Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 345

Chapter 345

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The mansion had gone quiet in the way places go quiet when everyone inside understands something irreversible has happened.

The staff moved without speaking. No small talk between hallways. No sound but footsteps. Word about Lucas had reached all of them, and it had pressed a kind of respect into the silence.

Ruth sat on the sofa.

She hadn’t changed her clothes since morning, the same ones she’d put on when the day was supposed to go differently. Her cheekbone was swollen where Marcus had hit her. She kept touching it, making herself stop, then touching it again.

How dare he.

After everything. After weeks of holding herself together in this house, sitting through every meal, choosing every word, keeping the whole operation running on patience that cost her something new each day. After all of that, Marcus had stood in the rain and grabbed her arm like she was the problem.

Because of Lucas.

A boy who’d been digging through their business, photographing meetings, breaking into her room, reading things that weren’t his to read. A boy who’d turned himself into a threat.

Marcus had called that murder.

Ruth pressed her fist against her knee.

He was going soft.

The front door opened.

Ria came in first. Lena behind her. Monica last, moving at the pace of someone who’d been running on fear and adrenaline for twenty hours and had just run out.

None of them looked at Ruth.

They walked toward the stairs the way you walk past something you’ve already decided isn’t worth your

attention.

Ruth looked at the three of them. Wrinkled clothes, swollen eyes, the hollow look of people who’d spent a night in a hospital corridor not knowing if someone they loved would survive it.

“How touching,” she said.

All three stopped.

Ria turned and walked back across the room. No hurry. Just the steady walk of someone who’d already made up her mind.

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She stopped in front of Ruth.

“Did you enjoy it?” Ria said.

“I don’t know what you…”

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“My brother is still little.” Ria’s voice stayed level. “He went outside to protect Monica and someone put a car into him at speed. He’s been behind a curtain all night with machines and doctors. His mother has been begging God through a pane of glass.” She held Ruth’s eyes. “Did you enjoy it?”

Ruth arranged her face into offense.

“Be very careful with what you’re accusing me of.”

“I don’t have proof yet.” She let the word sit. “But I will.”

Ruth smiled, the polished one.

Ria smiled back. A different kind entirely.

“Pray he survives,” she said. “Because if he doesn’t, I will destroy everything you’ve built. Every lie you’ve told in this house. I’ll hand it all to whoever can use it, and I won’t stop until there’s nothing left of you here.”

Monica stepped up beside her, face open and undone the way faces get after too many hours of real fear.

“Lucas defended this family,” she said. “He watched you for weeks and said nothing because he didn’t want to scare anyone. He went out alone that night because I texted him. He wouldn’t let me face anything by myself.” Her voice cracked and she didn’t try to hide it. “He trusted this house because Mum trusted you. You used that.”

Ruth looked at the wall.

Lena stepped up on Monica’s other side.

“This family let you in,” she said, quiet and certain. “You came with a plan already built, and you smiled at all of us while you carried it.” She held Ruth’s gaze. “Your time here is ending.”

The three of them went upstairs.

Ruth sat alone in the silence they left behind.

She wasn’t afraid. She told herself that. But something had settled at the edges of her certainty since the girls walked in, and she didn’t like sitting with it.

Her phone lit up.

Marcus.

She answered.

No hello. Just: “Turn yourself in.”

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Ruth stood.

“Excuse me?”

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“Go to the police tonight,” he said. “Tell them about the car. Tell them who arranged it.”

“Marcus.” Her voice stayed even, her jaw did not. “I don’t know what’s happened to you but you need to…”

“A sixteen-year-old is in a coma.”

“Lucas became a threat,” she said. “I did what I believed was necessary.”

“He’s Marco’s son, Ruth,” Marcus said. “That alone should have been enough.”

Ruth’s voice hardened.

“We grew up with Marco. All three of us. He was my friend too. I loved him too.” She struck the table with her fist..”Lucia walked back into his life and it ended with him dead in a basement. I won’t apologize for making her pay for that.”

“You tried to kill her son.”

“I removed an obstacle.”

Silence filled the line.

When Marcus spoke again, it was the quietest she’d ever heard him, and that was what made it frightening. “I’m done protecting you,” he said. “Very soon I tell Lucia and Alexander everything. My name, my connection to Marco, what I knew and when I knew it.” He paused. “If you don’t go to the police first, I go to them myself. I’ll testify. I won’t lose a night of sleep over it.”

Another pause.

“This is the only warning you get.”

The call ended.

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