All Chapters of The Disgraced Husband Is the Septamillionaire Heir: Chapter 251
- Chapter 260
307 chapters
CHAPTER 193
"Then we go after them." Richard's hands were trembling. "Right now. We get in the cars and we follow them.""Follow them where?" Sebastian turned to him. "We don't know which direction they went. We don't know what vehicle they're using. We don't know if there are more ambush points set up along whatever route they're taking."Richard's mouth opened. Nothing came out. His trembling hands pressed against his thighs to stop the shaking.The patriarch arrived beside them, his broken cane still in his grip. He looked at the hatch, at the drag marks, at the blood on the dirt. His face was carved from stone."This man," the patriarch said. His jaw barely moved. "This Jerry Stone. I want to know everything about him. Every property he owns. Every building he's ever walked into. Every person who has ever worked for him. I want it by sunrise.""Grandfather—" Richard started."By sunrise," the patriarch repeated. His eye moved to Carden. "And you. You're going to find her."Carden looked at th
CHAPTER 194
Carden didn't answer. He lifted Lorenzo's dead weight off the ground and began dragging him forward, toward the open stretch of clearing that separated their position from the facility's main entrance. Lorenzo's heels scraped against the gravel. His body rolled limply with each pull.Richard stepped forward. "Where is he taking him?"The patriarch's eyes narrowed but he said nothing. He watched Carden move with the focused attention of someone who recognized a plan forming in real time.Carden reached the center of the clearing and stopped. He swung Lorenzo's body forward and released the collar. Lorenzo hit the ground face first, the impact forcing a weak groan from somewhere deep in his chest. His eyelids flickered. His fingers twitched against the dirt.Carden placed his boot on Lorenzo's chest and pressed down.Lorenzo's eyes opened. Blurred, unfocused, swimming with confusion and pain. He looked up at the sky, then at Carden's face above him, and the confusion became something cl
CHAPTER 195
Richard's jaw clenched so hard his teeth made an audible sound. He stayed where he was, but every muscle in his body was fighting the stillness.Jerry stopped walking twenty feet from Carden. His men fanned out behind him in a formation that was half defensive and half theatrical. Vivian was positioned slightly behind Jerry, close enough that everyone could see her but far enough that reaching her would require going through multiple armed men first."You called?" Jerry's mouth curved. He looked down at Lorenzo on the ground and the curve flattened slightly. "I see you've been keeping my son company.""Trade," Carden said. One word. His boot remained on Lorenzo's chest. "Your son for my wife. Right now. No conditions."Jerry tilted his head. "That simple?""That simple."Jerry's eye moved to Lorenzo. Studied him. The bleeding wrist. The pale face. The shallow breathing. The fear in his son's eyes, visible even from twenty feet away. Something moved behind Jerry's expression, but it se
CHAPTER 196
Carden's eyes narrowed.The movement was small but it carried the weight of a decision being made. His gaze locked onto Jerry Stone's single eye and held there with the kind of intensity that made the air between them feel solid. Neither man moved. Neither man blinked. The clearing had become a stage where two wills pressed against each other, and everyone standing around them understood that whatever happened next would not be small.Ten seconds passed.Twenty.The gun was still pressed against Vivian's temple. The armed men behind Jerry remained perfectly still, their weapons steady, their faces carrying the blank professional focus of people who had been trained to wait for a signal and do nothing until it arrived.Carden's boot pressed slightly harder on Lorenzo's chest. Lorenzo wheezed but didn't dare speak.Jerry's eye crinkled at the corner. "Tick tock, Carden."Carden said nothing."Every second you stand there calculating is a second my patience shrinks," Jerry continued. His
CHAPTER 197
Lorenzo was standing.Nobody had noticed when he'd gotten up. In the chaos of the gunshot and Jerry's theatrical performance, he had pulled himself off the ground and stumbled three steps sideways until his back found the side of a vehicle. His bleeding wrist was pressed against his stomach.His legs were barely holding him. But he was upright, and his eyes were fixed on his father with an expression that had nothing to do with loyalty.He watched Jerry spread his arms wide. Watched him mock Carden. Mock the patriarch. Mock Richard on his knees. Watched his father perform for an audience, commanding attention, radiating power, doing what Jerry Stone had always done best.And Lorenzo felt nothing.Not pride. Not fear. Not even anger.He felt the absence of something that should have been there. The hollow space where a son's admiration for his father was supposed to live. He had been lying on the ground with a dagger through his wrist while his father negotiated his life away like a co
CHAPTER 198
"Your wife is mine," Jerry said. "Your allies are broken. Your confidence is a memory. And you're standing in my clearing, on my property, surrounded by my men, pretending you still have a hand to play."Jerry laughed again. Louder this time. The sound filled the clearing and pressed against the trees."This is over," Jerry said. His arms dropped to his sides and he turned slightly toward his men, his chin lifting in the particular way it did when he was about to give an order. "You lost. Accept it. Surrender yourself and I might let your wife keep her—"The object moved faster than the eye could track.It came from Carden's direction, launched with a flick of the wrist so precise and so powerful that the air itself seemed to split around it. A thin, sharp object, barely longer than a pencil, something that might have been a fragment of wood or a sharpened twig, traveling with the kind of velocity that belongs to things fired from weapons rather than thrown by hands.It struck Jerry S
CHAPTER 199
He came from the north side of the clearing.Not running. Walking. Each step deliberate and measured, carrying a weight that went beyond the woman in his arms. Carden's face was pale beneath the dirt and blood that covered it, and his jaw was locked in the particular way that belongs to someone who is channeling every remaining unit of willpower into the act of staying vertical.Vivian was in his arms. Her body was curled against his chest, her bound hands pressed against his collar, her face buried in the space between his neck and shoulder. She was shaking. Not the small, controlled trembling she had been performing for the past several hours. Full body shaking, the kind that comes when the thing holding a person together finally lets go.Behind Carden, on the back of his shirt, a dark stain was spreading. It started near his lower spine and expanded outward in a circle that grew larger with each step he took. The fabric around it was torn where something had entered, and the blood
CHAPTER 201
Carden's hand came up slowly.It took everything he had left. The muscles in his arm trembled, the fingers shook, but they found Vivian's face and rested there against her tear soaked cheek. The warmth of his palm against her skin made her cry harder."Listen to me." His lips barely moved. His voice was fading at the edges, thinning out the way a flame thins when the air around it changes. "I will never let you suffer again. Not like this. Not ever.""Stop talking." Vivian pressed her hand over his, holding it against her face. "Save your strength. Please.""Protecting you is the only thing that matters." His thumb moved once across her cheekbone. "Everything else is noise.""Carden, please stop." Her voice broke on his name. "You need to save your energy."His hand slipped from her face. Not because he wanted it to. Because his body had reached the point where wanting and doing were no longer connected by the same wire.Sebastian was already moving.He dropped to his knees beside Car
CHAPTER 202
Jerry coughed. His hand reached upward. Lorenzo stared at it for three full seconds before taking it.Distant sirens cut through the night air. Faint at first, then growing louder, the sound threading through the trees and across the clearing from at least two directions. Red and blue lights flickered against the horizon.Everyone heard them. Nobody moved to welcome them. The situation held too many layers for a clean handoff to authorities, and the men on both sides understood that the power dynamics present in this clearing were beyond what uniforms and badges could easily sort through.Jerry's remaining men appeared from the tree line. Four of them, moving fast, weapons still drawn. They assessed the scene in two seconds and converged on Jerry without a word. Two of them lifted him from the ground while the third grabbed Lorenzo's arm."We need to go," the lead man said to Lorenzo. "Now. Before those sirens get closer."Lorenzo looked over his shoulder at Carden on the ground. At V