My Accidental Billionaire Husband (Katia and Julian) novel Chapter 275

Bavage

-Julian’s POV-

The abandoned WEG shipyard warehouse in Brooklyn smelled of salt, rusted iron, and fifty years of stagnant oil.

It was freezing inside. The rain from the harbor was hitting the corrugated steel roof in a heavy, deafening roar, but the sound was distant, blocked out by the massive, cavernous silence of the concrete floor. In the center of the dark space, hanging from a single, frayed black wire, a high–intensity halogen bulb cast a harsh, stark cone of white light onto the damp concrete.

Directly beneath the light, tied to a heavy steel industrial chair with thick, reinforced zip ties, was Jude Wolfe.

He was barely conscious. His head was slumped forward, a thin, dark trail of fresh blood dripping from his nose onto the torn fabric of his silk shirt. His face was already a ruined, swollen mask of plum–colored bruising from the penthouse siege, but the fresh laceration at the back of his skull–courtesy of Sam’s fire extinguisher—had been crudely bandaged with a piece of dark utility tape to keep him from bleeding out before I was done with him.

I stood in the deep shadows just beyond the light, slowly wrapping the last layer of white tape over my knuckles.

The shhh–t of the tape tearing was the only sound inside the warehouse. I kept my movements slow, stretching the fabric tight over my skin, feeling the stiff, dry ache in my palms. My face was settled into a completely blank, frozen wall of stone. Inside my chest, the nuclear, primitive rage had settled, compressing itself into a cold, clinical focus.

Jude let out a wet, rattling wheeze through his wired jaw. His head slowly lifted, his single good eye blinking rapidly against the harsh glare of the halogen bulb. He looked around the vast, dark, empty warehouse, his breathing instantly turning shallow and frantic as the reality of his abduction registered.

He didn’t see me yet. I was nothing but a towering, silent silhouette in the dark.

“Windsor,” Jude whistled through his teeth, his British accent sounding wet and hollow behind the wire mesh. He tried to pull his arms, but the steel zip ties bit deep into his wrists, cutting off the circulation. “Windsor, you… you are completely out of your mind. This is kidnapping. This is federal-”

I didn’t answer.

I stepped into the light.

I didn’t offer a corporate explanation, and I didn’t issue a warning. I crossed the ten feet of concrete in two long, heavy strides, my boot–heels silent against the damp ground. I grabbed Jude by his styled dark hair, yanked his head back until his spine popped against the steel chair, and hit him.

Crack.

The sound of my taped fist connecting violently with his cheek was deafeningly loud. It was a raw, full weight strike that carried the entire force of my back and shoulders. Jude’s head snapped violently to the side, a spray of dark blood and saliva splashing

onto the cold concrete.

Before he could even catch his breath, I grabbed his throat, my fingers digging deep into his windpipe, cutting oft his air completely, and drove my left fist straight into his ribs.

Crack. Crack.

I heard the distiner, sickening fracture of two ribs breaking under my knuckles. Jude let out a strangled, agonizing gasp, his entire body convulsing against the zip ties as he tried to draw oxygen into his collapsed lungs. His face turned a dark, suffocating purple, tears of pure physical agony spilling over his swollen lashes

I didn’t stop.

I hit him again, matching every single strike Katia had taken in her office 1 hit his mouth, splitting his lips against his wired teeth until the wire mesh groaned under the pressure. I hit his temple, shaking his bram inside his skull until his single good eye went completely vacant and glazed I was savage. I was a monster executing an intruder who had dared to step onto my territory and put his heavy, abusive hands on what belonged to me.

When his chest was nothing but a rágged, whistling gasp of pure agony. I released his throat. His head fell forward, blood dripping steadily from his mouth onto his lap, his body trembling violently in the cold air

I walked to the metal workbench in the shadows picked up a single sheet of paper, and walked back.

I slid the document onto the small wooden board I had positioned over his lap. Beside it, I dropped a heavy black titanium pen.

Jude’s chest was heaving, his breath coming in short, wet coughs. He slowly raised his head, looking down at the white paper through his swelling eyelids.

“What… what is this?” he whistled, his voice barely a rattle.

“You’re going to sign it,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, quiet register that carried a freezing, absolute finality. “It is an ironclad, legally binding document relinquishing any and all parental, custody, or visitation rights to Aiden Kensington. It also includes a full, notarized confession of your corporate fraud regarding Halo Systems‘ server logs.”

Jude let out a wet, painful laugh that made him wince, his hand trying to twitch against the zip–ties. “A custody…

He was a fraud. He had never touched her. He had never seen her naked, he was not married to her, and he certainly was not the father of the boy sleeping upstate. He had fabricated the entire husband narrative from London to secure I* Technologies‘ telemetry assets. If he tried to challenge this fake document, the court would demand a DNA test–and the second his DNA failed to match Aiden’s, his entire global lie would be completely incinerated. He would be exposed as a public fraud, his racing division would be ruined, and he would face immediate prosecution for corporate extortion.

He didn’t dare verify the document. He couldn’t.

“I don’t think,” hissed, my hand reaching down to grab his right wrist–the hand he had raised to strike my wife across the face. “I know.”

Jude let out a high–pitched, screeching scream of pure, agonizing torment that bounced off the high steel ceilings of the warehouse. His body arched violently off the chair, his veins bulging against his neck, his face turning a ghastly shade of grey as the bone in his finger fractured completely.

“You have five seconds to sign with your left hand,” I commanded, my taped fingers wrapping around his broken right hand, ready to take the next finger off. “Or I will start stripping your hand down to the bone.”

“I’ll sign! I’ll sign!” Jude choked out, his chest heaving in wild, hysterical gasps.

His left hand was trembling violently, his fingers barely able to grip the heavy metal pen. But the sheer terror of my grip on his broken hand was enough to force hts compliance. Using his left hand, his face slick with sweat and blood, he scribbled his signature across the bottom of the document, the ink scratching messily against the white paper.

The second his pen left the paper, I snatched the document away. I folded it carefully, sliding it deep inside the pocket of my overcoat.

I looked down at him. He was broken, trembling, and utterly dismantled, his head resting against his chest as he wept silent, agonizing tears of pain and defeat

I had the signature. I had the confession But as I looked at his ruined face, the calculating side of my brain was still tracking the missing puzzle piece. He was a billionaire. He ran a massive global motorsport division. He had risked his entire career, his reputation, and his physical health to fly across the Atlantic and play husband to a woman he had never seen before.

Why?

“Why Katia, Jude?” I asked, my voice a quiet, level murmur that cut through the sound of the rain. “Why did you leave London to play husband to a woman you aren’t married to?”

Jude let out a wet, rattling wheeze, his head slowly tilting up. Through the swelling of his left eye, a tight, vicious smirk touched the corner of his bloody lips–the final, desperate defiance of a dying predator.

“Ask… ask your sister–in–law, Julian,” Jude whistled through his wired teeth, his voice shaking. “Ask her… who she met… in Las Vegas seven years ago. Ask her… who actually owns… that pretty little ass of hers. Because… it’s me.”

The statement landed in the cold air of the warehouse, but it didn’t hit the target he wanted.

Inside my chest, a cold, dangerous smile touched my own lips. I raised :ny chin, looking down at his broken, arrogant face with the quiet, detached curiosity of a scientist studying a nuisance.

“I don’t need to ask her,” I said, my voice carrying a quiet, terrifying finality. “Because I already know the answer.”

I turned on my heel and walked out of the light, my strides long, heavy, and deliberate as I headed back toward the double metal doors of the warehouse. Behind me, Jude’s shallow, rattling breathing was the only sound, but I didn’t look back