My Ex-Wife wanted Money, The Apocalypse wanted Everything

Chapter 8

“It is true. Noah is not Ethan’s son,” Victoria confessed quietly. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and sighed heavily.

There was no point hiding the secret anymore. With Robert, Margaret, and Ryan storming back into the house looking ready to tear someone apart, Victoria had no choice but to admit the truth.

Yet the moment the words left her mouth, resentment surged through her entire body. She had explicitly told them not to go looking for Ethan. But had they listened to her? Of course not. Even if they absolutely felt the need to confront him, they could have pulled him aside in private. Instead, they had screamed at him in front of half the neighborhood. Now, everyone in Maple Grove would probably know that Victoria Bennett Carter had cheated on her husband. How the hell was she supposed to show her face around the neighborhood now?

“You… how could you?!” Robert shouted in pure fury. His face turned crimson, and his hands trembled violently at his sides.

“How could you be so damn careless?” he spat angrily. His facial expression was twisted in raw disgust. “You actually let that bastard figure it out!”

He was not angry about the affair itself. He was only furious that she had failed to cover her tracks well enough.

Victoria looked at her father with total disgust. This family comprised birds of a feather, truly.

“Exactly!” Margaret piled on immediately. Her voice was sharp and filled with heavy accusation. “Why did you have to lose Ethan? One man was your lover, and the other man paid all our heavy bills! Those two things did not interfere with each other at all!”

Ryan, however, could not care less about the child paternity drama.

“I do not care whose kid Noah is,” Ryan sneered coldly. He glared at his sister with intense greed. “You are the one who screwed this whole thing up, so you are the one who needs to fix it right now.”

“What?” Victoria asked defensively. Her facial expression hardened into stone.

“You heard me,” Ryan spat back. He pointed a finger directly at her face. “I am broke right now. I was already planning to hit him up again in a few days. So whatever money I would have gotten from him? You owe me.”

Victoria’s face darkened with every word they spoke.

“OK, OK! Jesus fucking Christ!” Victoria screamed loudly. Her eyes flared with intense fury, and her body shook with rage. “Just listen to me, okay?”

Victoria drew in a long breath, forcing down the anger burning in her chest.

“I just got off the phone with Derek,” Victoria explained softly. Her tone softened instantly at the mention of Derek, and her face showed a warm expression before hardening again. “He recommended a lawyer to me. A very good one. The lawyer thinks something is wrong.”

That immediately got their full attention.

“Think about it,” Victoria urged them smoothly. Her eyes narrowed in deep calculation. “Ethan bought that mansion for twelve million dollars in cash without bargaining. A man does not casually throw twelve million dollars at a house unless twelve million means very little to him.”

Robert blinked and was shocked. His jaw dropped open slightly. “You mean twelve million might only be the beginning?”

“Yes,” Victoria confirmed firmly. She nodded her head with complete confidence.

That single word destroyed whatever remained of everyone’s anger. Twelve million had already sounded like an unfathomable fortune. More than twelve million?

“How much more?” Ryan blurted out instantly. His eyes practically lit up with intense excitement.

“We do not know yet,” Victoria answered carefully. She smoothed down her dress with her hands. “That is the point. The lawyer thinks we should investigate where Ethan suddenly got that kind of money.”

Robert began pacing back and forth across the floor. His face was filled with wild hope. “So if he has fifty million…”

“What if it is a hundred million?” Margaret gasped breathlessly. Her hands clutched her necklace tightly.

For a moment, all four of them could practically see the money piling up in front of them. The naked greed on their faces was impossible to hide. They were going to be rich.

Victoria firmly warned them to lay low and simply wait for the courts to hand them their massive payday.

Mollified by the promise of immense wealth, the previously furious trio nodded obediently.

Across the neighborhood, Ethan had already moved on to something far more important.

Daniel Foster stood in the middle of his mansion’s living room with a thick roll of blueprints spread across the dining table. He and Ethan had served together years ago. After leaving the military, Daniel had eventually gone into high-end structural reinforcement and security construction, which made him exactly the man Ethan needed right now.

Daniel was meticulously reviewing the blueprints Ethan had drawn up to convert the luxury home into a fortified survival shelter, occasionally pacing around the property to assess the grounds.

“This is a serious job,” Daniel noted quietly. He rubbed his stubbled chin and looked at Ethan with a serious expression.

“I know,” Ethan replied calmly. He leaned his back against the edge of the heavy table.

“If you want this done in two months, the timeline is brutal,” Daniel said seriously. His voice was heavy with practical concern. “Labor costs are going to skyrocket because I will need to arrange rotating shifts to work around the clock.”

Ethan just smiled calmly. “Just give me a number.”

“Eighty million,” Daniel replied, wincing slightly. His eyes watched Ethan carefully for a reaction.

The mansion itself was only worth around ten million, making an eighty-million renovation bill sound absurd. But for a two-month turnaround on this massive scale, it was genuinely a fair price.

“Deal,” Ethan nodded decisively. His expression remained completely calm and unbothered. “Alright. I will give you ninety million. The materials you use must be the absolute best on the market, and it must be completed within two months. Let us sign the contract.”

“What?” Daniel was stunned. He stood completely still with his mouth gaped open in utter disbelief. He had never met a homeowner like this, not only refusing to haggle down, but actually adding to the asking price.

A few taps later, Ethan wired a five-million-dollar deposit.

“And if you are ever forced to stop because I am late transferring funds, the delay counts against me. You still get the full ninety million.”

Daniel stared at him for several seconds in total silence.

Finally, he gave a helpless laugh and shook his head. “You rich people are fucking weird, man.”

After Daniel left, Ethan turned his attention to the next problem.

Once construction began, he could not keep living here. More importantly, the supplies he planned to order needed somewhere to be delivered.

Ethan immediately called the same realtor who had sold him the mansion.

Within two hours, Ethan had signed a short-term lease for three months. At twelve thousand a month, the rent was steep, but the temporary home was massive, freshly renovated, and luxurious. Most importantly, it was still inside Maple Grove.

Another problem solved.

Ethan had an overwhelming amount of shopping to do. However, the bulk of his capital was still tied up in the stock market. His investments had not yet reached the returns he remembered from his previous life, so for the moment, he had to place smaller orders first.

By evening, Ethan sat behind a wide desk in his temporary home with a laptop open in front of him and began drafting a master list of essential survival gear.

Ethan had just added another line to the spreadsheet when his phone began to ring. He glanced at the glowing screen.

Wife.

Ah. I forgot to change her contact name, Ethan thought with a cold smile.

Ethan picked up the phone. His calculated punishment for Victoria and her parasite family had already been set into motion. There was no way he was going to miss this call.

“Hello,” he answered.