The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Zara

Three days later

Claim

I’m sitting at my tiny kitchen table with one leg folded beneath me, twirling homemade tagliatelle through a sauce that took three hours and a bottle of wine to get right. It’s the kind of slow cooking that I used to love before my life became something scheduled around Knox’s moods, Knox’s dinners, Knox’s endless stream of men filling the house with cigar smoke and tension thick enough to choke on.

I’d forgotten how much I missed this. Not just cooking, but cooking for myself. Tasting as I go. Leaving flour on the counter because nobody’s there to complain about the mess. Letting music drift through the apartment while garlic and basil cling to the air long after the stove is

turned off.

It feels embarrassingly good. Like finding a piece of myself exactly where I left her.

The phone suddenly buzzes. I glance at the screen, and something inside me stills immediately. I let it ring a few more times before answering, taking a sip of wine first because I refuse to feel summoned.

“Hello?”

Silence greets me for half a second. Then:

“I need you to come to the clubhouse,” Knox says.

Straight to business. No greeting, no apology for detonating my life and expecting me to stand quietly in the fallout.

I lean back in the chair slowly. “No.”

I almost smile at the silence that follows because Knox is not a man accustomed to hearing no from me. There was a time I would’ve tried to manage his reaction before it happened, but that woman exhausted herself trying to survive him. This one doesn’t.

His voice tightens slightly now, the patience thinning at the edges.”You don’t understand what happens if those divorce papers go through.”

“I do.”

“No,” he says flatly. “You don’t.”

15

Claim

Chapter 15

Something in the certainty of it makes me pay attention despite myself. I set the wineglass down. “What are you talking about?”

“Your name is tied to club assets.”

For a second, I genuinely think I misheard him. “Tied to what?”

“The house. Businesses. Bank accounts.”

The room suddenly feels too quiet. I stare down at the steam curling from my pasta while my brain tries to catch up with what he’s saying.

“What kind of businesses?” I ask.

“The kind that don’t go through banks under real names.”

“What does that mean?”

“Shell corporations, property holdings. Money movement.”

I let out a short breath of disbelief. “You’re fucking insane.”

“No,” Knox replies evenly. “I’m careful.”

The distinction makes my stomach turn. I push my plate away, appetite gone now.

“You put things in my name?”

“Yes.”

“Without telling me.”

“You weren’t supposed to know.”

I laugh under my breath, not because it’s funny, but because Knox has always been at his most dangerous when he’s telling the truth. He strips emotion out of things until they sound practical, inevitable, reasonable.

And then another thought arrives, and it’s sharp enough to make my chest tighten.

“What exactly did I sign? And when?”

A beat of silence, then Knox says quietly, “Most of it, you didn’t.”

I go still. “What?”

“I handled the paperwork.”

25

My pulse starts climbing now, slow and sick beneath my skin. “You forged my signature?

“It was necessary.”

The calmness in his voice is almost unbearable. As though forging legal documents in my name was no more significant than changing an address on a form.

“How many documents?” I ask.

“Enough.”

“Don’t do that,” I snap, sharper than before. “Don’t give me vague answers like I’m too stupid to understand what you did.”

The silence that follows is heavy. Then finally he says, “Three properties. Two businesses. Several bank accounts tied to transport and cash movement, some of it international.”

“For how long did you do this? Put my name on things?”

“Almost three years.”

“So… our whole marriage.”

“Yeah,”

Jesus Christ.

I press my fingers against my temple, trying to think through the wave of nausea rising inside me. He didn’t just lie to me, he built an entire structure around me and handed me none of the blueprints.

“You used me as protection,” I say quietly.

“I used your name because nobody questions yours.”

“That’s not better.”

“It kept law enforcement away from club operations.”

And there it is; the truth stripped bare and ugly.

“All those years I thought you were shutting me out because you didn’t trust me.” My throat tightens slightly. “Turns out you trusted me perfectly. You just needed me ignorant.”

Knox says nothing. He knows I’m right.

I stand up and walk toward the window, needing movement suddenly, needing air. Rain has started outside, soft streaks against the glass while the city glows gold beneath it.

15

“I can handle this through my lawyer,” I tell him.

“No,” Knox says immediately. “You can’t.”

I close my eyes briefly. “Why?”

“Because if attorneys start digging through financials they don’t understand, people will notice when money starts moving differently, or not at all… and these are not the kind of people that you want paying attention to you.”

Claim

The warning settles low in my stomach. Not dramatic, not exaggerated…. which somehow makes it all worse, all the more real.

“And you think I should just trust you to fix it?” I say.

“I’m the only one who can.”

That arrogant certainty should infuriate me more than it does. Instead, exhaustion washes through me because part of me already knows he’s probably right. Knox built this world carefully, illegally, quietly. And he buried my name inside it without my knowledge.

I stare out at the rain for a long moment, my reflection faint against the darkening glass. Three days ago, I would have refused him out of pride alone, but this isn’t pride anymore.

This is survival.

“When do you want me to come to the clubhouse?” I ask.

“Tomorrow. Twelve o’clock.”

“Fine.” I exhale slowly. “I’ll be there.”

The words taste bitter, not because I’m afraid to see him, but because he wants me on his turf, where he controls the room and the conversation and every possible exit. Knox has never trusted distance when power can be exercised in person.

My hand drifts unconsciously to my stomach, fingers pressing lightly against the ache that still lingers there, the quiet reminder that I survived something that could have broken me completely.

I’ll survive Knox, too.

The call ends, and I stand in the silence afterward, listening to the rain. All I can think is that I truly had no idea how much of my life Knox had stolen long before I ever found the courage to leave him.

My gaze drifts toward the bowl of pasta cooling on the kitchen table, toward the small,

4.5

Chapter 15

peaceful life I’ve started rebuilding with my own hands, and I feel something harden into place inside me.

Claim

Tomorrow, I’ll walk into his clubhouse knowing exactly what he is. And for the first time since I met him, I’m no longer afraid to let him know that I see it.

Comments

LUCK DRAW >

Vote

84