Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 263

Chapter 263

Chapter 263

Marie came through the front door and went straight to the living room without taking off her coat. The fabric was still damp from the drive, but she did not seem to notice or care. She moved like someone who had made a decision and was now simply moving forward with the momentum of that decision carrying her.

Josh Senior was in his armchair. Claire was on the couch with her phone face-down in her lap, the screen dark, suggesting she had not been using it, just holding it like a talisman. Josh Junior was standing near the window with his arms crossed, the specific posture of a man who had been waiting for something he was not looking forward to. The room had the quality of a space where bad news was expected.

Marie stood in the center of the room and looked at all three of them.

“I went to see Margaret today,” she said.

The room went quiet in a way that was different from ordinary quiet. This was the silence of people understanding that something fundamental had shifted, that words were about to be spoken that could not be

taken back.

“Mum,” Josh Junior started.

“Do not,” Marie said. Her voice was flat and completely certain. “Do not speak to me about Margaret right now. Sit down and listen to what I have to say.”

Josh Junior closed his mouth. He did not sit down but he did not speak either.

“She told me things today that she has never told anyone,” Marie said. “About what it was like to be her in this family. About what we allowed to happen to her, what we created by refusing to see her.” She looked at her husband. “She told me about the basement.”

Josh Senior’s hands tightened on the armrests of the chair.

“She remembered every moment,” Marie continued, her voice steady but carrying weight underneath the steadiness. “Every comparison we made between her and Claire. Every time you told her she was not good enough. Every family event where someone asked what Claire would accomplish and what Josh would do and then the conversation simply stopped when it came to her.” She paused, and in that pause was a mother finally allowing herself to see the damage she had permitted. “She wrote letters as a child. She wrote to all of us. She put them in a box and she never gave them to anyone because she was afraid nobody would care enough to read them.”

“We know this,” Claire said quietly. “We found the box. We already went through all of this with-” “I am not finished,” Marie said.

Claire leaned back and did not speak again.

“Everything that is happening to this family right now,” Marie said, looking directly at Josh Senior, “is not Margaret’s fault. Not entirely. Not even mostly.” She looked at each of them in turn, letting her gaze settle on their faces long enough that they could not look away. “She came from this house believing she was worth less than her brother and sister because that is what we taught her through our choices and our silence. She spent her entire life looking for someone to choose her the way we never did. And when she finally found that person and felt it slipping away, she did terrible things to hold onto it.” Her jaw tightened. “We did not make the choices she made. But we made the person who made those choices. We built her into someone desperate enough to commit crimes because we built her into someone who had nothing left to lose.” Josh Senior opened his mouth. Closed it. His eyes were fixed on the wall above the television.

“We are going to make a video,” Marie said. “We are going to go on record and clarify everything we said in those previous videos. We are going to tell the truth about what we fabricated, what we exaggerated, what we invented entirely. She paused. “And we are going to contact Alexander Kane’s legal team and tell them we want to cooperate with whatever they need to resolve this lawsuit.”

The words landed like an earthquake.

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Chapter 263

“Absolutely not,” Claire said. Her voice came back fast and hard, with the specific edge of someone who had been waiting for this exact statement and had the counter ready. “We are not doing that. We are not going on camera again to help Lucia Kane rebuild her reputation or to make Margaret’s crimes go away. She is the reason my sister is in prison.”

“Margaret is in prison because of what Margaret did,” Marie said.

“Because of what Lucia drove her to…”

“No.” Marie’s voice was sharp enough that it cut across Claire’s sentence cleanly. “We have told that story. We know it is not true. We know it was false the first time we said it and it was false the second time and it will not become true if you repeat it a thousand more times.” She looked at her daughter directly. “You are a mother. You have children of your own. I am asking you to think about what it costs a person to grow up feeling invisible in the place where they are supposed to be safest.”

Claire’s jaw was tight. She looked like she was holding back words that would explode if she let them go.

“My children are not going to watch their mother go to prison,” she said. “That is what I am thinking about right now. That is the only thing I care about.”

“Then help me fix it,” Marie said. “The only way this ends without prison is if we-”

“I support Claire,” Josh Junior said.

Both women looked at him. He was still standing by the window, his arms still crossed, but something in his face had moved slightly from the earlier certainty, a hairline crack in the surface that he was covering with the posture.

“We hurt Margaret,” he said. “I accept that now. I understand that what we did to her growing up, the comparisons, all of it, that was wrong. But accepting that does not mean that what she did afterward was acceptable. She still gave away sixty-four million dollars that would have kept my family safe. She still cost us everything.”

“Your family is about to go to prison,” Marie said. “Your family is about to have criminal records that will follow you for the rest of your lives. Is that the safety you were looking for?”

Josh Senior’s phone rang.

He looked at the screen and then looked at the room, the specific look of a man who understood what was about to happen and was not sure he wanted it to happen in front of everyone. He answered it anyway, bringing the phone to his ear with the careful movement of someone trying to delay what he already knew was coming.

“Mr. Lowe,” the lawyer’s voice came through clearly enough that everyone in the room could hear it. “I wanted to update you on developments. The court hearing has been scheduled. Six days from today.”

Josh Senior straightened slightly in the chair. “And what is our position?”

A pause. The kind of pause that had its own answer before the words came.

“Mr. Lowe, I have to be honest with you about where things stand. The documented evidence against your family is substantial. The assault charge against Josh Junior alone carries a custodial sentence. The defamation and slander charges, given the scope of the campaign and the specific false statements made on named individuals, are serious enough that the judge is likely to make an example.” Another pause, heavier than the first. “Unless the Kane family drops the charges or significantly reduces the scope of what they are pursuing, you are all looking at custodial sentences. Potentially several years.” The room had gone completely still.

“Several years,” Josh Senior repeated, the words sounding like something he was testing in his mouth, trying to understand if they meant what he thought they meant.

“That is the realistic assessment, yes. I would strongly advise you to consider whether there is any avenue for settlement before we reach the hearing.”

Josh Senior ended the call without saying goodbye. He set the phone on the armrest of the chair and his hand

Chapter 263

remained there, holding it down like he was afraid it might ring again if he let it go.

Claire had gone pale. The color had left her face between the word custodial and the word years, draining slowly like something running out. She pressed her palm against her chest, her breathing becoming visible, her entire body suddenly very small in the space of the couch.

“I cannot go to prison,” she said. Her voice had lost its hardness. What was underneath the hardness was visible now, the basic specific fear of a person who had been certain of themselves for a very long time suddenly understanding that certainty was not protection. “I have children. I have two children and they need me at home and I cannot-” She stopped. Her hand remained pressed flat against her chest. “I cannot go to prison.”

Josh Junior had moved away from the window. He was standing in the middle of the room now and he looked like someone who had just done the arithmetic for the first time and found that the numbers did not add up the way he had believed they would.

“Stella is going to have my baby in three months,” he said. “I cannot have a criminal record when my child is born. I cannot be in prison when my child is born.”

He looked at his mother, at his father still sitting with the phone on the armrest, at Claire. Then something shifted in his face, something that moved from fear into blame.

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