Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 246

Chapter 246

Chapter 246

The press conference video had not done what it was supposed to do. Claire watched the clip of Alexander Kane’s face, the controlled fury visible even surough the camera lens, the way the room had gone completely silent around him, and felt something cold settle deep in her stomach. Seven hundred thousand views by morning. The comments were turning. The entire narrative they had built so carefully over weeks was unraveling in real time. Journalists who had run with their original story without question were now publishing corrections. The careful retreat of people who had been caught standing too close to something that turned out to be documented truth.

“They’re burying us,” Josh Junior said, scrolling through headline after headline on his phone with increasing desperation. “Kane Family Responds With Documented Evidence. Lowe Family Claims Called Into Question. This is bad, Claire. This is really bad”

“We need to get ahead of it,” Claire said. She was pacing now, her mind already moving through angles and options and ways to turn this around.

Marie sat at the kitchen table with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea that had gone cold an hour ago. She had watched the press conference footage in silence. She had listened to Alexander describing the basement, the bruise, the gun, the nightmares that kept Monica awake. Something in her face had gone very still in a way that was different from her usual stillness. This was not calm. This was shock.

“We need a live video,” Josh Senior said from the armchair. His voice carried the flat calculation of a man assembling a weapon rather than building a defense. “Direct to camera. No journalist standing between us and the audience asking questions we cannot answer. We control every single word this time.”

Claire looked at her father. “What do we say? They are already discrediting the prison threat story. They have Alexander on camera describing things that only someone there would know. How do we counter that?”

“We go bigger,” Josh Senior said. His eyes had taken on that particular hardness that emerged when he was about to suggest something truly ruthless. “We give them something so emotionally devastating that they cannot fact check it in a single news cycle. We give them a tragedy. We give them a reason to feel sorry for Margaret instead of horrified by her.”

Josh Junior leaned forward. “What kind of tragedy? We already used the kidnapping. We already tried the prison angle.”

Marie’s hands tightened around the mug. She looked at it like she was seeing something terrible reflected in its surface. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.

“The baby,” she said. “Margaret lost a child.”

The room turned to her. Even Stella, standing in the corner pretending to be separate from all of this, went absolutely still.

Marie set her cold tea down with both hands. The gesture was deliberate, the careful movement of someone steadying themselves before stepping into something they knew was wrong. When she looked up, her eyes were wet but not with tears. With something else. Something like dread.

“Everyone knows she had a miscarriage.” Marie continued. “It came out during the trial. What they do not know is why it really happened. Not Marco pushing her down the stairs in some moment of his own rage the way the official story tells it We tell them that Lucia and her children drove Margaret to that edge. That the constant stress of being hunted by Lucia. bumiliated by her, isolated by her campaign was what put Margaret on those stairs in the first place.” Marie’s voice cracked slightly, and she did not know if it was genuine or if she was already rehearsing “That losing the baby was what shattered her: That it was the beginning of everything breaking inside her, and Lucia’s relentless persecution is what destroyed a grieving, fragde woman until she had nothing left to lose.

Stella apparater in the doorway. She had come downstairs unheard, and now she was looking at them all like she was seeing

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Chapter 216

You are going tollane a fritscarriage on a writer why wat haar by Mergans but something underneath it was shaking. “You are gong, to send caused her own kidnapping and contributed to her deger’s that

“Nobody asked you Josh for said, not looking up from two phone

“This is monstrous, Stella said, Mepping fully into the kitchen see Yes by yourselves. This goes beyond anything you hare done before

stated pos ta diready

“It is effective, Claire said flatly She was still pacing, she did not een bela Thara what waters right now Effectiveness. We can deal with morality after we stop this situation from completely destroying vs

Josh Junior was pacing now too, energy building in him like he was gathering momentum for meeting Ganges to add something about the secrets,” he said. “About what Lucia did before way of fous selber the kutang happened. She went through everything Margaret had. Every private thing. The star Marga turd years ago when he was younger. Every piece of her past. And she released all of it publicly past to huntide her the argued my as front of the entire country and called it justice” His voice rose with sornethardy tour soruded distok ikke genume sautes kind that came easily when it served a purpose and fed into someone i of rightens auger Luck fin our per take

Marco’s company from him. She destroyed his wife publicly before the even kutappet tu taugh

“That part is actually true,” Stella said carefully. “But you are leaving out why You re eang out what Magam actually did to deserve that exposure.”

“Nobody cares about nuance” Claire said. She had moved to wand near the window, her arrow cowed right agus te sub something working behind her eyes that had the specific quality of a woman composing a dosing argintent will delet my part. The bitter ex wife who could not stand watching her ex husband build something happy without be. We could not let him have peace, could not let his children have a stepmother who loved them could to let any of rest wilton inserting herself back into the center of it through revenge dressed up as justice. Clare’s pouce had gone hard aute with each word. “Lucia is the villain in this story. She always was. Margaret is the victim who pur care aude another woman’s vendetta and paid for it with her entire life?

“And Alexander funded it,” Josh Senior said, nodding slowly as the full shape of the he came into foms “The gave her the lawyers, the resources, the company infrastructure. He built the weapon and she pointert i at my daughter aut a tane His jaw tightened as he spoke. “Between the two of them, they destroyed both Margner and Mats compimey Karper simply pulled the trigger at the end of something they constructed together.”

Stella was looking at them now like she was watching people she had known transform into in

“You are saying Lucia is responsible for Marco’s death,” Stella said slowly disbelief moving across her face o same Marco who died protecting his daughter. You are going to stand on camera and say that Lace Lane a murderer.”

“That is exactly what we are going to say,” Josh Senior said. His voice did not waver. It was war Certain Marpae broken down and isolated by that time. She was pushed past every human limit a perve can be piebert ga conditions that made that basement inevitable. She planned this, systematically, deliberately for mantle. who should be sitting in that cell. Not my daughter”

The kitchen went silent except for Stella’s breathing, which was audibly unsteady now. her party penting what she was witnessing even as her mind struggled to process it

“I cannot listen to this anymore” Stella said.

Theu do not Josh junior said. “Go back upstairs.”

Stella looked at each of them in turn. At Mate, whose hand were sharing thehtly as

Senor whose lace had taken on that blank expression that came with total repeal certainty es mentally rehearsing the shape of her sentences, polishing them. At her birbant, asear

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gment

Ton der grang to tell millions of people that a child’s mother caused a miscarriage,” Stella said, her voice cracking ORAN “YOUR & TOWER year of caused her own kidnapping. That a man who died saving his daughter was murdered by the woman who gave him kids. None of it is true and you know none of it is true and you are going to say it anyway

wr better than the truth. Because the truth lost.”

“The mouth did not work, Claire said simply. “So now we use what does.”

They filmed it in the living room an hour later.

Marie vat in the center of the frame, Josh Senior positioned beside her looking concerned and protective. Claire was just der of free adjusting the lighting on her phone with meticulous precision, making sure every angle would capture the night emorem. Joah Junior held the camera steady, his hands surprisingly calm for someone whose family was about to commit a & teaserye public he

“My warne is Marie Lowe, Marie said, looking directly into the lens. Her eyes were already glistening, though whether from tears or from the eye drops they had used Claire could not say. “I am Margaret Hart’s mother. I have stayed silent long enough while the truth has been buried beneath a powerful family’s money and influence.”

Her voice caught, perfectly timed, on the word buried.

“What the public does not know, Marie continued, and there was something genuinely broken in her voice that made Stella watching from the doorway, feel something cold slide down her spine. “Is that my daughter lost a child during her manage to Marco Hart. A miscarriage caused by the unbearable stress of being hunted by Lucia Kane’s relentless campaign agains hey con heband and his new wife. The grief of that loss, combined with months of public humiliation, of Lucia exposing every private detail of my daughter’s past for the entire world to see, is what finally broke something in Margaret that could not be repaired.” A tear slid down Marie’s cheek, and this time it might have been real because Marie was thinking about the friscarriage, about Margaret’s face when she had come home from the hospital, about the way her daughter had amply dur down completely after that

“Marco’s own children turned him against her from the very beginning.” Marie said, her voice steadying dignity. Resing for accept her Undermining their marriage at every turn because they could not let go of their anger toward her noter

Claire stepped slightly into frame, her movement deliberate and practiced.

“I watched my sister destroyed by a woman who could not move on.” Claire said, her voice carrying the releaset m of a closing statement. “Lucia Kane is not a victim in this story. She is the architect of it. The buter ex wir who cal stand to see her husband and his children build a life that did not include her who used every resource her niliexpre husstand gives her to dismantle that life piece by piece, who called het vendetta justice ani convinces he who hst Her eyes did not waver from the camera. “Margaret is the true victum bere. A woman caught in the weETASE pushed past every Iniman liunit, who lost everything, including herself because of Lucia Sane’s bee

Jech Jondor leaned into frame, his expression showing the perfect blend of anger

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