Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 213

Chapter 213

Chapter 213

The morning was grey and cold. The kind of morning that felt appropriate in a way that didn’t make it easier.

They drove to the cemetery in two cars, barely speaking. Ria sat in the back with Monica, their shoulders touching, Monica’ s hands folded in her lap. Lucas looked out the passenger window the whole way with his jaw set. Lena sat quietly between them, belonging to this grief differently from the others but belonging to it nonetheless.

The service was small. A handful of old colleagues who had come, some out of respect and some out of guilt and some perhaps out of curiosity. A minister who had not known Marco Hart personally and whose words were careful and general. The casket was dark wood, plain, the flowers white because nobody had known what color to choose for a/man this complicated

Ria cried from the beginning. She did not try to stop. She stood with her shoulders shaking and the tears coming steadily and made no attempt to control any of it, which was somehow the bravest thing in the small gathering.

Lucas did not cry. He stood straight with his hands at his sides and looked at the casket the whole time with the

expression of someone who had made a decision about himself and was holding to it by force of will. Lucia watched him and understood and said nothing.

Monica held Lucia’s hand throughout the service. She held it with both of hers, the grip slightly too tight, and Lucia held back just as hard and neither of them let go.

When the minister finished, the small group of colleagues drifted toward their cars. The family remained.

Ria knelt and put her hand flat on the surface of the casket for a long moment. She did not say anything. She just put her hand there and stayed still, like she was listening for something.

Lucas stood at the foot of the grave and looked down. “I’m going to be better than you were,” he said quietly. “Not because I m better than you. Just because you showed me what to work against.” His voice did not shake. “That counts for something. That’s yours.”

Monica stepped forward last.

She put the drawing on top of the casket. She had made it last night, sitting at her desk until past midnight with her colored pencils and her good paper, and she had brought it this morning in a clear sleeve to protect it. Lucia had seen it briefly before she covered it, a small portrait of Marco the way Monica remembered him from before, from when she was very young, his face relaxed and unguarded in the specific way it had been before the marriage started fracturing. Before everything went wrong.

She pressed her palm to the sleeve.

“I meant it,” she said. Just those three words, said to the man in the casket who had heard them in that basement and taken them with him. “I meant every word.”

Lucia had to look away.

The lawyer came to the house that afternoon. A quiet man with a careful face who set his briefcase on the dining room table and took out the documents with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this before and knew that nothing he did could make it less difficult.

“Mr. Hart drafted this will two days before his death,” he said, when everyone had settled. He looked around the table at the four children, at Lucia, at Alexander standing in the doorway. “I need you all to understand that. He came to my office two days before he went to that warehouse. He did not tell me he was going anywhere. But when I think about the care he took with every word, I believe he understood that time was short.”

The room was very quiet.

“He was methodical,” the lawyer continued. “He was thorough. He did not look like a man settling affairs as a formality. He looked like a man who needed to get something right that he had gotten wrong for a long time.” He stopped. “In all my years of practice, I have rarely sat with someone in that state. There was no anger left in him. Only this.”

He read the figures.

Nine hundred million dollars in cash and combined estate left equally to Ria, Lucas, and Monica. Properties. Investment portfolios. Everything Marco Hart had built and accumulated over a lifetime, divided three ways between the three children he had not always been present enough to deserve.

The room absorbed this in silence.

Ria’s hand was over her mouth. Lucas looked at the table. Monica sat very still.

Then the lawyer looked at Lucia.

Chapter 213 “Mrs. Kane. There is a separate provision for you.” He read from the document. “One hundred million dollars in persona funds, described in Mr. Hart’s notes as money that belonged to you during our marriage and was never properly returned. He writes that you stopped your career for him. That you used your inheritance to fund the early business. That you gave him years and received legal proceedings in return. He writes that this does not begin to cover it, but it is what he had.”

Lucia stared at the page in front of her.

“There is also a personal letter,” the lawyer said. He slid an envelope across the table toward her, her name on the front in Marco’s handwriting. “He asked me to give it to you directly.”

She looked at the envelope. She did not open it. Not here.

“He also asked me to tell you,” the lawyer continued, his voice going slightly quieter, “that when he sat in that office writing these provisions, he asked me whether it was possible to put an apology inside a legal document. I told him it was not He said then he would find another way to say it.” He looked at Lucia steadily. “I believe the letter is that other way.”

Ria was crying again, making no sound this time, just tears running.

Lucas reached across the table and put his hand over Monica’s. She turned her hand over and held his.

“Two days before,” Lucas said. His voice came out low and rough. “He knew.”

“I cannot say that with certainty,” the lawyer said carefully. “But I can say that the man who sat in my office two days before his death had made his peace with something. He was not afraid. He was not angry. He was just very determined to get this right.”

Alexander moved from the doorway to stand behind Lucia’s chair. She felt his presence there without turning.

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