2025-01-20 14:13:30“Master Raymond, just take the card. You’re a trillionaire. If you don’t believe me, go to the bank and check the balance yourself. The password is your birthday.”
The elegant woman placed a sleek black card on the desk, her tone firm but polite. After being told to leave for the fifth time, she finally gave up trying to convince Raymond.
With a deep bow—practically folding herself in half—she turned and walked out without another word,got in a luxurious sports car.
Raymond sighed and gave the card a quick glance before putting it into his pocket casually.
Seriously?
She expected him to believe he was the missing chairman of the country’s biggest conglomerate?
What a load of nonsense.
Sure, there were parts of his past he couldn’t remember, but there was no way he was some billionaire big shot.
Shaking his head, he pushed the thought aside. Right now, he had more important things to worry about—like getting back to work at the restaurant.
Today is his anniversary with his wife Dahlia. He had planned everything meticulously. Leave work early, pick up fresh ingredients, and cook her favorite meal.
This year, he wanted to make it extra special, a reminder of their bond.
Just as he began tidying up, the restaurant door opened.
Dahlia stepped in first, her designer heels clicking sharply against the floor. Her hair was styled to perfection, her makeup immaculate, exuding the poise of a successful woman.
Behind her, a tall man followed, his commanding presence filling the room instantly.
Raymond straightened, a mixture of surprise and confusion flashing across his face. “Dahlia? What are you doing here?”
Her gaze met his briefly, devoid of warmth, before she looked away. “I won’t take up much of your time, Raymond,” she said coolly. “I’m here because... I want a divorce.”
The words landed like a blow, but Raymond kept his composure, though his hands clenched involuntarily.
“A divorce?” he repeated, his voice low and steady. “Why? What’s happened?”
Before Dahlia could respond, the man beside her stepped forward with a smirk. “I’ll tell you what happened,” he said, his tone dripping with disdain.
“Dahlia has finally realized she doesn’t need to be stuck with a loser like you. Look at her—she’s a CEO, a leader in the city’s business elite. And you?” He gestured around the modest restaurant, his expression filled with mockery. “You’re still here, serving tables and dreaming small. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.”
Raymond’s gaze shifted to the man, his eyes narrowing. “And you are?”
“Caleb Nathaniel,” the man replied arrogantly. “A man who actually understands her worth, someone who can give her the life she deserves. Unlike you.”
Raymond’s fists tightened, but he turned his focus back to Dahlia. “Is that how you see me now? A burden?”
Dahlia’s expression didn’t falter. “Raymond, it’s not about being a burden. It’s about reality. You’re still stuck in the same place you were years ago, and I’ve moved on. We’re no longer compatible. I need someone who matches my ambitions, not someone holding me back.”
“Is that why he’s here?” Raymond asked, his voice edged with bitterness. “You’ve already replaced me.”
“I didn’t replace you,” Dahlia replied, her tone clipped and devoid of emotion. “I outgrew you.”
Caleb chuckled darkly, stepping closer. “You should take it as a compliment, Raymond. Dahlia’s doing you a favor. She’s offering you a clean break—and compensation. It’s more than you deserve.”
Dahlia placed the divorce papers and an envelope on the desk. “These are the divorce papers. I’ve made all the arrangements. The envelope contains compensation. It’s the least I can do after everything.”
Raymond stared at the envelope, his jaw tightening. “Compensation?” he echoed. “That’s what my years of support, sacrifice, and love amount to for you? A payoff?”
They’d been married for three years. And he had poured almost every ounce of his energy into their marriage.
Every decision he made, every sacrifice, was for her—for them. His career, his dreams, his time—they all took a backseat to her happiness.
Dahlia had always been his priority.
And now, this was what he got. How ironic!
Caleb laughed again, louder this time. “What did you expect? A gold medal for being a dutiful husband? Face it, Raymond, you were never her equal. She’s just trying to make it easier for you to step aside gracefully.”
Raymond’s eyes burned with suppressed fury, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He pushed the envelope back toward Dahlia, his voice sharp. “I don’t want your money.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Dahlia snapped, her tone icy. “I’m trying to be fair.”
“Fair?” Raymond said with a bitter laugh. “You think throwing money at me makes this fair? Don’t bother. I don’t need your pity or your charity.”
Caleb smirked, wrapping an arm possessively around Dahlia’s waist. “Suit yourself. Maybe she’ll donate it to someone more deserving.”
Raymond ignored him, his gaze fixed on Dahlia. “You’ve made your decision. Let’s not drag this out.”
Without waiting for her response, he picked up the pen.
The weight of betrayal sat heavy in his chest, but he forced his hand to remain steady as he signed the papers.
When he was done, he placed them back on the desk and looked at her one last time. “I hope your new life is everything you want it to be,” he said, his voice laced with quiet finality.
Then he turned and walked away, leaving behind the woman who had once been his entire world.
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Chapter 362
And then with the easy, unhurried calm of someone who is about to say something entirely ordinary, something that requires no fanfare, no buildup, no performance she looked at the table, at the assembled faces of the people she had known for years, at Penelope's bright, calculating smile and Serena's frozen neutrality and Eric's carefully controlled expression and Derek's genuine curiosity, and she said:"Raymond is my fiancé."The words landed in the center of the room like a stone dropped into still water.Not thrown. Not hurled with dramatic force or delivered with theatrical timing. Just—dropped. Released from Melissa's mouth with the same casual, unhurried ease that she might have used to announce the time of day or the color of her dress."Raymond is my fiancé."Five words.Twenty-three letters.And in the space of approximately two seconds, the entire social architecture of the room the careful hierarchy that had been built over years of interactions, the established narratives
Chapter 361
Melissa and Raymond were moving toward the section of the room where the principal table was set, where Melissa's place had been held by the implicit social reservation that operates in groups of people who know each other well enough to maintain each other's spaces.They sat.Side by side.Serena watched them sit.Her expression was doing several things at once—processing, calculating, resenting, and performing a neutrality that was not entirely convincing.Penelope leaned slightly toward her."I thought she doesn't bring men anywhere," Penelope said, in a voice pitched below the general ambient noise of the room."She doesn't," Serena said."Then who is—""I don't know."They looked at Raymond.Raymond, who was looking around the room with the mild interest of someone taking in a new environment, happened to glance in their direction at that moment.He met Serena's gaze briefly.Held it for exactly as long as was socially natural.Then looked away.Serena felt, unreasonably and irri
Chapter 360
At the other end of the table, Serena was still talking. Something about the fine that should be imposed for late arrivals—the group had established a tradition, early in their years together, of charging small fines for various social infractions, mostly as an excuse for humor, mostly as a way of generating the kind of low-stakes conflict that gives gatherings their energy."Honestly," Eric said, not loudly, not with particular forcefulness, but with the quiet authority of someone whose relative silence has given their words a weight that louder people in the room have not accumulated, "since Melissa is late, we should start the event. This attitude has gone on for too long. If she comes and we've started without her, maybe that's the message that actually lands." He paused. "We call it out. Properly. Tonight."Around the table, heads nodded.There was the particular satisfaction of a group that has been waiting for someone to say the thing they had all been thinking, and here it was
Chapter 359
Then at the people around her, ensuring she had an audience, which she did."Melissa ought to have been here by now," she said, and her voice carried the particular quality of someone making an observation that is also a performance aimed at the room as much as at the specific people around her. "Why would she be keeping everybody here waiting? She's supposed to be here. She's already five minutes late." She looked around with the expression of someone who is managing a reasonable inconvenience with admirable patience. "She's supposed to be here. Why is she keeping everybody waiting?"The question landed in the air of the room, and several people who had been engaged in their own conversations looked up not because they were particularly concerned about Melissa's tardiness, but because Serena's voice had the projection and timing of someone who has learned how to command a room's attention.The response came from the other side of the table.Penelope.Who was, if Raymond's reading of
Chapter 358
He moved away from the window.Began to pace not the agitated, emotional pacing of Benjamin on the other side of the city, but the deliberate, rhythmic pacing of a man whose mind works better when his body is in motion, who has known this about himself for decades and has stopped apologizing for it.His thoughts moved.Connected.Stretched between points, the way a spider's web stretches between anchor points—thin, nearly invisible, but structured, purposeful, holding a shape that is designed to catch things.*Jefferson's grandfather,* he thought. *The old man told me. He told me that he was going to Flame Fire Mountain. That there was someone he was waiting for. He asked me to come along.*He stopped pacing.*I was busy. I couldn't go. And he went alone.*He resumed.*And the person who killed Jefferson's grandson—the account was that the person ran. Ran into Flame Fire Mountain. Ran directly into Flame Fire Mountain as if it were somewhere they were going, somewhere they intended to
Chapter 357
Not what had he done. Not whether he was guilty of the thing that Mr. Black suspected him of. But fundamentally, essentially, at the root of everything: *who is this person?*Because Aldous Mercer had spent fifty years reading people had built his entire career, his entire survival, on his ability to look at a person and understand what they were and Raymond was someone he could not read.Could not place.Could not fit into any of the categories that fifty years of experience had taught him to use.That, more than anything else, was what bothered him.That, more than the suspicion, more than the picture, more than Mr. Black's carefully hedged intel—that was what made him reach for his phone without wasting another second and dial.The line rang once.Twice.Then Mr. Black picked up, the way he always did—without a greeting, without an acknowledgment, simply present on the line and waiting."I know this person," Aldous said, and he said it without preamble, without softening, because s
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