The CEO's Rejected Wife And Secret Heir novel Chapter 162

Chapter 162: Chapter 162: What We Left Behind

Aria’s POV

The call came at 11:47 PM.

I know the exact time because I’d been watching the clock above the kitchen island, waiting for the kettle to boil, too wired from the day’s happiness to sleep. Noah was down. Damien was in the study answering emails. The penthouse was quiet in that particular way it got when the city below finally exhaled, and I’d been standing there in the dark thinking that this — this — was my life now. A real one. A good one.

Then my phone lit up with an unknown number, and some instinct I’d sharpened over years of surviving made me answer before the second ring.

"You forgot about me." The voice was low, measured, and familiar in a way that made my stomach turn cold. "Both of you. The moment you had your happy ending, you forgot I existed."

I said nothing, my hand tightening around the phone."Visits every week for 1 month," Marcus continued, and there was something almost worse than rage underneath it — something that sounded like grief that had curdled into something uglier. "Damien sitting across from me, promising we’d fix this. That we were brothers. That it wasn’t too late." A pause. "And then nothing. Weeks of nothing. Because you planned a merger. Because you got engaged. Because you had your life back, and I was just" His voice cracked, just slightly. "A box you’d already ticked. Reconciliation attempt: complete."

"Marcus" I started.

"You took him from me," he said, cutting me off. "You and that child and that perfect life you built. You took my brother back and then you took him away again. And I think that’s worse. I think that’s so much worse than if he’d never come at all."

The line went dead. I stood there for three full seconds with the kettle screaming behind me, and then I was moving — down the hall, into the study, not even knocking. "Damien." My voice came out steadier than I felt.

He looked up from his laptop and read my face immediately, shoving back from the desk before I’d even crossed the room. "What happened?"

I set my phone on the desk between us. "Marcus just called me."

Something shifted behind his eyes — not surprise. Something closer to dread, the particular dread of a man who’d been half-expecting a bill to arrive and had simply hoped it wouldn’t come tonight. "What did he say?" he asked carefully.

I told him. Every word. When I got to the visits — promises we’d fix this, that we were brothers — Damien went still in the way he did when something hit him somewhere he wasn’t defended.

"The visits stopped," I said quietly. "Damien. Why did the visits stop?"

He was quiet for a long moment, long enough that I didn’t push. "The Sterling takeover," he said finally. "Then the merger announcement. Then the gala, Noah’s school evaluation, the press conference" He stopped and exhaled slowly through his nose. "I told myself I’d go the following week. And then the week after that."

"How long?" I asked.

"Around 3 weeks." His jaw tightened. "I sent money to his commissary account. I thought" He stopped again, and I watched him understand in real time how insufficient that was — how exactly like their father that was, substituting resources for presence, transaction for relationship. "I thought it was enough."

"He doesn’t think so," I said.

"No." Damien stood and moved to the window, one hand bracing against the glass. "No, he doesn’t."

"Is he dangerous?" I asked, even though I already knew. I needed to hear how Damien said it.

He turned to look at me. "He was making real progress. Dr. Hale’s reports were" He stopped. "He called you instead of me. That means he wanted me to know he’s done trying. That whatever comes next, I don’t get to be surprised."

The word dangerous didn’t need to be said out loud.

"Noah," I said.

We moved at the same time. Our son was exactly where we’d left him — sprawled sideways across his pillow, one arm around the stuffed dinosaur Theo had lent him, chest rising and falling in the slow, untroubled rhythm of a child who believed himself completely safe.

We stood in the doorway together and neither of us spoke.

"He’s okay," I said, more for myself than for Damien.

"He’s okay." Damien’s hand found the small of my back. "Come on. We need to make some calls."

Detective Barnes answered on the second ring, which told me he’d been waiting for exactly this. The news he delivered was clinical and devastating in equal measure, Marcus Blackwood had escaped during a routine prison transfer earlier that evening. A staged vehicle collision, two guards incapacitated, and Marcus had simply vanished into the city like smoke through a screen. Units had been searching for hours but they had nothing.

"He’s not stupid," Barnes said, his frustration just barely audible beneath the composure. "He planned this. The timing, the method, none of this was impulsive. Given his background and the time he had in that cell to think" He paused, choosing his words. "He’s going to be very difficult to find until he wants to be found." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"He already made contact." Damien was still at the window, watching the city below like Marcus might be visible in it somewhere. "Twenty minutes ago, he called my fiancée."

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