Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 126

Chapter 126

Marco sat at the head of the ning table, the school report card in his hand, his face growing darker with each line he read. Monica stood across from him, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes fixed on the floor

“Four F’s,” Marco said, his voice low and dangerous. “Four failing grades, Monica. And two D’s. This is unacceptable.”

Monica said nothing. She could feel Ria and Lucas watching from the doorway, could sense Margaret somewhere in the kitchen pretending not to listen. The dining room felt too small, the air too thick to breathe.

“Your teachers say you don’t pay attention in class. That you stare out the window all day. That you don’t turn in assignments.” Marco slapped the report card down on the table. “What’s wrong with you? You used to be a straight–A student.”

“I don’t care about school anymore,” Monica whispered.

“What did you say?”

“I said I don’t care. Her voice was still quiet, but something in it made Marco’s eyes narrow.

“You don’t care? You don’t care about your education? About your future?”

Monica lifted her head and looked at her father for the first time. Really looked at him. At the man who had destroyed everything good in their lives.

“What future?” she asked. “What do I have to look forward to? Living in this house with people who hate each other? Watching you obsess over destroying Mom? Pretending everything is normal when nothing will ever be normal again?”

Marco’s face flushed red. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that. I am your father.”

“You’re the man who cheated on my mother. You’re the man who drove her away. You’re the man who chose your revenge over your children.”

The words came out harsh and cold, so different from Monica’s usual soft voice. Ria took a step into the room, her hand outstretched like she wanted to stop what was happening but didn’t know how.

“Monica, maybe we should talk about this later,” Ria said nervously.

But Monica wasn’t listening to her sister. All the months of pain and silence and suffocating grief were rising up inside her like a volcano that had been dormant too long.

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“You want to know why I’m failing school, Dad? Because I can’t concentrate on anything when my whole life is falling apart. Because every time I try to focus on homework, all I can think about is how Mom left us. How she’s married to someone else now. How she has a new family and doesn’t want us anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Marco started, but Monica talked over him.

“And you know whose fault that is? Yours! All of it is your fault!” Her voice was rising now, getting louder and sharper. “You destroyed our family! You threw away seventeen years of marriage for what? For Margaret? For revenge? For your stupid pride?”

“Monica, that’s enough!” Marco stood up from the table, his chair scraping loudly against the floor.

But something had broken loose inside Monica. Something that had been locked away for too long. The quiet, gentle girl who never raised her voice, who always tried to keep the peace, who absorbed everyone else’s pain without complaint, that girl was gone.

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Chapter 126-*

It’s uut enoughI’ve been quiet for months while you destroyed everything! While you turned Mom into your enemy! While you fabricated evidence to destroy the man she loves! While you became so obsessed with revenge that you forgot you even had children!”

The room went deathly silem. Even Margaret appeared in the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide with shock.

“You think I don’t see what you’ve become?” Monica’s voice cracked, tears starting to stream down her face. “You think Lucas and Ria and I are blind? We see you locked in your study all night. We hear you ranting about Mom and Alexander. We watch you obsess over destroying her new life instead of being our father!”

Marco’s face had gone pale. “You don’t understand the situation.”

“I understand that you’re a liar! I understand that you cheated on Mom and then blamed her when she left! I understand that you can’t let her go! That you’d rather spend every day hating her than try to fix what you broke!”

Monica grabbed a crystal vase from the sideboard and before anyone could stop her, she threw it across the room. It shattered against the wall in an explosion of glass and water, flowers scattering across the hardwood floor.

“Monica!” Ria screamed, but Monica was already reaching for more things.

A porcelain plate. Crash. Against the far wall.

A picture frame with a family photo from five years ago, when they were all still together and happy. Smash. The glass splintering into a thousand pieces.

Another vase. Another plate. A decorative bowl that had been Margaret’s grandmother’s.

“Stop it!” Marco was moving toward her now, but Monica backed away, her hands still grabbing for anything she could throw.

“Why should I stop? You didn’t stop! You didn’t stop destroying things! You didn’t stop when Mom begged you to go to counseling! You didn’t stop when we asked you to leave her alone! You didn’t stop even after she got married and moved on!”

A serving platter. A candlestick holder. More picture frames.

The dining room was chaos. Glass covered every surface. Water pooled on the floor. Broken pieces of their former life scattered like shrapnel from a bomb.

Lucas tried to grab Monica’s arms but she twisted away from him, her face red and wet with tears, her breathing coming in harsh gasps.

“You want to know why I’m failing school? Because I can’t sleep! I can’t eat! I can’t think about anything except how much I miss Mom! How much I hate what you’ve done to our family! How much I hate myself for choosing you over her!”

The last words came out in a scream that seemed to tear from the very bottom of Monica’s soul.

Marco stood frozen in the middle of the destruction, his face a mask of shock. He had never seen Monica like this. None of them had. Monica was the quiet one, the gentle one, the child who never caused problems or raised her voice.

This wild, raging girl throwing things and screaming accusations, this wasn’t Monica. Except it was. This was what happened when you pushed someone too far. When you forced them to swallow their pain until it poisoned them from the inside.

“I hate you,” Monica said, her voice suddenly quiet again, almost a whisper. “I hate you for what you did to Mom. I hate you for what you did to us. I hate you for making me choose between you and her when there never should have been a choice.“

She picked up one more picture frame. This one showed Marco and Lucia on their wedding day, both of them young and smiling and in love. Monica looked at it for a long moment, tears dripping onto the glass.

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6:52 pm P

Chapter 196

hen she threwashard as she could. It hit the wall and exploded, the image of her parents wedding day scattering across The fear in broken fragments.

“She was a good mother,” Monica sand, her voice breaking. “She loved us. She took care of us. She would have done any for us. And you destroyed her you cheated on her, you humiliated her, and then when she tried to move on, you could her go. You’re still obsessed with her instead of being our father.”

“Monica” Marco’s voice was strangled, barely recognizable.

“Don’t say my name. Don’t act like you care about me. you cared about arry of us, you would have stopped this months ago. You would have let Mom be happy. You would have focused on being a father instead of being a monster”

The word hung in the air like poison. Monster. Monica had called her father a monster.

Margaret made a sound from the kitchen doorway, something between a gasp and a sob. Ria was crying openly now, her hands covering her mouth. Lucas stood with his fists clenched at his sides, looking like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

Monica looked around at the destruction she had caused. Broken glass everywhere. Shattered porcelain. Destroyed memories. The dining room looked like a war zone.

Just like her family. Just like her life.

“I’m done,” she said quietly. “I’m done pretending everything is okay. I’m done being the good daughter who never complains. I’m done protecting your feelings when you’ve never protected ours.”

She walked toward the stairs, her feet crunching on broken glass. Nobody tried to stop her. They were all too shocked, too frozen by what they had just witnessed.

At the bottom of the stairs, Monica turned back to look at her father one last time.

“Mom didn’t abandon us, Dad. We abandoned her. And now we have to live with that for the rest of our lives.”

Then she was gone, her footsteps echoing up the stairs, her bedroom door slamming so hard the whole house shook.

Marco stood in the ruins of his dining room, surrounded by the broken pieces of his family’s life, and for the first time in months, he had no idea what to do next.

His youngest daughter, his gentle, quiet Monica, had just told him the truth in the most devastating way possible.

And he couldn’t argue with a single word she’d said.