Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 235

Chapter 235

Chapter 235

Monica was walking out through the side entrance of the school with two friends when she saw him standing near the gate

She recognized him immediately. Josh, Margaret’s brother, the man who had stood near the back of the room at her father’s wedding to Margaret, laughing too loudly at something, his tie loosened by the second hour. watching the room with the specific restlessness of someone calculating what the marriage might eventually be worth to him. She remembered his face because she remembered disliking him even then, before she had any real reason to.

He was walking toward her now, and something in the set of his shoulders made the hair on her arms rise before her mind fully caught up with why.

“Monica Hart,” he said. “You remember me.”

She stopped walking. Her friends slowed beside her, sensing something was wrong before they understood what.

“I know who you are,” Monica said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt.

“Good. Saves us both time.” He stepped closer, close enough that Monica had to fight the urge to step back. “1 need the money that Margaret gave to you. Your father, before he died, he would have wanted his money to go somewhere that actually needed it. Not handed to a spoiled kid who already has everything she could ever want.”

“That money was given to me,” Monica said. “Margaret decided what to do with it. I decided what to do with it after that. It has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me.” His voice sharpened, losing whatever thin civility it had carried a moment before. “My wife is pregnant. My business is failing because of debts I took on trusting numbers that turned out to be garbage. And you’re standing here in your little school uniform sitting on millions of dollars you did nothing to earn, giving it away to strangers because it makes you feel important. Like some kind of saint.” “Leave me alone,” Monica said, and she turned to walk away.

His hand closed around her arm.

Not gently. His fingers dug into her sleeve and through it into her skin, and Monica’s whole body went cold the way it had gone cold in a basement months ago, the specific terror of an adult’s hand closing around her with force she could not match.

“I’m not finished talking to you,” Josh said. His grip tightened, his face close to hers now. “You give me the money my sister left you. Right now, or you call your mother and tell her to wire it to me tonight. I am done being polite about this.”

“Let go of me.” Monica’s voice cracked. She pulled against his hand and it did not move.

“You think because you have a Trillionaire step father and your father left you millions that makes you untouchable?” Josh’s voice had gone uglier now, something cruel surfacing fully. “You think because my sister felt sorry for a traumatized little girl that the money is actually yours? It was never yours. You didn’t earn a cent of it. You just happened to be the one my idiot sister felt guilty enough about.”

One of her friends had already turned and was running back toward the school building, shouting for a teacher “The money is gone,” Monica said, her voice rising now, fear finally breaking through the composure she had been holding. “I gave it away. All of it. There’s nothing left to give you.”

“You’re lying.” His fingers dug harder.

“I’m not lying.” Tears were coming now, hot and fast, and she hated that they were coming in front of him, hated that this was exactly what he wanted to see. “It’s gone. I donated it. I don’t have it anymore.” “Then you’ll get more.” His grip did not loosen at all. “Your mother runs a company worth billions. Your stepfather could write a check right now and never feel it in his bank account. You tell them to hand over what

1/4

alt

Chapter 235

your father left you, or I will make sure every newspaper in this city knows exactly what kind of greedy, attention seeking little girl you actually are.”

“Let go of her!”

A mother, one of the parents waiting near the gate, had crossed the distance fast, her face furious, her hand already reaching to pull Josh’s grip away from Monica’s arm.

Josh did not let go.

“This doesn’t concern you,” he said, jerking Monica slightly as he turned toward the woman, and Monica stumbled, pain shooting up her arm where his fingers had not loosened at all.

“Let go of that child right now,” the woman said, her voice carrying across the schoolyard now, drawing more attention, more parents turning, more students stopping mid-stride to stare.

“Get off her,” another voice said. A man this time, moving fast.

Josh’s grip finally faltered, just slightly, just enough for Monica to wrench her arm free and stumble backward, her sleeve torn at the seam, her arm already showing the pale marks where his fingers had been.

She was shaking.

The school security guards arrived at a run, two of them, both moving with the specific urgency of men trained for exactly this kind of moment and who had hoped never to use it.

“Sir, you need to leave the premises immediately,” one of them said, already moving between Josh and Monica, his body a wall.

“I have every right to talk to her,” Josh said, his voice still raised, still furious, not even attempting to sound reasonable now. “She owes my family money and everyone here is acting like I attacked her for no reason.” “You do not have the right to grab a student,” the guard said. “You need to leave right now or we are calling the police.”

“This isn’t over,” Josh said, his eyes finding Monica’s over the guard’s shoulder, something venomous in his expression. “Tell your mother this isn’t finished. You think you’re safe behind security guards and lawyers? We will find a way.”

The second guard took his arm, firm and final, and began walking him backward toward the gate despite his resistance, his shouting continuing the entire way, words about money and fairness and what was owed to his family carrying across the schoolyard until the gate closed behind him and the sound of him faded into the street beyond.

Monica stood where she was, her arm throbbing, her whole body shaking now that the adrenaline had nowhere left to go.

The mother who had intervened was beside her immediately, crouching slightly to look at her face.

“Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”

Monica looked down at her arm. The marks were already darkening, four small ovals where his fingers had pressed.

She could not speak.

A teacher arrived, breathless from running, already pulling out her phone to call the school office, to call Monica’s mother, to call the police.

Monica stood in the middle of all of it, the noise and the concern and the questions arriving from every direction, and felt herself go somewhere very far away, somewhere quiet, the way she used to go in a basement when the only thing left to do was wait for it to end.

Her friend who had run for help came back, breathless, her face white.

“Monica,” she said. “Monica, are you okay?”

Monica looked at her.

She opened her mouth.

alt

Chapter 235

Nothing came out.

The school nurse arrived next, gently guiding Monica toward the building, away from the gathering crowd of students and parents who had stopped to watch, their phones already half raised before teachers waved them back. Monica let herself be guided. Her legs were working but they did not feel entirely like her own.

Inside the nurse’s office the fluorescent light hummed overhead and the smell of antiseptic sat thick in the air, and Monica sat on the edge of the examination table while the nurse looked at her arm, pressing gently around the bruising already forming, asking questions Monica answered with single words because anything longer felt impossible to assemble.

“Does it hurt to move it?”

“No.”

“Can you make a fist for me?”

Monica made a fist. It hurt slightly but she said nothing about that.

“Your mother is on her way,” the nurse said. “She’ll be here very soon.”

Monica nodded.

She sat in the small room with its posters about handwashing and the dangers of sunburn, and she looked at the four small marks darkening on her forearm, and she thought about a basement and rope and a man’s hand closing around something that was not his to take.

She thought about Josh’s voice. Tell your mother this isn’t finished.

Lucia arrived twenty minutes later, moving through the school office so fast that the receptionist barely had time to direct her before Lucia was already at the nurse’s door. She took one look at Monica’s face and crossed the room and pulled her daughter into her arms without asking permission from anyone, without waiting for an explanation, just holding her the way she had held her in a warehouse basement months ago.

Monica let herself be held. The shaking had not fully stopped.

“I’m here,” Lucia said into her hair. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

“It was Josh,” Monica said, finally finding words, her voice small and unsteady against her mother’s shoulder. ” I remembered him from the wedding. He grabbed me. He said horrible things. He said you’d have to pay him or he’d tell everyone I was a greedy little girl.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify