The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife novel Chapter 179

The Wipe Nurs

The Whisper of Doubt

The news of Steven Walsh’s death spread just after dawn broke.

When Clarissa opened her phone while staring at an untouched cup of coffee, the headlines had already/multiplied across every gossip portal she usually followed.

JOURNALIST STEVEN WALSH FOUND DEAD – SUSPECTED SUICIDE

Tabloid Writer’s Body Found in Car, Police Suspect Overdose

Walsh Faced Career Setbacks Before Tragic End, Says Source

All the articles told the same story, almost identical word for word.

A journalist who had been struggling. Mounting financial pressure. A man who had finally surrendered to his own despair. Suicide inside his car on the outskirts of the city.

Clean. Neat. Exactly like a narrative that left no questions.

And that was precisely what made Clarissa uneasy.

Even though Steven Walsh wasn’t a journalist at a major company, he was quite influential due to the side work

he did.

His career as a journalist was fairly stable, even with the large side income like what Clarissa had given him the previous night.

It would be highly unlikely for the man to commit suicide over a career setback.

Clarissa placed her phone on the marble table and stared at the blank wall before her. Her manicured, pale fingers tapped once on the granite before going still.

Steven Walsh was not the type of person who would end his own life. She had dealt with men like him before- men who lived by a simple arithmetic of survival, who measured the world by payments received and favors owed. They didn’t break. They bent, they negotiated, they crawled out of tight corners. Men like Steven always found another angle, another buyer, another story to sell.

Men like that didn’t drive into the darkness and voluntarily swallow death.

Someone must have done this to him.

That conviction settled in Clarissa’s stomach like a cold stone.

But who did it?

Who killed Steven Walsh and made it look like suicide?

Could it have been Daniel?

Clarissa pressed her thumb to her lower lip, thinking. She forced herself to consider the possibilities like a strategist, stripping away the panic and only seeing the pieces on the chessboard.

No.

Maybe this had nothing to do with Daniel or herself at all. Steven had been a parasite for years, feeding on other people’s secrets. He wrote character–destroying articles about politicians, exposed affairs, leaked corporate scandals. A man like that accumulated enemies the way others accumulated debts. Any one of them might have

finally grown tired of his existence. Maybe an old article had come back to haunt him. Maybe a powerful figure he had harmed years ago had simply chosen to settle the score.

That made sense. Sounded reasonable.

Yesterday Steven had nothing to do with Alina.

Steven was a journalist who could be bought with money. He didn’t hesitate to offend anyone as long as the money kept flowing into his pockets. He had burned too many people to count.

His death didn’t have to mean anything.

This could just be a coincidence.

Clarissa worked hard to convince herself.

But even as Clarissa assembled that comfortable explanation, another thought slipped beneath it like a knife behind silk.

What if it really was Daniel who did it?

She whispered it without intending to, the words barely escaping her lips. “What if Daniel killed Steven?”

The thought couldn’t leave Clarissa’s mind.

Daniel had resources. Connections. The cold and surgical capacity to make problems disappear without leaving a single fingerprint. And if he had found out who was behind the articles about Alina-

Clarissa’s breath caught.

She remembered the way Daniel had looked at her last night in his study. The barely contained black rage behind his measured voice. The promise in his eyes when he warned her never to touch Alina again.

Clarissa had convinced herself that was an empty threat. The kind of thing men said in anger and forgot by morning.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if Steven Walsh was the answer Daniel gave her–not in words, but in blood?

A demonstration. A message written with someone else’s death.

This is what happens to those who hurt Alina.

Clarissa’s hands trembled slightly as she reached for the coffee she had no intention of drinking. The porcelain clinked against the saucer.

She didn’t dare follow that thought to its conclusion. Didn’t dare name Daniel as the mastermind behind Steven’s death.

Because if Clarissa believed it, then she also had to believe something far more frightening.

That she herself might be the next victim.

“Mama?”

A small voice broke Clarissa’s reverie.

She turned quickly.

Junior stood in the kitchen doorway in his pajamas, his hair disheveled from sleep, hugging a worn rabbit stuffed animal to his chest. His eyes–so much like his father’s–were fixed on her with the unguarded openness only children possessed.

“Mama, why?” Junior asked, stepping hesitantly closer. “Mama looks scared. Is something wrong?”

Clarissa realized how tense her expression was. Showing the fear she was feeling.

“Nothing is wrong, darling,” she said. “Mama is just reading buring adult news. That’s all.”

Junior didn’t move closer. He observed Clarissa for a moment. Looking for lies. His small eyebrows furrowed. Not accepting his mother’s account so easily.

After a few moments, Junior only lowered his gaze to the rabbit stuffed animal and shuffled his bare feet on the cold floor.

“Mama can you sleep with me?” he asked softly. “I had a nightmare. I don’t want to be alone.”

Something in Clarissa’s chest softened.

This was what she was fighting for.

Her perfect little boy, who still sought her out when frightened in the dark.

Everything she did.

Every plan.

Every cruelty.

She always told herself that all of it was for Junior.

To keep their family intact.

To protect the life she had fought so desperately to have.

The fear and suspicion disappeared from her face, replaced by maternal tenderness that was perhaps the only genuine expression she still possessed.

“Of course,” she said gently while setting down the coffee cup. “Come. Let’s go back to bed.”

She took Junior’s small hand and led him down the corridor of the large house that was still quiet.

Clarissa immediately froze.

“Does Mommy mean… she’s pretending?”

“Maybe,” Clarissa answered softly, as if it pained her to say it. “She might be pretending to be hurt so that people will pity her. So that good children like you will feel sad for her.”

Clarissa kissed the top of Junior’s head.

“Like what you’re feeling right now.”

Junior was silent.

Clarissa could feel her son thinking.

Trying to reconcile what his eyes had seen with what his mother was now whispering in the dark.

“So…” Junior said again in a confused voice. “Alina really is a bad person?”

“Yes,” Clarissa answered.

Quickly.

Firmly.

Before doubt could find another opening.

Clarissa softened her tone again, wrapping that lie in affection.

“Mommy knows this is hard to understand. But Mommy wants you to be careful. Don’t let her deceive you. There are people who are very good at looking sweet and innocent, when in reality they want to hurt our family.”

“Hurt our family?” Junior repeated.

“Mm.”

Clarissa stared at the ceiling.

“Mommy shouldn’t be telling you this. But it seems you should know. Alina is currently making news everywhere. People are talking about her being hospitalized. And they’re saying bad things about us. About Papa. About this entire family.”

Junior raised his head slightly.

“Bad things like what?”

“They say we’re the bad ones,” Clarissa said. “They think we’re the ones who put Alina in the hospital. They think we hurt her.”

A wounded tone entered her voice.

“Strangers who don’t even know us are calling our family cruel. All because of the way Alina makes herself look pitiful.”

Junior didn’t fully understand.

The world of public opinion, media, and reputation was too complicated for a child his age.

But he understood the shape of its emotions.

People thought his family was bad.

People were saying cruel things about his papa.

And somehow it all connected to the sad woman who had looked at him with painful longing before being taken away.

“That’s not fair,” Junior whispered.

“Of course it isn’t,” Clarissa agreed while tightening her embrace. “Not fair at all. That’s why Mama needs you to trust Mama, darling. Trust Mama and Papa. We’re the ones who love you. We’re the ones who protect you.”

Junior pressed closer. His mind trying to absorb all the information Clarissa had given him.

After a while, Junior’s breathing finally calmed. He began to sleep.

But somewhere in the soft folds of his dreaming mind, a small voice still whispered to Junior about what he had seen with his own eyes.

Alina really was in pain. She was suffering.

And no matter how softly Clarissa whispered her version of the truth, Junior’s subconscious refused to believe t.