Rise of the Formidable Ex-wife (Lucia and Alex) novel Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The words hung in the air. Trash. Expensive, well–dressed trash.

Margaret exploded from her chair. “TRASH? You ungrateful little BRAT! You call ME trash?” Her hand shot out, grabbing the wine bottle from the table. Before anyone could react, she hurled it at Lucas with all her strength. Lucas jerked sideways. The bottle flew past his head, missing by inches, and smashed against the wall behind him. Glass exploded. Wine sprayed across the expensive wallpaper like blood. Red drops dripped down to pool on the hardwood floor.

“I have given EVERYTHING to this family!” Margaret screamed, her face contorted with rage. “EVERYTHING!” “Mom gave seventeen years,” Monica said, her voice remarkably steady despite Margaret’s outburst.” Seventeen years of building a home, raising children, supporting Dad’s career. What have you given? Months? Most of it spent redecorating and complaining?”

“You know NOTHING about adult relationships!” Margaret spat, reaching for another wine glass. “Your precious mother was cold, controlling, a dead weight dragging your father down. Ask him! Ask him how miserable she made him!”

All eyes turned to Marco, who seemed to shrink under their collective gaze.

“Marco,” Margaret demanded, her voice shrill. “Tell them. Tell them how she suffocated you. How she never supported your ambitions. How she was holding you back!”

Marco opened his mouth, then closed it again, unable to find the words.

“You can’t even lie convincingly anymore,” Lucas observed with disgust. “Because it wasn’t true, was it? Mom supported you completely. She built your success as much as you did, hosting clients, raising your children, managing your home. She was your foundation.”

“And you kicked that foundation out from under all of us,” Ria added, finding unexpected courage. “For what? So Margaret could redecorate and criticize us? So she could call my work mediocre? So she could block Lucas’s college dreams and make Monica feel worthless?”

“I DID NOT CALL YOUR WORK MEDIOCRE!” Margaret screamed, though everyone at the table knew she had. You have MODEST talent at best! Third place proves it! Without my guidance, you’d be NOTHING in the design world! NOTHING!”

“You didn’t guide me,” Ria insisted, finding strength she didn’t know she had. “You criticized every design. You told me purple was wrong when the judges said it would have won me second place. You made me doubt myself at every turn.”

“And the time you threw away all my art supplies,” Monica added quietly. “The ones Mom gave me for Christmas. You said they were taking up space. But they weren’t. You just didn’t want me to have anything from her.”

“Or when you told Lucas his Ashford acceptance was worthless,” Ria continued. “That it was too expensive, that he should go to community college instead. Mom would never do that. She celebrated our achievements. She didn’t destroy them.”

Margaret’s eyes went wild, darting between the children as they united against her. “You ungrateful VERMIN! I SAVED this family from your boring, mediocre mother! I brought LIFE to this house!”

“You brought chaos,” Monica concluded. “Just like you’re using Dad for his money and status. Just like you’re using all of us as accessories for your perfect life fantasy.”

“And now that Dad’s company is struggling, you’re already planning your exit,” Lucas said, the realization dawning on his face. “That’s why you wanted assets in your name. Not to protect family assets, but to secure YOUR position regardless of what happened to the rest of us.”

Margaret turned to Marco, desperation replacing rage. “Are you going to let them speak to me this way? After everything I’ve done for you? For this family?”

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Chapter 45

Marco looked between his children’s faces, united for the first time in months, and his wife’s contorted expression. Something shifted in his eyes, a veil lifting.

Ria looked at Lucas across the table, a silent communication that said: We’ve seen this. This is who she really is.

But for Monica, this level of violence was new territory. The Margaret she’d tried to accept, stepmother, father‘

s new wife, had transformed before her eyes into someone calculating and cruel. Someone who viewed them all as disposable pieces in her personal game.

“I think I’ll go to my room,” Monica said, her voice small and trembling.

“Running away?” Margaret taunted, reaching for the wine bottle again. “Just like your mother?”

The comparison froze Monica in place. Her spine straightened as anger replaced fear. “My mother didn’t run away,” she said, each word precise and clear. “She was discarded. Thrown away like garbage. And now you’re threatening to do the same to Dad.” She looked directly into Margaret’s eyes. “At least Mom had enough class not to humiliate him in front of his children first.”

Margaret’s face transformed with pure rage. She lunged to her feet, the chair crashing backward. “How DARE you speak to me that way! After everything I’ve tolerated… your sullen attitude, your constant crying, your pathetic letters to a mother who doesn’t want you!”

Monica went white. “How do you know about my letters?”

“I’ve read them all,” Margaret said with vicious satisfaction. “Every single one hidden under your floorboard. Such pitiful little notes to a woman who abandoned you. ‘Dear Mom, I miss you. Dear Mom, please come home.’ So pathetic it made me sick.”

“You went through my things?” Monica’s voice shook with violation and fury. “THIS IS MY HOUSE!” Margaret screamed. “Everything in it belongs to ME!”

“Margaret,” Marco warned, finally finding his voice. “You’re drunk. That’s enough.”

She yanked away from his reaching hand. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you EVER tell me what’s enough!” She swept her arm across the table, sending china and crystal flying. The crash was deafening, shards exploding across the dining room floor. Ria’s bronze medal flew through the air, landing with a clatter in the debris.

“THIS FAMILY IS A MISTAKE!” Margaret screamed, mascara running down her cheeks as her composure completely shattered. “A spoiled brat who thinks her third–place medal is an ACHIEVEMENT!” She pointed at Ria. “A pretentious wannabe scientist who can’t even get into a decent school without daddy’s money!” Her finger swung to Lucas. “And YOU…” her voice dripped with contempt as she turned to Monica, “a sullen, ungrateful BURDEN who does nothing but judge everyone while contributing NOTHING!”

Monica’s face went white, but she didn’t flinch. She’d heard variations of this before, many times when the others weren’t around.

“And the crown jewel,” Margaret continued, turning to Marco, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss. “A pathetic failure who peaked five years ago and has been circling the drain ever since. Stone Maritime is gone. Your stock crashed. The board wants you out. Let me make something perfectly clear to all of you… I can walk away tomorrow. I can find a new husband, a new life, a new EVERYTHING. But none of you…” she swept her gaze around the table, “NONE of you can replace what I bring to this family.”

The room fell deadly silent after her outburst. Even the air seemed to pause, heavy with the toxicity Margaret had unleashed.

“Get out,” Marco said finally, his voice low but firm. “All of you, upstairs. Now.”

The children didn’t need to be told twice. They moved as one toward the door, stepping carefully around the debris of shattered dishes and broken glass.

Margaret stood in the wreckage, breathing hard, her carefully constructed mask completely destroyed.

“And YOU,” she turned on Marco, her voice nearly hysterical now. “You think you can control me? YOU? You’re NOTHING without me, Marco! NOTHING!”

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Chapter 45

She grabbed the centerpiece and hurled it against the wall. Flowers and water exploded across the room.

Marco said nothing. Just stared at the woman he’d married. The woman he’d destroyed his family for. Seeing her clearly for the first time.

Margaret laughed, a wild, unhinged sound. “Man up, Marco. Control your children. Fix your company. Be the man I thought I was marrying. Or don’t. Either way, I’m done with this circus.”

She stormed toward the stairs, her heels clicking sharply against the floor despite her drunken rage. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused, looked back at Marco standing alone in the destroyed dining room.

“Your wife didn’t fight for them because she didn’t want them. The sooner you all accept that, the better. She’s moved on. Found a new daughter. Found a trillionaire. Found a better life. Without any of you.”

Then she was gone. Up the stairs. Down the hall. A door slammed with such force the chandelier rattled. In the hallway upstairs, the siblings huddled together outside Lucas’s room, the elegant dinner turned battlefield still visible from where they stood.

“Has she always been like this?” Ria whispered, trembling from head to toe.

Monica nodded, unsurprised by the evening’s revelations. “This is the real Margaret. The one I see all the time.” “She hides it from you,” Lucas added, his arm around Monica’s shoulders. “She needed you both on her side. Needed you to choose her over Mom.”

Ria felt sick. How many times had she defended Margaret to her siblings? How often had she dismissed Monica’s complaints as exaggeration or sensitivity?

“Mom was right,” she said softly. “About everything. The property transfers. The planning. The lies. All of it.” The admission hung in the air between them, the first time any of them had openly acknowledged what they’d all begun to suspect.

From the dining room below, Margaret’s voice rose again: “You’re a FAILURE, Marco! A FAILURE!”

Something else crashed against the wall. Marco’s response came too quiet to hear.

“She’ll leave him,” Lucas said with certainty. “Now that the money’s going, she won’t stay much longer.”

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