The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 151

Chapter 85-2

“I fall dowri, Zara,” she shokes out, pressing a trembling hand to her collarbone. “And people tell me my suffering is just a necessary part of my spiritual journey. They tell me to breathe through it, to accept the universe’s plan, to find the lesson in the pain. Nobody jumps, nobody catches me, nobody spends a single sleepless night sitting in a chair making sure keep breathing!”

The room feels unbearable, cramped, and suffocating. The air in the office grows so thick with her grief and hostility that it feels almost impossible to draw a full breath.

But I can’t bring myself to hate her. Not in this moment.

Because beneath all the insane spiritual babble, beneath the delusion, beneath the possessive, alarming claims on Locke, I can finally see the gaping, infected wound. She just wants to be wanted.

“I’m so sorry, Willow,” I whisper. The words are genuine, heavy, and aching.

“No.” Her expression hardens instantly, turning cold as stone. The sorrow in her eyes freezes over, replaced by a sharp rage. “Don’t you dare pity me.”

“I’m not pitying you. I’m apologizing.”

“That’s so easy for you to do, isn’t it?” she sneers, taking a step closer, wiping furiously at the wet tear tracks on her pale face. Her fingernails dig into her own skin, leaving angry red marks. “Being sorry costs you absolutely nothing. It’s just cheap, effortless currency you toss out from your high tower to make

yourself feel like a good person.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you can afford to be generous and sorry because you never actually lose anything that matters!” she cries out. “You get everything! You get the father who would burn the entire world down just to keep you warm! You get Locke, a man who looks at you like you’re the only beautiful thing left on this earth!”

“I have cancer, Willow,” I burst out. “I’m having chemo every month.”

Willow’s face undergoes a violent, staggering transformation. For one brief, fragile second, the poisonous envy and blinding anger vanish entirely. Raw horror and deep shame replace her rage.

I regret telling her about the cancer the exact millisecond it leaves my lips. A wave of intense sickness washes through my stomach. Not because it isn’t my reality, but because I hated the sound of it. I hated that I pulled my own agony out like a shield, using my illness as a crude weapon to shut her up and win a

contest that I never wanted to enter.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Willow whispers. Her voice is barely a thrum of air, trembling violently. And for the first time since she walked into the room, I believe her apology completely. The illusion broke, and for a fleeting second, she saw a sick woman instead of an enemy.

Then, slowly, agonizingly, her eyes drift away from me.

She looks at Locke, who’s moved so close his body is almost touching mine, his heavy arm still securely, possessively wrapped around my waist, grounding me.

She looks at Dad, who’s standing just inches away, his dark eyes fiercely protective as he watches my

Chapter 852

shallow breathing.

She looks at the way both men have instinctively formed an impenetrable wall of muscle and bone around me, shielding me from her, from the cold, from the world.

“But even now…” Willow whispers, a bitter, terrifying realization washing over her face, turning her expression into something hollow and dead. “Even right now… when you use your illness… everyone in this room instantly chooses you over me.”

Something deep inside my chest cracks clean in half, the soundless shatter ringing in my ears. “Willow, please don’t walk out… please…”

She ignores my plea entirely, turning her back on us. She bends down with quiet, deliberate slowness and picks up her canvas bag from the floor. She heads to the door, but at the threshold, she stops.

She slowly turns her head to look back at me over her shoulder. The sorrow, the wild hysteria, and the fragile vulnerability are entirely gone. Her face is terrifyingly calm, hardened into something dark, absolute, and utterly devoid of mercy.

“You think this means you’ve won,” she says. “Don’t you, Zara?”

My stomach drops into a bottomless, icy pit. “I don’t think anyone won here, Willow.”

“You always win,” she retorts smoothly, a faint, chilling smile touching the corners of her lips. “You’ve spent your whole life winning without even realizing that you were playing a game.”

“No, I haven’t -”

“The universe doesn’t allow an imbalance like that to exist forever,” she says softly.

Locke instantly shifts, stepping fully in front of me, placing his tall, broad frame like solid armor between Willow and myself. Willow sees the protective gesture, her dark eyes tracking his movement with an eerie

detachment.

“Balance always restores itself eventually,” she states, her voice floating through the office like ash, sending a wave of pure ice down my spine. “You’ve had absolutely everything, Zara, and I’ve had absolutely nothing.”

“Willow,” Dad says. “Let’s talk about -”

“So eventually,” Willow cuts him off. “The universe is going to demand that the balance be restored. And Zara – it’s going to take it directly from you.”

Before anyone can react, she steps out into the hallway and slams the door behind her. The violent impact echoes through the room like a gunshot.

Without any warning, my knees give out. I collapse backward into the chair as Locke’s warm hand settles firmly on my shoulder, holding me before the room can start to spin.

Dad presses his hands flat against the back of his neck, tilting his head back.

“Well, I fucked that up,” he rasps. “Jesus Christ… I completely destroyed my relationship with my daughter…”

Claim

Chapter 85-2-

“No, you protected Zara,” Locke counters, his tone rock-solid. “You set a necessary boundary. Willow is Toxic and dangerously ungrounded right now, Cobra. This collision was inevitable.”

Dad doesn’t answer. He just stares at the closed door.

I close my eyes, but I can’t escape it. Surrounding us in the cold, heavy silence of the office, Willow’s words continue to ring out like a death knell in my bones:

Balance always restores itself.

And it’s going to take it directly from you.

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