Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 232

Chapter 232

Marie and Claire came through the front door without taking off their coats:

Josh Senior was in the living room with the television on low, a glass of something amber beside him. Josh Junior was at the kitchen table on his laptop, the screen full of spreadsheets that had stopped making sense to him hours ago Stella was upstairs, six months pregnant and tired in the way that made her go to bed earlier than anyone else in the house now

Claire’s voice arrived before she did.

“You won’t believe this,” she said, walking straight into the living room, her coat still buttoned, her face flushed from the cold and from something else entirely. “You will not believe what she did.”

Josh Senior turned the television off without being asked.

Marie sat down heavily in the armchair across from him, her hands pressed together in her lap, and the two of them looked at their daughters with the particular alertness of parents who had learned to brace for bad news before it arrived.

“Margaret gave away the money,” Claire said.

The room went still.

“What money?” Josh Senior asked, though something in his face suggested he already knew exactly what money she meant.

“Marco left her fifty million dollars,” Marie said. Her voice was flat with the effort of saying it plainly. “Privately. Outside the will. She found out about it the day after you and Josh went to see her.”

“Fifty million,” Josh Senior repeated. He set his glass down on the side table with more force than necessary. “And she had her own money too,” Claire continued. “The apartment, the investments, everything she still had from the marriage. Sixty-four million dollars total.” She unbuttoned her coat finally, her movements sharp and agitated. “She gave all of it away.”

“Gave it away to who?” Josh Senior’s voice had gone very quiet, which was worse than if he had shouted.

“To Monica,” Marie said.

Josh Junior looked up from his laptop for the first time since they walked in.

“Monica,” he repeated. “Marco’s daughter.”

“Yes,” Claire said.

Josh Senior stood up. He was a heavy man and the chair creaked when he rose from it, and he stood in the middle of the living room with his hands at his sides, looking at his wife and his daughter with an expression that was building toward something.

“She has always been a fool,” he said. His voice had risen now, filling the room. “Always. Every decision Margaret has made in her entire life has been the wrong one. She married a man who already had a family and thought that would end well. She destroyed that marriage with her own desperation. She spent months planning something that ended with her in prison for the rest of her life.” He was pacing now, his hands moving as he spoke. “And now, even from inside a cell, she finds a way to make one more catastrophic decision. She gives away sixty-four million dollars. To an outsider. While her own family struggles.”

of “She knows the money belongs to us,” Josh Junior said. His voice was tight, controlled in the specific way someone trying very hard not to let it crack. “She knows what kind of position I am in right now. The loans. The projections that didn’t hold. Stella is six months along and I cannot even tell her with certainty that the nursery will be paid for.” He closed the laptop. “And Margaret knew all of this. We told her. And she still gave it to some stranger’s kid.”

Stella appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs, drawn down by the volume of voices, one hand resting on the curve of her stomach.

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Chapter 237

“Monica is not a stranger,” she said.

Everyone turned to look at her.

“She’s Margaret’s stepdaughter” Stella said, coming down the stairs slowly, her hand still resting protectively. on her stomach. “Whatever happened between them, whatever Margaret did, that is the actual relationship Calling her an outsider doesn’t make this simpler. It just makes it easier to be angry.

“I don’t care what relationship she had to Margaret, Josh Junior said. “I care about the money that should have come to this family and went to a child who already has more than she could spend in three lifetime “Legally,” Stella said carefully, “the money isn’t ours to claim. Margaret transferred it. It’s done. Its Monica’s now under the law, whether any of us like the reason or not.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Claire said, turning to her sister-in-law with an edge in her voice. A challenge. A legal argument. Something.”

“On what grounds?” Stella asked. “Margaret was of sound enough mind to stand trial. She made a documented decision through a lawyer. There’s no fraud here, no coercion. You can’t challenge a gift just because you don’t like who received it.”

“Watch me try,” Claire said.

Josh Senior had stopped pacing. He looked at his wife. “We will go to the family,” he said. “Lucia Kane. Her husband. We will go to them directly and demand they return what is rightfully ours.”

“We don’t even know where they live,” Josh Junior said.

“Then we go where we know she will be,” Claire said. Her voice had gone sharp and decisive, the way it did when she had already worked something out in her head before saying it aloud. “Lucia Kane is Chairwoman of Hart Industries. She is there most days. We go to her office. We demand a meeting. We make her understand that this money does not simply disappear into her stepdaughter’s bank account because Margaret had a fit of conscience.”

“She’s not going to see us,” Josh Junior said.

“She’ll see us when we don’t leave,” Claire said.

Marie had been quiet through most of this, her hands still folded in her lap, but now she looked up. “We are her family by marriage,” she said slowly. “Whatever Margaret did, whatever happened in that basement, we did none of it. We are simply asking for what is reasonable. A family helping a family.” Her voice gained certainty as she spoke. “Lucia Kane is a mother. Surely she will understand the position we are in.” Stella looked at her mother-in-law with an expression that suggested she understood something none of them did yet.

“You’re planning to walk into Hart Industries and demand money from the family of the man Margaret killed,” Stella said. “The same family whose daughter Margaret kidnapped and assaulted. You think that conversation is going to go the way you’re imagining.”

“We are not the ones who did anything wrong,” Claire said. “We are simply asking for what is fair. There is a difference.”

“There is no difference to them,” Stella said. “You think Lucia Kane is going to make that distinction? You think she is going to separate Margaret from her family in her mind when you walk in there demanding her stepdaughter’s inheritance back? She buried the man Margaret killed. She watched her daughter testify in a courtroom about holding her father’s hand while he died. You are not going to be three reasonable people asking a fair question. You are going to be Margaret’s family showing up to take more from a girl who has already lost everything she can lose.”

“That’s not what this is,” Josh Junior said, but his voice had lost some of its earlier certainty.

“Isn’t it?” Stella looked at him steadily. “Tell me honestly. If Margaret had given that money to a charity, to strangers who had nothing to do with any of this, would you be putting your coat on right now?” Josh Junior did not answer.

Chapter 232

“You’re angry because it went to the one family connected to all of this. Stella said Because it feels like it should have stayed somewhere closer to home. But closer to home isn’t the same as rightfully yours.. “We are not asking for charity. Josh Senior said. “We are asking for what should rightfully have come to us through proper channels, money that Margaret had no right to give away to people who don’t need it “They don’t need it.” Stella repeated, very quietly. “Listen to yourselves. You keep saying that like it anything They don’t need it. So what? Needing money has nothing to do with who legally owns it

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