Saintess's Worthless Husband Turned Dragon Commander novel Chapter 143

CHAPTER 123 PART 2

Ives turned on him, desperation sharpening into rage because rage was the only currency she had left. Her eyes swept over him – the relaxed posture, the unremarkable jacket, the complete absence of any concern on his face – and something in her snapped.

“What are you even doing here?” The contempt in her voice was a reflex, the armor of someone whose armor had just been dented. “You’re nobody. You’re standing next to Quinn Hartford like some kind of some kept charity case – and you think you can—”

“Cosmo,” Marcus said pleasantly.

Ives’s sentence ended with the flat sound of an open palm connecting with her cheek. Her head snapped sideways. She stumbled two steps, caught herself on the boutique display table, and pressed one hand to her face in genuine shock.

The corridor had gone completely silent.

“I don’t hit women,” Marcus said, his tone conversational, almost apologetic. He tilted his head slightly. “She does.”

Ives straightened, eyes watering with rage and humiliation. “Do you have any idea who my uncle-”

Cosmo grabbed a fistful of Ives Abbott’s glossy hair.

What followed was not dignified. Ives grabbed at Cosmo’s wrist, then at her arm, then tried the high-pitched social threat of someone whose threats had always worked before: my father will, Benjamin Abbott will destroy -, you have no idea what you’re-

None of it landed. Cosmo walked her forward with the patient authority of someone moving furniture, and when they reached the spot directly in front of Quinn Hartford, she pressed down on Ives’s shoulder once, firmly, and Ives Abbott – of the Five-River Province Abbotts, niece of Benjamin Abbott, daughter of Miguel Abbott – went to her knees on the Crystal Plaza marble floor.

Lance made a sound that was either a gasp or a laugh or both simultaneously.

Quinn looked down at the woman kneeling before her. Her expression had not changed once during the entire sequence of events. It was still that same cool, distant composure – the kind that didn’t require satisfaction because it had never required anything at all from anyone.

“Let her up,” Quinn said quietly.

“Not yet,” Marcus said, from behind her.

Quinn didn’t argue,

Wesley Hartford had been edging toward the far side of the corridor for the last ninety seconds, the instincts of a man who bullied downward and fled upward executing their programming flawlessly. His hand was already in his pocket. His phone was already recording,

He watched Ives on her knees and thought: this is enough. Benjamin Abbott will erase every single one of them.

He hit send.

The smug certainty on his face was fully visible to anyone watching. He slid the phone back into his pocket, glanced over at Marcus Steel, and shook his head slowly. “You have absolutely no idea what you just did,” he said. “My uncle Benjamin is going to-”

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He didn’t finish.

Two of Nicholas’s men had flanked him, and his arm was pinned before he completed the thought. Wesley yelped, indignant, then genuinely alarmed as he was walked forward and pushed down onto his knees beside Ives.

Ives turned her head and stared at him. Her mascara had not run – the specific cosmetic dignity of someone who refused to cry in public – but her expression was something close to desperate.

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