The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 160

Chapter 84.2

Chapter 89-2

Claim

I keep my hands visible, resting them casually in the pockets of my dark jeans, keeping my posture relaxed and completely non-threatening. I don’t wear my MC cut tonight, just a heavy, dark wool coat over a black hoodie. I keep my distance, stopping about six feet away under the halo of the streetlamp.

“Hey,” I say softly, keeping my voice low, warm, and rich, the exact voice that I use when I want Becca to stop crying and bitching and listen to reason: “You’re going to freeze out here, honey.”

She snaps her head toward me, her eyes flashing with a sudden, violent defensive flare. She backs up instantly until her shoulder blades hit the cold brick wall of the building behind her.

“Get away from me,” she hisses, her teeth chattering so hard I can hear them from six feet away. “Touch me and I’ll scream. I mean it.”

“I’m not going to touch you,” I say smoothly, taking a slow, deliberate half-step back to give her space. “I’m not even going to come any closer. I was just heading down to the diner on the corner, and I saw your come out of that lobby shivering so hard you can barely stand.”

I unbutton my heavy wool coat, unzipping the fleece lining, and carefully slip it off my shoulders. I hold it out toward her, keeping my distance.

“You don’t know me, and you don’t have to,” I say, my voice dripping with gentle, unhurried patience. “I’m not asking you to get into a car with a stranger. But you need a jacket, and that diner right there” – I nod toward the glowing neon sign at the end of the block – “has working heat, hot coffee, and lots of seating.”

She stares at the coat, then looks down the street at the diner, her wet lashes clumping together as the snow falls thicker around us. She’s searching for danger, searching for a trap. But I don’t give her a threat; I give her the warm, steady mask of a concerned stranger. I offer her an easy, visible out.

“I don’t need your help,” she says, though her voice cracks pitifully on the last word. “I don’t.”

“Maybe not,” I agree, offering a small, self-deprecating smile that I know crinkles the corners of my eyes in a warm way. “But you need to get out of the cold before your lungs give out. I’ll walk you down to the door. You can take the coat, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, and if you want me to turn around and leave the second we hit the threshold, I will. No questions asked.”

She looks back up at the top floor of the penthouse high-rise, her expression instantly darkening into something so venomous, so pure in its hatred, that it makes my heart fucking sing. She doesn’t just dislike the people up there. She wants to burn them alive.

“They don’t care,” she whispers, mostly to herself, a tear cutting through the melting snow on her cheek. ” They don’t care if I freeze.”

“Then don’t let them win by standing out here proving them right,” I murmur softly, stepping just close enough to lay the heavy coat over the hood of a parked sedan between us, letting her pick it up herself.” Get warm, honey.”

She stands there on the precipice, balancing on the edge of her own ruin. She looks at the coat, looks at me, and then looks down at the warm, glowing windows of the diner just a short walk away. She’s pathetic, really, so desperate for someone – anyone to see her, to choose her, to validate the poison choking her throat. Zara’s smart. Zara’s careful. But this woman is an exposed nerve waiting for a spark.

–

Chapter 82-2-

know that she’s paranoid, feral, and decply untrusting, so she’d never climb into a stranger’s vehicle. But walking twenty feet down a brightly lit city sidewalk to a public diner? That feels safe. That feels like her own choice.

Sure enough, she grabs the coat off the hood, wrapping the heavy wool tight around her shivering frame, inhaling the scent of cigarette smoke.

“I’m Knox,” I say gently, taking a step toward the corner, leaving a wide berth for her to follow at her own

pace.

She takes a deep, ragged breath, looks back at the high-rise one last time with absolute, final hatred, and pulls the coat tight around her chin.

“Willow,” she whispers, her voice fragile and utterly defeated as she steps onto the slushy sidewalk behind me. “I’m Willow.”

“Nice to meet you, Willow,” I say, keeping my pace slow and steady as we walk side-by-side toward the glowing neon sign of the diner.

She thinks she’s just getting out of the cold, that she’s keeping herself safe by keeping her feet on the pavement, that she’s getting a rescue.

She has no idea that she’s just handed me the keys to the kingdom, that she’s walking right into the center of my trap. Cobra’s blood, Zara’s mirror image, overflowing with bitter, unhinged resentment. I can guess what’s happened.

And the best part is that I don’t need to force her into a car or drag her into the shadows. I’ll buy her a cup of coffee, listen to her bleed, and hand her the matches to burn her family to the ground.

I don’t even need to break her; helpfully, she’s already shattered. All I have to do is sweep up the pieces and point her straight at the penthouse, at the clubhouse.

Locke thought that he’d built an impenetrable fortress…. but I’m about to walk right through the goddamn front door.

And I’m going to use Cobra’s own daughter to do it.

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