The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 251

Chapter 126-2

“You already know the broad strokes,” Locke begins quietly, his gray eyes fixed on the white mountains outside. “You know about her stalker. His name was Julian Fielding, and his father was a major corporate partner in my family’s distribution network. Julian was a volatile, controlling nightmare who couldn’t handle her leaving him.”

I nod gently against his chest, tracing the back of his hand. “Yes, you told me. You said they met while she was in college, and they dated for a year. When she broke up with him, he followed her everywhere, and the police refused to do anything because he stayed just beneath the legal threshold.”

“Right,” Locke says, a bitter, icy edge touching his tone. “He was meticulous. He knew how to terrorize her without leaving a single legal, footprint. And you know how my family handled it. They viewed her terror as a PR risk, and they forced her into that gated estate, effectively placing her under house arrest to protect their own public image while Julian walked around as a free man.

“Yes, you told me. That’s awful,” I whisper. “They punished her for being hunted. They stripped away her freedom, her education, her life, all to keep their high-society circle pristine.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But then you went digging yourself, didn’t you? You built that entire case on him… the offshore accounts, the tax evasion, the complaints from those other women.”

Locke lets out a low, heavy breath. “I spent months building that file. I brought a bulletproof, documented pattern of that asshole’s predatory behavior straight to my father and uncle, thinking even they couldn’t ignore it… and they used it as leverage to protect their bottom line.”

“I remember,” I say, the sickening memory of his earlier summary returning to me. “They paid Evelyn’s abusive stalker to leave the country. They literally rewarded a predator to protect their corporate shipping

contracts.”

“They called it an efficient, quiet solution,” Locke says. “To them, a young woman’s sanity and safety were just figures on a ledger. They didn’t tell Evelyn any of it until Julian was on a plane to Paris, with two million dollars in his bank account. They handed her a glass of champagne and told her it was all over, and to celebrate.”

“Oh, my God.” I blink in horror. “You didn’t tell me that part.”

“She set the glass down and walked out,” Locke say quietly. “She severed ties with all of them, packed one bag, and vanished to a small town in Canada called Georgetown. When she got there, she called me and gave me her number. I was the only one who had it, and we talked constantly.”

“How did she survive? I mean financially?”

“I paid her bills until she could stand on her own, and she agreed to that. It took her about a year to really get a toe-hold, and rebuild her life. It looked like the worst was over.”

Locke sighs, shakes his head.

“For a year, she just breathed,” he says. “She bought plants. She bought second-hand furniture and painted the walls yellow. She was finishing the last year of her degree online, and working in an office. She was

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building a life out of the ashes.”

Cham

He stops speaking. His hand in mine grows deathly still, his grip tightening until the muscle tension in his broad forearm vibrates right into my palms.

I press closer into his side, feeling the hard, dark wall of grief and anger rising in his chest. I run my free thumb across his knuckles, trying to offer what little warmth I can against the sudden frost in his voice.

“Locke…” I whisper softly, my heart beating faster as we reach the dark edge of the story he’s never told me in full. “You told me he didn’t stay gone. What happened?”

Locke stares out at the blizzard, his face mirroring the mountains outside: it looks like it’s carved into hard, unforgiving granite.

*Julian blew through the two million in less than a year,” Locke says heavily. “He gambled it away in Monaco and Macau, drank himself into a coma, almost died from a drug overdose, bought cars and property and hookers.”

“Classy.”

“Right?” Locke’s mouth curls in disdain. “So as the money ran low, he convinced himself that my family had manipulated Evelyn into rejecting him. In his sick, twisted mind, he decided that the only reason his life was ruined was because she wasn’t with him.”

I hold my breath, the air freezing solid in my chest.

“He hired an illegal skip-tracer,” Locke says. “And he tracked her up to Canada.”

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