The Billionaire Ex-Wife's Return (Cynthia and Ethan) novel Chapter 241

Chapter 241

Anna's POV

I felt like the ground beneath me was crumbling.

Everything I'd believed.

Everything I'd built my life around.

Everything I'd used to justify the terrible things I'd done.

It was all a lie.

My parents weren't heroes.

They weren't brave police officers who'd died trying to save innocent children.

They were criminals.

Corrupt.

Selfish.

Accomplices to kidnapping.

And I'd spent my entire life believing the opposite.

My chest felt tight, like I couldn't get enough air, like the walls were closing in around me.

I'd been walking in rebellion all these years.

Against God. Against morality. Against everything decent.

I'd told myself it was justified — that I was angry because my parents had died saving Cynthia, that she owed me something, that she was the reason they were gone.

I had rehearsed that story so many times it had stopped feeling like a story at all. It had become truth. My truth. The lens through which I saw everything.

I'd mistreated her for years because of that lie.

I thought of all the moments I had made Cynthia's life smaller. The snide remarks I'd delivered with a smile. The opportunities I'd quietly dismantled. The way I'd looked at her — like she was something borrowed, something undeserved, something that belonged to me by rights I had never actually been given.

I'd pursued Ethan because I wanted the life his wife had, the life I thought Cynthia didn't deserve because my parents had sacrificed themselves for her.

I'd wanted to marry him as a consolation prize.

As compensation for what I'd lost.

And even that, I realized now, made me feel sick. Not just because it was wrong — but because I had genuinely convinced myself it was righteous. That pursuing another woman's husband was somehow a form of justice. That I was owed that life. That Cynthia was living it illegitimately, on borrowed time, on the debt of my parents' blood.

God.

How had I never questioned any of it?

But now…

Now I knew the truth.

Cynthia had been innocent.

She hadn't even been the intended target.

She'd just been a child in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to help another child who was being taken.

Ethan had been the one Jerome wanted.

Ethan had been the one Grace had orchestrated the entire kidnapping around.

And Cynthia had gotten caught in the crossfire of someone else's twisted plan.

Which meant everything I'd done to her — every cruel word, every manipulation, every act of sabotage — had been based on a lie.

A lie told by Grace.

My hands clenched into fists, but I kept them hidden at my sides, my face carefully neutral.

I'd been a puppet.

Grace's puppet.

The image that came to mind was almost unbearable in its clarity — Grace sitting in that wheelchair, frail on the outside, monstrous underneath, pulling threads I hadn't even known existed. Watching me dance. Watching me destroy. Probably laughing, in the private, cold way she laughed, at how perfectly I had performed for her. How little it had taken. Just one story. Just one word.

Hero.

Dancing on strings she'd pulled for decades, doing her dirty work, believing her version of events without question.

And now Pascal too.

Pascal, who had been silent this entire time, finally spoke.

"As soon as possible," he said quietly. "When everyone is distracted. When security is lax. When no one will notice until it's too late."

Grace nodded approvingly.

"Perfect," she said.

I nodded slowly, forcing myself to look thoughtful rather than horrified.

"And what do you need me to do?" I asked.

Grace studied me for a moment, her eyes sharp and assessing.

Then she smiled and leaned forward slightly.

"He had the audacity to sell off my shares in Walker Industries," Grace said, her voice shaking with fury. "To kick me out of my own home. To treat me like I'm nothing."

Her hands clenched into fists on the armrests of her wheelchair.

"He's going to pay for that," Grace said. "He's going to suffer. And when I'm done with him, there won't be anything left of Ethan Walker or his precious company."

I nodded slowly.

"I understand," I said quietly.

Grace relaxed slightly, satisfaction flickering across her face.

"Good," she said. "I knew I could count on you, Anna."

Pascal was watching me carefully, his expression unreadable.

I'd spent years manipulating people.

Years pretending to be something I wasn't.

And now, for the first time, I was going to use those skills for something other than my own benefit.

"I won't let you down," I said.

And I meant it.

Just not in the way Grace thought.