Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 116

Chapter 116

Chapter 116

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The shouting started at eleven–thirty PM, just as Monica was trying to fall asleep. Her bedroom sat directly above the living room, and every angry word traveled through the floor like bullets piercing her heart.

“You’re losing everything!” Margaret’s voice cut through the house like a knife. “The company, the money, our reputation! Everything is falling apart because of your obsession wish that woman!”

Monica pressed her pillow over her head, trying to block out the noise. But Marco’s voice boomed back, even louder than Margaret’s.

“Don’t you dare blame this on Lucia! This is Alexander Kane’s doing! He’s using his connections to destroy me!”

“I don’t care who’s doing it! I care that we’re going broke!” Something crashed against the wall downstairs. Glass breaking. Margaret throwing things again. “Do you have any idea what people are saying about us? About me?”

Monica rolled onto her side, pulling her knees to her chest. The arguing had been getting worse every night for the past week Ever since the government people came to the company. Ever since her father started looking like a ghost, walking around the house with dark circles under his eyes.

I

“People have been talking about us for months,” Marco shot back. “Where was your concern then?”

“That was different! That was just gossip! This is real! The FBI agents, the tax people, the lawyers crawling all over your office!” Margaret’s voice cracked with hysteria. “My friends won’t even return my calls anymore!”

Another crash. More glass breaking. Monica flinched and squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

“Your friends?” Marco’s laugh was cold and you when they thought I was successful.”

ter. “Those aren’t friends, Margaret. Those are vultures who only cared about

“At least I had friends! At least I had a social life! Now I’m married to a man who’s about to lose everything!”

“Then leave!” Marco screamed so loud that Monica felt it in her bones. “If you can’t handle the pressure, then get out! Go find another rich man to leech off of!”

“Maybe I will!”

The silence that followed was worse than the shouting. Monica could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. The refrigerator hummed. Normal sounds that felt strange and wrong in the middle of such awful fighting.

Then Margaret started crying. Not the pretty tears she used when she wanted sympathy. These were ugly, desperate sobs that made Monica’s stomach hurt.

“I gave up everything for you,” Margaret choked out between sobs. “My modeling career, my apartment, my independence. I thought I was marrying someone stable. Someone successful.”

“You married someone who was already married,” Marco said quietly. “Someone who destroyed his family for you. What did you expect?”

“Texpected you to fight for what we built together! I expected you to protect our life!”

“Our life?” Marco’s voice rose again. “What life, Margaret? What exactly have we built? A house full of broken things and miserable children? A marriage based on lies and betrayal?”

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Chapter 116

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Monica couldn’t take it anymore. She slid off her bed and curled up on the floor, making herself as small as possible. The carpet was rough against her cheek, but she didn’t care. She pressed her face into the floor and tried to disappear.

The fighting continued below her, but the words started blending together into a mess of anger and blame and hurt. Monica stopped listening to what they were saying and focused on the sound of her own breathing. In and out. In and out. Like her mother used to teach her when she had bad dreams.

But her mother wasn’t here anymore. Her mother was planning a wedding with someone else. Someone who made her happy instead of making her cry.

Monica’s whole body started shaking. Not from cold, but from something deeper. Something that felt like she was breaking apart from the inside.

She began rocking back and forth on the floor, her arms wrapped tight around her knees. The motion helped somehow, like it was keeping all the broken pieces of herself from scattering across the room.

“Rock, rock, rock,” she whispered to herself. “Rock, rock, rock.”

The words became a rhythm in her head, blocking out the shouting downstairs. Rock, rock, rock. Like a boat on the ocean. Like a baby in a cradle. Like someone who was safe and loved and protected.

But Monica wasn’t any of those things anymore.

Downstairs, something else broke. This time it sounded bigger. Like a lamp or a vase. Margaret screamed, high and shrill like a wounded animal.

“I hate this house! I hate this life! I hate what we’ve become!”

“Then leave!” Marco roared back. “Pack your bags and go! Find someone else to blame for your problems!”

“Fine! Maybe I will! Maybe I’ll call Victor Sterling! Remember him? The man I met at the charity auction? The one who actually has money?”

The silence that followed was different from before. Heavier. More dangerous.

When Marco spoke again, his voice was so quiet that Monica had to strain to hear it. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Victor Sterling. He’s been texting me, asking to meet for dinner. Maybe it’s time I said yes.”

“You’ve been texting with another man?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You’re so busy obsessing over your ex–wife that you barely notice I exist!”

The sound that came from Marco wasn’t quite human. It was somewhere between a growl and a scream. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps. Running. Chasing.

Margaret shrieked. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t you dare!”

“You threatening me? You think you can threaten me?”

“Get away from me!”

More crashing. Furniture being knocked over. Margaret sobbing and Marco breathing hard like an angry bull.

Monica rocked harder, her whole body moving back and forth in a steady rhythm. She could feel something cracking inside her head. Like ice breaking on a frozen pond. The cracks spreading wider and wider until everything might fall through.

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Chapter 116

Rock, ruck rock she whispered faster. “Rock, rock, rock.”

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Her fingernails dug into her arms as she held herself together. Little half–moon shapes that would leave marks tomorrow. But the pain felt good somehow. Real. More real than the nightmare happening downstairs.

The front door slammed so hard that the whole house shook. Car tires squealed in the driveway. An engine roared as someone drove away fast and angry.

Then quiet. Finally, blessed quiet.

But the quiet was almost worse than the fighting because it left Monica alone with her thoughts. Alone with the realization that her family wasn’t just broken, it was poison. Everything they touched turned sick and twisted.

Her mother had been smart to leave. Smart to find a new family that didn’t scream and throw things and threaten each other. Smart to choose people who loved her instead of people who blamed her for everything wrong in their lives.

Monica wished she could leave too. Wished she could pack a bag and walk out the front door and never come back. But she was only thirteen. Too young to live alone. Too scared to ask for help.

So she stayed on the floor, rocking back and forth, whispering her magic words that didn’t really protect her from anything.

“Rock, rock, rock.”

Footsteps in the hallway. Heavy, tired footsteps that belonged to her father. They stopped outside her door for a long moment. Monica held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t come in. Hoping he wouldn’t see her like this, broken and strange on the bedroom floor.

The footsteps moved on. A door opened and closed. The house settled into silence again.

But Monica kept rocking. Kept whispering. Because stopping felt too dangerous. Like if she stopped moving, she might never be able to start again.

Somewhere across the city, her mother was probably sleeping peacefully beside Alexander Kane. Probably dreaming about wedding dresses and flower arrangements and all the beautiful things that happened when people loved each other the right

way.

And here in this house, Monica rocked on the floor like a broken toy, wondering if she would ever feel safe again.

Wondering if she was slowly losing her mind like everything else in her life was

slowly being lost.

“Rock, rock, rock,” she whispered to the empty darkness.

It was the only prayer she had left.