Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 237

Chapter 237

Chapter 237

The lawyer’s office was clean and neutral and exactly the kind of place where difficult news landed on people who had no choice but to receive it.

The family sat across the desk in a row, Marie and Josh Senior in the two chairs, Claire and Josh Junior standing behind them. The lawyer folded his hands and looked at them with the measured patience of a man who had delivered this kind of news before.

“There is nothing that can be done,” he said.

Claire’s jaw tightened. “Margaret was in a prison cell. She had just been convicted. The psychological pressure alone should be enough to argue she wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Your sister stood trial. She was assessed, examined, and represented throughout by her own counsel. The court found her to be of sound mind. A legal transfer made by a person of sound mind, executed through proper channels, witnessed and documented correctly, is not challengeable simply because her family disagrees with the outcome.”

“She was manipulated,” Josh Senior said. “That woman came into her cell and made her feel guilty. Guilt is not sound judgment.”

“That is an argument that requires evidence,” the lawyer said. “Evidence you do not have. What actually happened is that your sister made a voluntary decision. I cannot help you undo it.”

They left without speaking.

The drive to the prison took forty minutes and nobody said a word the entire way.

Margaret came through the visiting room door and stopped when she saw all four of them seated at the table. She had not expected them so soon. Something in the set of their faces told her the lawyer visit had not gone the way they hoped.

She sat down.

“We just left a lawyer,” Claire said, the moment Margaret’s chair stopped moving. “He told us there was nothing to be done. Which means we are here to fix it ourselves.”

“What does that mean?” Margaret asked.

“It means you tell the court you were not in your right mind when you made the transfer,” Claire said. “You tell them you were under pressure from Lucia Kane. That she came here and threatened you into giving the money to Monica. That you were not thinking clearly.”

Margaret looked at her sister.

“None of that is true,” she said.

“We don’t care whether it’s true,” Josh Junior said from behind his mother. His voice was flat and hard. “We care whether you do it.”

“You want me to commit perjury,” Margaret said. “In a court of law. While I am already serving a life sentence.” “We want you to fix the catastrophic mistake you made,” Claire said. “Sixty-four million dollars, Margaret. You gave sixty-four million dollars to a thirteen-year-old girl whose family already has more money than they will spend in five generations. While your own brother’s wife is pregnant, while his business is failing, while Mum and Dad are struggling.” She leaned forward across the table. “You chose strangers over us. You chose guilt over your own blood. And now we are asking you to correct it.”

“I gave that money to Monica because I put her in a basement,” Margaret said. “Because I bruised her face with my own hand. Because her father died in front of her and I held the gun.” Her voice had gone very quiet. There is nothing you can say to me in this room that makes me look at that fact differently.”

“Her father is dead,” Josh Senior said, his voice rising, carrying across the visiting room so that the guard near the door glanced over. “That child has no father because of you, and somehow you decided the appropriate

come to this family. What is wrong with response was to hand her sixty-four milli

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Chapter 237 you?”

“I know what I did, Margaret said. “That is exactly the point.”

“It doesn’t matter what you did,” Josh Senior said, his face reddening, leaning forward with both forearms on the table. “What matters is that you had money. Real money, more money than any of us will ever see, and you gave it away like it meant nothing because you wanted to feel better about yourself.”

“I did not do it to feel better about myself.”

“Then why?” Claire’s voice cracked with contempt. “Because she’s some special tragic child? Because her tears in a courtroom moved you? Her family has nine hundred million dollars that Marco left his children. She has a stepfather who is a trillionaire. She does not need your money. She did not need your money. Your own family does.”

Margaret’s hands pressed flat on the table.

“I know Josh’s situation,” she said. “I know about the loans and the pregnancy. I am sorry for that. Genuinely. But my knowing about it does not change what I owe Monica.”

“You don’t owe that girl anything,” Marie said. Her voice was not soft now. The gentleness she had arrived with weeks before was completely gone, replaced by something harder, something that had been building since the lawyer’s office. “You made a mistake in that basement. A terrible mistake. But she is alive. She went home to her family. She went home to a house full of money and security and a mother who runs a corporation and a stepfather who could buy this entire country if he wanted to. She is fine.” Marie’s chin lifted. “Your brother’s unborn child is not fine. Your brother’s family is not fine. We are not fine.”

“That money is gone,” Margaret said. “Monica donated it to charity. It is not in an account somewhere waiting to be retrieved. It doesn’t exist anymore in any form you can claim.”

Claire stared at her. “We know that she donated it, her mom told us.”

“Okay what do you guys want since you already knows that she donated it.”

Something passed through Claire’s face, something that started as disbelief and curdled into a fury so complete it had almost gone quiet. “You gave sixty-four million dollars to a child who then gave it to strangers. It is gone. All of it. Because of a decision you made without asking anyone, without thinking about anyone, without once considering that you have a family who needed it.”

“I have something else,” Margaret said.

Nobody spoke.

“Before everything happened,” she continued, looking at the table rather than their faces, “about a month before. I had my jewellery collection valued. The pieces Marco gave me, the ones I bought myself over the years. Six million dollars. The valuation is current.” She stopped. “Marco also bought me a penthouse apartment in the early years, before the marriage began to fall apart. It is still in my name. Worth approximately one and a half million.” She looked up. “I am giving those to you. Contact Mr. Harrison, my lawyer. He has the documents. He will facilitate the transfer.”

The visiting room was quiet.

Josh Senior looked at the table, then at his daughter, then at the table again.

“Seven and a half million dollars,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Against the sixty-four million you gave away.”

“I know.”

Josh Junior’s chair scraped back slightly as he sat forward. “You are giving us the furniture while Monica keeps the house,” he said. “Seven and a half million dollars in jewellery and a flat while that girl sits on nine hundred million from her father and whatever her stepfather has added to it. You are giving us the scraps from your own table.”

“It is what I have,” Margaret said.

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Chapter 237

“It is nothing,” Josh Junior said. “It is nothing and you know it’s nothing and you are sitting here pretending it’s

a gesture when it is just you trying to make yourself feel better again. Same as the sixty-four million. Same as everything you’ve ever done. Everything Margaret does is for Margaret in the end.”

“I am giving you what I have left,” Margaret said.

“We don’t want what you have left,” Josh Junior said. “We want the sixty-four million you already gave away.”

“That is not-”

“You destroyed everything,” Claire said, cutting across her. Her voice had no more heat in it. It was cold now, the coldest it had been, the temperature of something that had decided to close. “You destroyed your marriage, you destroyed our family’s reputation, you killed a man, you went to prison, and then you gave away the only thing that could have helped us recover from the disaster you made of all our lives, and you are offering us a penthouse and some earrings as compensation.” She stood up from the table. “You have not just failed us, Margaret. You have made us pay for your failures while protecting the family that put you here.”

“Lucia did not put me here,” Margaret said. “I put myself here.”

“You are a fool,” Josh Senior said. The same word he had used before, said the same way, delivered with the same specific absence of emotion that made it land harder than any shouted insult. He pushed back from the table and stood. “A fool who has lost everything and learned nothing. I am ashamed that you belong to this family.”

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