Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 290

(Aurora’s POV)

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“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “The wedding. It’s going to have to wait.”

He put his hand on my waist. Not tightly – just there, a steady weight.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

I turned to look at him. His expression was calm, but his eyes were focused entirely on me.

I didn’t have certainty. I didn’t have a plan. But I looked at him and said, “Yes.”

The corner of his mouth moved slightly. He didn’t say anything else.

We stayed the night. There was nowhere else to go, and the police wanted us close. Leo’s single bed was narrow, barely wide enough for one person, but we didn’t discuss it. We just lay down. Phineas was on his back, one arm around me, still fully dressed except for his jacket.

I don’t know when I fell asleep.

Somewhere in the dark, I started crying. I didn’t make any sound. I wasn’t even fully awake. But I felt the tears tracking sideways across my face, soaking into the fabric of his shirt, and I couldn’t stop them.

He didn’t say anything. He just pulled me closer, and his hand started moving slowly across my back – steady, rhythmic, patient. Like he had all the time in the world. Like he wasn’t going anywhere.

I don’t know how long it took. But eventually the tightness in my chest loosened, and my breathing slowed, and the dark behind my eyes stopped feeling so heavy.

A knock at the door woke us both.

Four in the morning. I knew before I even sat up.

Martha was in the hallway, her face white. “They messaged again.”

Phineas was already reading over her shoulder. I came to stand beside him.

The new message set a time and a location. Six a.m. A specific address in a city about forty minutes away. Cash only. Direct handoff.

The police officer on duty looked up from his equipment. “That’s less than two hours.”

Martha turned to me. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Come with me,” she said. “Please. I can’t – I can’t do this alone.”

“I’ll go,” Phineas said immediately.

The phone buzzed again.

We all looked down at it. A second message, from the same blocked number.

*Direct family only. Any outside presence and the boy dies.*

Original content from jobnib.com
The room went quiet.

I looked at the message. Then I looked at Phineas.

He was looking at it too. Something shifted in his expression – not alarm, but a careful, controlled stillness. He read the message again. His jaw was tight.

It was precise. Too precise. The kind of precision that didn’t come from desperation.

The GPS said sixty miles to the destination. The highway was empty this early, just black asphalt and the occasional flash of a reflector post. Behind us, somewhere two miles back, the police were following without headlights.

Martha was crying again.

She’d been crying since we left the apartment. Not quietly – loud, wet, heaving sobs that filled the car and made it impossible to think.

“He’s had such a hard life,” she choked out. “First the illness, then this. What did he ever do to deserve this? What did either of us do?”

“Martha.” My voice came out flat. “Stop.”

“I can’t help it, I can’t-”

“You need to stop right now.” I glanced at her once, then-back at the road. “If you walk in there falling apart, you will make things worse. Do you understand me? Pull yourself together.”

She pressed a hand over her mouth. The sobs kept coming, muffled now but still shaking her shoulders. I forced myself to look away.

I focused on the road. I focused on breathing.

Forty minutes passed. Martha had finally gone quiet, just a wet sniffle every few minutes. Then her phone buzzed.

She screamed.

“They changed the location.” Her voice shot up. “They want us to pull over. Right now. Right here.”

I eased the car to the shoulder and cut the engine. I leaned toward the dash and spoke quietly into the car’s communication system. “Location change. We’re stopping on the highway. They want a foot approach.”