Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 112

Chapter 112

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Ria heard the mail slot click but as/she sat at the kitchen counter, picking at her breakfast. The sound echoed through the quiet house like a gunshot. Margaret was still sleeping off another night of drinking, and their father had left early for work, muttering about board meetings and damage control.

“I’ll get it,” Lucas called from the living room, where he’d been lying on the couch staring at the ceiling. He’d been doing that a lot lately, just lying there, lost in thoughts he wouldn’t share.

Ria watched through the kitchen doorway as her brother shuffled to the front door. His movements were slow, tired. They all moved like that now, like they were carrying invisible weights on their shoulders.

The pile of mail scattered across the marble floor as Lucas bent to collect it. Bills, advertisements, business letters for their father. Nothing unusual. Then his hands froze.

“What is it?” Ria asked, noticing how still he’d become.

Lucas didn’t answer. He was staring at a cream–colored envelope, thick and expensive–looking. Ria could see his hands shaking slightly as he held it.

“Lucas?” Monica’s voice came from the stairs. She’d been coming down for breakfast, but now she stopped halfway, sensing something was wrong.

Ria stood up and walked over to her address was printed in elegant gold

Ria’s stomach dropped. She knew

“What does it say?” Monica asked, coming

The envelope felt heavy in her hands when Lucas passed it to her. The return

“Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Kane.”

was before she even opened it.

own the rest of the stairs to stand beside them.

Ria’s fingers trembled as she tore open the envelope. Inside was a wedding invitation, printed on the finest paper she’d ever seen. The words seemed to glow on the page:

*Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Kane*

*request the honor of your presence*

*at the marriage of*

*Lucia Rose Smith*

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*to*

*Alexander James Kane*

Ria’s vision blurred as she read the date. Two weeks away. Her mother was getting married in two weeks, and they’d been invited like distant relatives. Like strangers who happened to share her blood.

“Let me see,” Monica whispered, reaching for the invitation.

The three of them stood in a circle, passing the card between them like it was something dangerous. Something that night explode if they held it too long.

“She’s really doing it,” Lucas said finally, his voice barely audible. “She’s actually marrying him.”

Monica started crying first. Quiet tears that rolled down her cheeks as she stared at their mother’s new name printed in 1/5

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Chapter 112-

Fancy leuers. “Lucia Rose Smith.” Not Hart. Never Hart again.

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“I thought.” Ria’s voice cracked. “I thought maybe she’d change her mind. Maybe she’d remember that we’re her children and

come home.”

“She has a new family now,” Lucas said bitterly. “Lena Kane. Her new daughter. The one who didn’t betray her.”

The words hit all three of them like physical blows. Because it was true. They had betrayed her. They’d chosen their father’s lies over their mother’s love, and now she was moving on without them.

“We could go, Monica said suddenly, wiping her eyes. “We could go to the wedding and apologize. Tell her we were wrong.”

Ria looked at her youngest sister with a mixture of hope and despair. Sweet Monica, who still believed that love could fix everything. Who still thought sorry was enough to undo eight months

of damage.

“She doesn’t want us there,” Ria said gently. “Look at the invitation. It’s formal. Cold. Like we’re business associates, not her children.”

Lucas sank onto the bottom step of the staircase, holding his head in his hands. “We lost her. We actually lost our mother.”

The weight of those words settled over them like a blanket of snow. Cold. Suffocating. Final.

They’d known, intellectually, that their mother had moved on. They’d seen the news stories about her engagement, watched her at charity events looking beautiful and happy. But somehow, they’d still held onto hope. Still believed that somewhere deep down, she was waiting for them to come back to her.

The wedding invitation destroyed that hope completely. She wasn’t waiting. She was moving forward, creating a new life with a new family. A life that had

“What do we do?” Monica asked,

for Lena Kane but not for Ria, Lucas, and Monica Hart.

small and lost.

Before anyone could answer, they heard their father’s car in the driveway. The engine cut off, followed by the slam of the car door. Heavy footsteps approached the front door.

“Hide it,” Ria hissed, but it was too late.

Marco walked through the door just as Monica was trying to stuff the invitation back into its envelope. His eyes immediately locked onto the cream–colored paper in her hands.

“What’s that?” he asked, but his tone suggested he already knew.

None of them answered. They just stood there like deer caught in headlights, the invitation hanging between them like

evidence of a crime.

Marco crossed the room in three quick steps and snatched the paper from Monica’s hands. His face went white as he read, then red with fury.

“A wedding invitation,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Your mother sent you a wedding invitation.”

The way he said “your mother” made it sound like a curse word.

“Dad, Ria started.

“She sent this to my house,” Marco continued, his voice getting louder. “To my children. Inviting them to watch her marry

another man.”

He read the invitation again, his hands shaking with rage. “Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Kane. She’s already calling herself his

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Chapter 112

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“Dad, please,” Lucas tried to stand up, but Marco’s fury filled the room like poison gas.

“Two weeks,” Marco laughed, but there was no humor in it. “She’s marrying him in two weeks, and she thinks she can just invite you like you’re casual friends. Like you’re not her children.”

Monica stepped forward, her chin trembling but her voice steady. “Maybe we should go. Maybe it’s her way of reaching out

to us.”

Marco’s eyes snapped to his youngest daughter. “Reaching out? She abandoned you, Monica. She walked away from this family and never looked back. And now she wants you to celebrate her new life?”

“But Dad.”

“No.” Marco’s voice cracked like a whip. “No daughter of mine is going to watch her mother make a mockery of our family.”

He held up the invitation, studying it with disgust. “Look at this. Look how fancy it is. How expensive. She’s showing off, rubbing our faces in her new wealth, her new happiness.”

Ria felt something cold settle in her stomach. “What are you saying, Dad?”

Marco turned to look at all three of his children. His eyes were wild, desperate, filled with something that scared them.

“I’m saying there’s not going to be a wedding.”

The words hung in the air like a

“What do you mean?” Lucas asked slo

“I mean,” Marco said, his voice growing stron

more confident, “that your mother belongs with this family. She belongs

with me. And I’m not going to let some snake steal her away permanently.”

“Dad, you’re scaring us,” Monica whispered.

But Marco wasn’t listening. He was staring at the invitation like it held all the answers to his problems.

“She’s confused,” he said, more to himself than to them. “Alexander has filled her head with lies, made her think she wants this new life. But deep down, she knows where she belongs.”

He looked up at his children again, and they saw something in his eyes that made them step back.

“You three are not going to this wedding,” he announced. “Because there isn’t going to be a wedding.”

“Dad, what are you planning?” Ria asked, fear creeping into her voice.

r

Marco’s expression closed off, becoming unreadable. “That’s not your concern. What matters is that our family will be whole again.”

Without warning, he grabbed the invitation with both hands and tore it in half. The expensive paper ripped with a sound like fabric tearing.

“No!” Monica cried out, reaching for the pieces.

But Marco wasn’t finished. He tore the halves into quarters, then eighths, until the elegant invitation was nothing but confetti scattered across the marble floor.

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Chapter 112

There,” he said breathing hard. “Problem solved.”

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The three children stared at the pieces of paper scattered around their feet. It felt like watching their last connection to their mother being destroyed.

“You had no right, Lucas said quietly, his voice shaking with emotion.

“Thad every right,” Marco shot back. “I’m your her. I’m the one who stayed. I’m the one who kept this family together while she ran off to play house with her rich boyfriend.”

“You re the one who cheated!” Lucas exploded, jumping to his feet. “You’re the one who brought Margaret into our house! You’re the reason Mom left!”

Marco’s hand moved so fast that none of them saw it coming. The slap echoed through the house like a gunshot. Lucas stumbled backward, his hand flying to his cheek.

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again,” Marco said, his voice deadly quiet.

Ria and Monica rushed to Lucas’s side, both of them staring at their father with shock and fear. This wasn’t the man who had raised them. This was someone else. Someone dangerous.

“Your mother is sick.” Marco continued, his voice taking on a strange, calm quality that was somehow worse than his anger. “She’s been poisoned against us by Alexander Kane. But I’m going to fix that. I’m going to save her from herself.”

“How?” Ria whispered.

Marco’s expression harden? ”

that your mother will come to

becoming distant and cold. “That’s not something you need to worry about. Just know

He stepped over the torn pieces of the invitation and headed toward his study.

“And when she sees the truth about h real family.”

pegel study where

precious Alexander, she’ll come home where she belongs. We’ll be a family again. A

The door to his study slammed shut, leaving the three children standing in the hallway surrounded by the scattered remains of their mother’s wedding invitation.

They looked at each other with growing horror, finally understanding that their father wasn’t just angry or hurt.

He was planning something. Something that terrified them even though they didn’t know what it was.

And their mother had no idea what was coming for her.

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