The Billionaire's Insignificant Wife novel Chapter 180

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An Unwanted Presence

At two in the morning, Daniel’s phone vibrated once on the nightstand.

He hadn’t slept. Couldn’t.

The screen lit up in the darkness, illuminating half of his face that was flat without expression.

A short message. No sender name. Only a sequence of words chosen carefully so they would mean nothing to anyone who didn’t know their meaning.

*Done. Clean. Nothing to worry about.*

Daniel stared at that screen for a few seconds.

Then the corner of his lips lifted slightly–not a smile, just a kind of cold acknowledgment of something that had gone according to plan.

“Good,” he muttered to the darkness.

He typed one word as a reply, then deleted that message from his phone as if the conversation had never existed. As if a man named Steven Walsh had never existed, had never written anything, had never dared to touch something that belonged to Daniel.

It was done.

But that satisfaction didn’t bring the peace he had hoped for.

Daniel lay on his large and cold bed, staring at the dark ceiling of his room. His mind refused to be still. Not about Steven. Not about Clarissa. Not about the articles that still remained in corners of the internet he couldn’t reach.

About Alina.

Always about Alina.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But what appeared instead was the image of his wife’s pale face in the hospital bed. A thin body under white blankets. Eyes that were once alive, now empty.

Daniel opened his eyes again.

It was no use.

He wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

He got up, put on the shirt hanging on the chair, and took his car keys without waking anyone in the house.

St. Catherine’s Medical Center was almost completely silent in the last hours of night.

The corridor lights were dimmed. Sound only came from machines humming softly behind room doors, and the occasional footsteps of night nurses making their rounds.

Daniel walked through the lobby with calm and confident posture.

The nurse at the night reception desk recognized him–a face she had seen many times over the past few days. The devoted husband. The handsome man who always brought flowers, always asked gently about his wife’s condition, always appeared broken by worry.

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The news circulating yesterday had only deepened that nurse’s sympathy. What a pity this man is, she thought. Having a wife who is reportedly unstable, yet still faithfully caring for her. Still coming every day.

So when Daniel approached the desk and smiled thinly, the nurse didn’t stop him.

“I just want to check on her for a moment,” Daniel said in a low voice. “I couldn’t sleep. I just want to make sure she’s alright.”

“Of course, Mr. Blackwood,” the nurse answered with a sympathetic smile. “But please don’t wake her. She needs

rest.”

“I won’t,” Daniel promised gently.

Dr. Halvorsen wasn’t there. Not one of the people who usually supervised–who usually watched Daniel with veiled wariness. In dead hours like these, there were only tired nurses and empty corridors.

Nothing blocking the way.

Daniel walked toward the elevator with unhurried steps.

Fourth floor.

The familiar corridor.

Room 412.

He opened the door slowly, and the hinges moved without sound.

Inside, the room was dim. Only the faint light from the monitor beside the bed and a sliver of moonlight slipping through the gap in the curtains.

And there, under white blankets, Alina was sleeping.

Daniel paused for a moment at the doorway.

Just watching.

In her sleep, Alina’s face lost the tension that was always there when she was awake. The anxious lines on her forehead softened. Her lips slightly parted, her breathing slow and regular. For the first time in days, she looked almost peaceful.

Something unfamiliar moved in Daniel’s chest.

He closed the door behind him without sound, then stepped closer. Every step careful, like someone afraid of breaking something fragile.

He pulled the chair beside the bed and sat.

For a long time, he just watched his wife’s face.

Then his hand lifted–slowly, carefully–and his fingers touched the strand of hair that had fallen across Alina’s cheek. He tucked it behind her ear with a gentleness he never showed when Alina was awake.

Alina didn’t know.

Alina would never know.

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Because throughout five years of their marriage, this was not the first time.

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Many times, in quiet nights, Daniel had quietly entered Alina’s room just for this. Just to sit beside her. Just to watch her sleep, to see a face that wasn’t guarding its distance from him, wasn’t looking at him with eyes full of

wariness.

During the day, Daniel was a cold man. Indifferent. Who almost never touched his wife, who let distance grow between them like an invisible wall.

But at night, when no one was watching–including Alina herself–Daniel would come.

And he never let Alina know about it. Never left a trace. Never let that gentleness be seen in daylight, because gentleness was weakness, and Daniel Blackwood never let himself appear weak.

Even before the woman he loved in a dark and broken way.

Daniel leaned forward. His lips touched Alina’s forehead, very softly, almost imperceptibly.

“No one will hurt you again,” he whispered, his voice so quiet it nearly dissolved into the silence. “I’ve made sure of it. Anyone who dares to touch you- they will disappear. Always.”

He drew back slightly, watching his wife’s face.

“You are mine, Alina. You’ve always been mine. Even when you hate me.”

Then he kissed Alina’s forehead once more.

The warmth of Daniel’s breath touched her skin.

And in her sleep, Alina frowned.

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