The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 91

Chapter 59-1

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I quietly stop existing.

Clam

Nobody notices I’ve gone shent and still. They’re too busy deciding what the rest of my life is going to look like…. and nobody has asked me a single goddamn thing.

“We’ll put two men at the club garage entrance,” Mayhem says, still pacing. “One inside, one outside.”

“I don’t think -” I start.

“And she doesn’t go anywhere without an escort,” Dad interrupts, as though I haven’t spoken.

Jade nods quickly. “Definitely. Not even the shops.”

“I’m sitting right here,” I say.

“I’ll move her appointments,” Locke says behind me. “Chemo, oncology, anything medical. We’ll make sure the routes are covered before she leaves.”

My spine stiffens. “You’ll move my appointments?”

Locke’s answer is calm, reasonable, and completely infuriating:

“If necessary.”

“I don’t want -”

Mayhem ignores me and turns toward Dad. “She shouldn’t be in the garage at all for a while. Too many doors. Too many people moving in and out.”

I stare at him. “Excuse me?”

“Just until we get Knox handled,” Mayhem tells me.

“I’m not stopping work.”

“Well, you’re not going back tomorrow,” Locke says.

I turn in the chair. He looks down at me, his expression steady, concern carved into every line of his face, not asking me anything. Telling me. Something hot and immediate sparks beneath my ribs.

“Yes, I am.” I narrow my eyes at him. “I am absolutely going back to work. Tomorrow.”

Locke utters one word, quiet, and absolute:

“No.”

I gape at him, totally unable to believe what the fuck is happening – and the room continues around me as though that brief exchange settles the matter.

Dad is talking about changing the locks at my little shoebox apartment, even though I’m not staying there now. Jade is suggesting I keep a ‘go bag’ packed in case we need to move quickly. Mayhem wants to put a tracker on my phone. Locke is discussing whether his penthouse security can be beefed up.

13

Chapter 59.

Each sentence lands on top of the last

Plans. Rules. Restrictions.

All of them delivered with the certainty that my agreement is unnecessary.

“I don’t want a tracker,” I protest.

Mayhem barely glances at me. “It’s not about wanting one.”

My head lifts slowly. “What did you just say?”

“It’s for safety, Zara.”

“I heard the safety part. I’m asking about the part where what I want apparently doesn’t matter.”

His expression softens, which somehow makes everything worse! This isn’t the time to be stubborn.”

Jade touches my shoulder. “He doesn’t mean it like that.”

“I know exactly how he means it.”

Dad finally looks at me. “Sweetheart, we’re trying to keep you safe.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then let us help.”

“I am letting you help.”

“No, you’re fighting every suggestion,” Mayhem says.

“Because they aren’t suggestions.”

“I can rearrange my work,” Locke says, as if I haven’t just spoken. “I’ll stay with her full-time until -”

“No,” I hiss.

Something in my tone must catch his attention this time, because he pauses. “What?”

I turn fully in my chair again and look at him dead-on. “I said no.”

His brow furrows. “Zara -”

“I don’t need you to rearrange your entire life without asking me.”

“I’ve already done it.”

The words are meant to reassure me, but they don’t. They land like a locked door.

I stand up so quickly that I almost stumble, and Jade reaches automatically for my arm.

I jerk away from her fingers. “Don’t.”

Her hand freezes, and the room goes still. Completely still.

Clam

2/3

Chapter 59+

Lean hear the hum of the old refrigerator in the corner, the music drifting faintly in from the bar down the hall, Mayhem’s breathing as he watches me like I’m about to collapse.

But I’m not going to collapse. I’m going to fucking explode.

“You’re all talking about me like I’m not here,” I snap.

Dad’s expression changes. “That’s not what

“Yes, it is.”

My voice rises before I can stop it, months of frustration pouring through the opening Knox tore in me earlier.

“You’re making plans. Changing my schedule. Canceling my work. Deciding where I can go and who has to come with me, and every time I try to say something, one of you talks over me.”

“We’re scared,” Jade says softly.

“You think I’m not terrified?” I ask. “You think I didn’t spend the entire drive here checking every mirror and wondering whether Knox was behind me? You think I don’t know what he’s capable of?”

Mayhem steps forward. “Then you understand why-”

“Shut up, Mayhem. You don’t get to interrupt me too.”

He stops; he actually stops.

I look around the room, at four people who care for me more fiercely than Knox ever could and who are, somehow, still managing to make me feel exactly as powerless as he did.

“I spent years being told what I was allowed to do. Every choice that got taken away by that asshole Knox got wrapped up in some reasonable explanation, until I barely remembered how to make one for myself.”

Dad’s face drains of colour. “That isn’t what we’re doing.”

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