While My Husband Cheated I Married His Powerful Brother novel Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Chapter 6 Walk Away

"It’s someone you know."

The officer flipped his notebook around, angling it just enough for her to see the name typed under the vehicle registration.

Xiomara Vale.

"She hired someone to run me over." Her voice came out sharper than she expected, carrying further than the small room should have allowed. "I want her arrested. Tonight. I want to press charges, I want a restraining order, I want—"

"Officer, if I could just—" Caspian was already moving, already stepping between her and the man with the notebook, his hand raised in a gesture that looked, to anyone who didn’t know him, like concern. "My wife’s been through a serious trauma. A car accident, a hospitalization, and now this news, all in the same day. She’s not in a state to make statements right now."

"I am completely capable of making a statement," Veyra said.

"Veyra." He said her name the way you’d correct a child in public — gentle on the surface, a warning underneath. He turned back to the officer before she could push further. "Could you give us a few minutes? Just to let her calm down. I’ll come find you in the hallway."

The officer glanced between them, then nodded, the particular nod of a man who dealt with rich men in hospital rooms often enough to know which battles weren’t his to fight. He stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him.

The performance dropped the second the latch clicked.

Caspian turned to face her, and the concern was gone from his face like it had never been there at all.

"You want to press charges," he said. Not a question.

"She tried to kill me."

"She made a mistake in a moment of panic." His voice was flat now, businesslike. "And if you drag this into a courtroom, into the press, it doesn’t just take her down, Veyra. It takes me down with her. My name’s on every headline she’s ever been photographed near. You think Thorne Tech’s board wants to read about an attempted murder charge tied to my mistress the same quarter we’re closing the Meridian acquisition?"

"That’s not my problem."

"It’s about to be." He crossed his arms, and something in his posture shifted — the concerned husband gone, replaced by the man who’d once told a diamond-holding attendant that his wife owed an apology. "Let’s be honest. What exactly is your plan once you leave me? You haven’t worked in years. You were a housewife. Your resume is blank, your skills are gone. No company hires a thirty-year-old woman with no experience and no references."

"You’re right," she said. "No job. No skills. No references. All true."

He blinked, clearly not expecting agreement.

"Do you know why?" she went on, her voice as calm as if she were discussing the weather. "Because I spent the last three years saving your money, hiding your lies, and keeping this marriage looking presentable from the outside. That was a full-time job too, Caspian. It just didn’t come with a paycheck, or a reference letter. If you want to judge someone by their resume, maybe you should consider that mine, for the last three years, was you."

His expression froze.

"You’re thirty, Veyra." He shifted tactics, his voice taking on a cruel, deliberate pity. "You’re not young anymore. You’re not as pretty as you used to be. You’ve let yourself go. Who do you think wants you now? Who marries a woman with no money and no future?"

"Maybe no one will," she said. "But I’d love to know — that woman you spent eighteen million dollars on, the one who just tried to have me killed — besides being young and having a face, what does she have that I don’t? Because if the only answer is young, then you’re not complimenting her. You’re telling the whole world exactly what you think you’re worth."

His breathing changed. She could see it land, deeper than she’d expected.

"I’m doing you a favor," he snapped, his voice rising, trying to seize back control. "I give you a roof, food, a life. And you want to burn it all down because I slept with someone else?"

"Is that what you call helping me?" Her voice sharpened for the first time. "Using my mother’s surgery money to buy someone else a Chanel bag? Letting her run me down in the street and then walking her attempted murder charge out the door with a handshake? You’re not helping me, Caspian. You’re spending my life to buy your own convenience, and expecting me to thank you for it."

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

"Think it over, Veyra." He finally found his voice and turned toward the door, delivering one last threat. "While you’re lying in this hospital bed, think about what happens if I throw you out tomorrow. Because I can. And I will."

"You will," she said. "But not now."

He paused at the door, looking back.

"Because right now," she said, "what scares you isn’t me leaving you. It’s me leaving with a recording, a paper trail, and a police report you just made disappear. You want to throw me out, but you’re more afraid I’ll walk away and end up better off than you. So you’ll hesitate. You’ll wait. You’ll try threats first, see if that scares me back into shape."

His expression shifted.

She closed her eyes, her voice flat. "You can go now. I need to rest."

The door shut behind him, harder than it had opened.

She lay in the dimming room, listening to the beep of the machines. Her hands were shaking — not from fear, but from how tightly she’d held herself together, tight enough that she’d nearly forgotten to breathe.

She had no money. No job.

But for the first time, she realized she was better at leaving him speechless than she was at crying.

She closed her eyes and waited for the tears.

They didn’t come.

*******

Veyra walked past the neighboring hospital room, steadying herself against the wall.

"I don’t ask for much," the woman said. Her voice was old and cracked, like a record player running too slow. "Just to see a grandchild before I go. Is that so terrible?"

A younger voice answered and it was a male and his voice was low. "Grandmother, you’re not going anywhere."

"Don’t lie to me. I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I want a great-grandchild. Or a wedding. Something happy before I turn into dirt."

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