The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 144

Chapter 82-3

“Left the house?”

“No. Left the entire family ecosystem. Permanently.”

“Do you still talk to Evelyn?”

“I talk to her once a month.”

“Does she know that you still blame yourself for what happened to her?”

Locke’s eyes snap back up, meeting mine with an overwhelming intensity. “Yes.”

“Why on earth do you blame yourself, Locke?” I ask softly, reaching up to lay my hand gently against his jaw. “You were the only one actually trying to help her.”

“I uncovered the hard evidence long before my father negotiated that payoff,” he says, the weight of the confession heavy in his chest. “I handed that evidence directly to my father and foolishly trusted him to handle it properly. I allowed him to decide what happened next.”

“You tried to use the system you knew.”

“I already knew precisely who and what they were, Zara. I should have acted independently from the start.”

“Knowing who they were doesn’t make the physical attack your fault,” I say firmly.

“No,” he allows quietly.

I offer a faint smile. “You protect people using facts,” I say softly, the sudden realization washing over me. “When Evelyn asked the family for help, every single person around her reduced her fear to opinions and reputation. But you went out and found cold, hard proof.”

“I found it far too late to really help her,” he says.

“But that’s why you operate the way you do with Knox,” I continue. “That’s why you refuse to move an inch against him until you can prove every single microscopic layer of what he did.”

He turns his head slightly, staring off into the dim grey light of the bedroom. “Some of it,” he finally admits.

I carefully lie back down on the mattress and rest my cheek directly over the steady warmth of his chest. Beneath my ear, his heart is beating strong and steady.

“You really should have told me all of this sooner,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he acknowledges. “I should have.”

“Well, admitting that must be profoundly painful for a man like you.”

“It is exceptionally painful,” he replies dryly.

A small smile touches my lips. His heavy arm tightens around my waist, pulling my body closer against his until there’s zero distance left between us.

Chapter 82-8-

completely understand why you chose to join the motorcycle club now,” I murmur against his chest.

“You haven’t even heard that specific story yet,” he reminds me softly.

“I know more than enough to fill in the blanks.”

“Do you now?”

“Yep.”

“Go on then, baby.”

“My father may be violent, deeply irrational, and occasionally impossible to deal with -”

“Only occasionally?” he interjects with a faint twitch of his lips.

Claim

“- but he never hides behind corporate respectability or social standing,” I finish. “If someone directly threatens the people he loves, he doesn’t write them a check and ask them to quietly leave the country.”

“No,” Locke agrees. “Cobra generally suggests immediate, permanent violence.”

“And Mayhem brings a heavy hammer to enforce it,” I say jokingly.

“That only happened once,” he tells me.

“Wait – what?” I instantly lift my head off his chest, staring down at him with wide eyes. “So there actually was a hammer situation?”

Locke slowly closes his eyes, letting out a long breath. “Zara, you’re supposed to be resting.”

“I can easily rest and listen to a story about a hammer at the exact same time.”

“It’s really not that interesting, I assure you.”

“It about threats to my family and Mayhem brandishing a hammer,” I counter. “That is the very definition of interesting.”

Locke slowly opens his eyes, looking up at me with an unreadable, soft expression. “Soon,” he says quietly. “I’ll tell you about the hammer tomorrow.”

I feel my body finally beginning to sink deeply into the soft mattress, the sheer physical exhaustion pulling me down now that the underlying emotional tension between us has finally dissolved.

“Soon,” I echo, my voice thick with sleep. “And you’re going to tell me about Catherine. Okay? Please?”

“Yes,” he says softly. “Yes, okay, baby.”

That answer tells me that opening the next door will be hard for him. But it also tells me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he fully intends to open it for me anyway.

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