said. His voice was flat and careful. “Your biological father. He fell from a building. He’s dead.”

(Aurora’s POV)

“Your biological father. He fell from a building. He’s dead.”

I stood there for a moment.

Neil Dawson’s face surfaced in my mind the knife, the smell of stale cigarettes, the way he’d looked at

me like I was a transaction waiting to be completed. I waited to feel something. Grief, maybe, or at least the ghost of it.

Nothing came.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

Phineas kept his voice level. “Gambling debts. He owed money to several underground outfits in the city. They came to collect. He went off a building.”

< Chapter 194 A Brother’s Gift

I absorbed that. A man who had lived by gambling and extortion, dead because of gambling and extortion.

There was a terrible completeness to it.

“Do you need to keep looking into it?” Phineas asked quietly.

“No.” I didn’t have to think about it. “No, I’m done with it.”

He looked at me for another moment, reading my face the way he always did, checking for something I

wasn’t showing. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him, because he nodded and said nothing more.

I felt the weight lift. Not grief – relief. The last loose thread from that chapter of my life, gone.

Which brought me to the next thing.

“Since that particular threat is gone,” I said, “can we stand down the security detail? The bodyguards?”

Phineas didn’t even pause. “No.”

“Phineas-”

“You’re my wife.” His tone was calm, but there was nothing negotiable in it. “I’ve never made a secret of

this marriage. Anyone paying attention knows. And people who want to get at me will look for the easiest target.” He paused. “Those men aren’t there to watch you. They’re there so that no one gets the idea that

you’re unprotected.”

I thought about arguing. I thought about it for a full three seconds.

“They’re not intrusive,” I said finally. “I’ll give you that.”

“They’re trained not to be.”

“Fine.” I looked at him. “Thank you. For all of it.”

The corner of his mouth curved up, slow and deliberate. He leaned down slightly, close enough that I

could hear him clearly when he said, “Don’t thank me. You’re my wife.”

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