The Billionaire's Silent Wife (Ryan and Eve) novel Chapter 77

Chapter 77 No More Strings Part 2

Eve’s hands trembled around the phone. She was crying now, silent, terrible sobs that shook her chest. Ryan moved to her, took the phone from her, and slammed it down onto the couch, the sound loud enough that even the thin walls seemed to falter.

He could feel how small she felt, how raw. He’d seen that softness shut down in people who had been ground under other people’s greed. He remembered every night she’d fallen asleep like a thing to be moved aside.

He remembered the way she’d stood in front of her father that morning, brave and defiant, accusing him.

Ryan had promised her he would protect her, and a promise to Eve was like a covenant.

“Don’t worry,” he said low, his voice a hard cloak. “I won’t let him ruin us. I will not let him ruin

our child.”

Eve wiped at her face with the back of her hand. “What are we going to do?” she asked. The question was smaller than the problem but it carried the weight of the world.

“We use it,” Ryan said before he could stop himself. The words surprised him, sharp, decisive. Suddenly the idea snapped into place, cold and obvious and ugly in its own right. “His leverage is secrets. Secrets are a kind of currency. If he’s trading in other people’s reputations, we can trade in his. He’ll think twice if his own skeletons might tumble out of his closet.”

Eve stared at him, incredulous. “You mean blackmail him back?”

“No.” Ryan’s hands were steadier than he felt. “Not like him. We don’t stoop to that. We weaponize the truth. Expose what he has done to stop his leverage, Publish it. Let his partners, the banks, the regulators, let all of them see what’s been done. If he keeps pulling this, he will burn the family with him. If we remove the leverage, if we make the facts public, he has no card to play,”

She laughed then, short, relieved, the sort of sound that catches in the throat and breaks like light through glass. The phone was still on the couch, a sleeping animal. For now, it could wait. They would let the scandal swirl while they shored up reality: their home, their child, the quiet stacks of receipts and friendships that could keep them afloat.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll have fun, darling and I will deal with him,”

He kissed the top of her head.

Outside the flat, the city continued as if any of it mattered. Inside, a plan had been born in the midst of panic: not a petty tit-for-tat but a surgical unraveling of the thing that had given Steven his chokehold. They would go direct to the truth, arm it with lawyers and auditors, and when the time came, they would put the facts where they would burn the most.

For now, though, Ryan closed the curtains against the day’s light, let Eve rest her head on his chest, and let the beat of his heart, steady and human, promise more than words could hold.