My Second Marriage with the Mafia Kingpin novel Chapter 326

Chapter 326: Death or Me?

The moment Ashley lowered her head, a few people let themselves smirk. Jony. Nikki. Several members of the High Chamber.

They had been lenient with her at first because they hadn’t expected much. But she had pushed, and now they were pushing back the only way they knew how.

Politics.

On the other side of the room, a few faces fell. Those loyal to Lucian had been counting on her.

Worry moved quietly through her men. They knew how hard it was to fight these kinds of arguments — the kind that wrapped truth around a blade. Ashley had shown them she was capable, but capability wasn’t always enough. This room required something else: the ability to hold your ground when someone was twisting the ground beneath you.

Lukas stared at her, something almost like concern flickering behind his eyes for the first time. Concern, and disappointment, though he wasn’t surprised.

Why would I be? he thought. She can talk all she wants. She can wear the title of Madam of Dominion. But that doesn’t change what she’s lacking.

He exhaled quietly and glanced at the men across the table. He was tempted to step in. This was where he was good — this kind of sparring. It would reflect poorly on her, but he couldn’t just stand here and watch them dismantle her with a few well-placed words.

Before he could move, Ashley’s voice came.

Quiet and a little unsteady.

"Have any of you lived with my husband — even for a single day?"

She raised her head.

Her expression wasn’t what anyone expected. Her features were sharp, her eyes lit with something fierce, as if they had said something they had no right to say.

She hadn’t lowered her head out of defeat. She had done it to hide the flash of pain that had moved through her chest before she could stop it.

Because amid everything that had happened since Lucian’s collapse, there was one thought Ashley had been refusing to look at directly.

That Lucian had wanted to die.

She didn’t want to believe it. He hadn’t sought help — not once. But if she let herself sit with that, the questions that followed would be worse. Whether any of it had been real. Whether the life they’d had together had ever meant anything to him — or whether it had all been what he once told her it was: pretend.

She wouldn’t go there. She couldn’t. Because if she did, it would break something in her that she wasn’t prepared to lose. Whether she admitted it or not, she had drifted far from her original plan — the simple, careful plan to keep Lucian alive just long enough for her to leave.

"No one in this room has lived under the same roof as him," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, the steadiness in it costing her something. "No one here has slept in the same bed, or been in the same space with him for a full day. But I would have expected that all of you — at the very least — would have held onto one thing you know about him."

She drew a slow breath and straightened.

"There is nothing noble about dying. Nothing dignified. Death is not something to be glorified — and that was something my husband believed. He said it often enough that all of you should know it by heart."

Her lips pressed together. "And yet here you are, using the language of respect and dignity to justify letting him die."

"This council makes the decisions no one else will." She placed both hands flat on the table and rose slowly. "Then make one now. For Dominion’s sake."

For just a moment, she forced herself to go still inside — to close off the part of her that was aching, that found it unbearable that while her husband was somewhere fighting for his life, these men were using that very fact as a card to play.

She shut it away. Just for now.

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