The Billionaire's Silent Wife (Ryan and Eve) novel Chapter 186

186 The Brooch, the Mansion, and the Arrest 2

Steven’s eyes flickered away, shame visible now, raw. “I forced your parents’ hand.”

Ryan’s jaw flexed like he wanted to deny it.

Steven didn’t let him. “Marrying Eve to you was my twisted way of trying to fulfil her dreams.”

Ryan’s throat tightened so hard it hurt.

Steven’s voice broke. “I thought she would be happy. I thought,” he swallowed, eyes wet, “, I thought if I

put her inside your world, you would eventually see her.”

Ryan’s breath came shallow.

Tevin’s face tightened in quiet disgust, but he didn’t interrupt. Maxwell didn’t move.

Steven’s shoulders sagged. “But I was wrong.”

The words came out like a confession carved from blood.

“I was wrong,” Steven repeated, quieter. “I gave her to a cage and called it a dream.”

Ryan stared at him, chest burning.

Steven looked at Ryan, eyes glittering with regret. “If I get a chance, I will apologise.”

Ryan’s voice was hard. “Eve doesn’t need your apology right now. She needs to be alive.”

Steven’s face contorted, grief breaking through again. “I know.”

Then Steven whispered the sentence like it hurt to say it out loud: “She hates me now.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t hate you.”

Steven let out a broken laugh. “She got herself new parents.”

Tevin’s jaw tightened.

Maxwell’s eyes sharpened.

Steven’s voice trembled. “She replaced me.”

Ryan stepped closer, voice low and firm. “She didn’t replace you.”

Steven stared at him, disbelieving.

Ryan’s jaw clenched. “She found safety. That’s not replacement.”

Steven’s mouth tightened. “She let them adopt her.”

Ryan’s gaze stayed steady. “Because you weren’t there when she needed a parent.”

Steven flinched.

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The The Brooch the Mansion and the Arrest 2

Ryan continued, voice controlled but edged with something real. “Eve understood your pain.”

Steven’s eyes widened slightly.

Ryan’s voice tightened. “She hated what you did. She hated your cruelty. But she understood the grief.”

Steven’s breathing hitched.

Ryan added, sharper now, as if he needed Steven to hear this clearly: “What she couldn’t forgive was that

you refused to share it honestly. You used it as a weapon instead.”

Steven’s face crumpled slightly.

Ryan’s expression stayed hard, but his eyes burned. “Eve still cares. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have stood in my house and said, ‘He’s still grieving.”

Steven swallowed hard.

Ryan’s voice dropped even lower. “She wouldn’t have pushed me to answer your call for help.”

Steven froze. “She did what.”

Tevin’s eyes flicked to Ryan.

Maxwell stayed silent, but his focus tightened.

Ryan didn’t look away. “When you called about your fiancée, I didn’t want to get involved. I wanted to

ignore it. Eve told me not to.”

Steven’s mouth trembled. “She, she told you to help.”

Ryan nodded once. “Yes.”

Steven’s eyes filled quickly, shock and something fragile breaking through. “After everything I did to her.”

Ryan’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Steven’s voice cracked. “I didn’t know.”

Ryan’s expression didn’t soften. “You never bother to know Eve’s heart. You only notice it when it inconveniences your anger.”

Steven flinched again, but he didn’t argue.

Tevin exhaled quietly, rubbing a hand over his face. “So she’s missing, pregnant, and she still cared enough

to push you to help him.”

Ryan’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Maxwell spoke, voice low. “Which means we don’t waste time.”

Steven wiped his face with shaking hands, forcing himself to breathe.

Ryan stepped back, gaze sharpening into action again. “You’re going to tell Chief Claude.”

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The Funch the Mansion and the Anest 2

Steven swallowed hard. “Okay.”

Ryan held his gaze. “Now.”

Steven nodded, the movement small and broken. “Now.”

Tevin glanced toward the police lights in the distance. “They’re still on the perimeter.”

Maxwell’s voice was flat. “Then we go.”

Ryan turned, and the three men moved together, fast.

Steven followed, stumbling once, then catching himself.

They crossed the rough ground back toward the cluster of police vehicles and officers working the area.

Radios crackled. Torches swept the grass. The air was tense with urgency, the kind that meant everyone

had finally accepted this was not a typical missing-person case.

Ryan’s mind stayed fixed on one thing: Eve alive. Eve found.

Every few steps, his gaze dropped to the ground, scanning for anything, a footprint, a fibre, a clue.

He didn’t expect to find one.

Leah didn’t leave clues.

But his eyes wouldn’t stop looking anyway.

It was near the edge of the concrete platform, where the weeds thinned and the soil darkened, that something caught the beam of a torch.

A small glint.

A flash of silver.

Ryan slowed.

Tevin noticed immediately. “What.”

Ryan didn’t answer. He took a step closer, then crouched slowly, eyes narrowing.

There, half pressed into the dirt, was a brooch.

It was ornate, silver with a small cluster of stones, shaped in a way Ryan recognised instantly because

he’d seen it pinned to Leah’s coat more than once.

A signature piece.

Leah’s brooch.

Ryan’s stomach dropped.

For a second, he couldn’t breathe.

He had hoped, stupidly, irrationally, that Steven was wrong. That his mother was evil in ways that didn’t

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extend to kidnapping and murder. That this was someone else exploiting the family’s chaos.

But the brooch sat in the dirt like a confession.

Tevin’s voice went low. “That’s hers.”

Maxwell’s eyes sharpened. “Proof.”

Steven stared at it, then let out a broken sound, half laugh, half sob. “I told you.”

Ryan picked it up carefully with two fingers, as if touching it fully would contaminate him.

His jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

He stood and turned sharply toward the nearest officer.

“Chief Claude,” Ryan called.

The chief looked up from a conversation with another officer, his face tightening as he approached. “Mr.

Ashbrook.”

Ryan held the brooch out, palm open. “This was on the ground near the tower.”

The chief’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t touch it immediately. “What is it.”

Ryan’s voice was cold. “My mother’s brooch.”

Steven stepped forward, voice hoarse. “Leah Ashbrook was here.”

The chief’s jaw tightened. He took the brooch with gloved hands now, eyes sharp, professional focus

clicking into place.

“This will be logged as evidence,” Chief Claude said.

Ryan’s voice came tight. “It confirms her involvement.”

Chief Claude didn’t offer reassurance. He didn’t say “maybe.” He didn’t say “we’ll see.”

His face hardened. “It’s significant.”

He turned sharply to another officer. “Bag it. Photograph it. Chain of custody now.”

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