Rise Of The Underworld King

Chapter 2

Ethan stood by the roadside, staring down at the glowing screen of his phone. The local news application was filled with bold black letters and flashy banners, celebrating the private life of Newberg's most famous female entrepreneur.

"Newberg's golden flower remains single and shining," Ethan read the short headline out loud to the empty street. "A rising star who has never married, building her cosmetics empire all on her own."

He scrolled down slowly, reading the short article with an indifferent expression. In the eyes of the entire city, Tina Macy was an untouched, pure businesswoman who had never even looked at a man before.

"Three years," Ethan whispered quietly to himself as he locked the screen. "Three years of cooking, cleaning, and washing your clothes, and I do not even exist in your public world."

He slid the phone into his dark coat pocket and walked up the stone steps of the quiet residential street. The Macy family villa stood in front of him, a modern two-story house with bright exterior lights and marble pillars.

Ethan pushed open the heavy front door and stepped inside. The foyer was warm, but the air inside the living room felt colder than the autumn rain outside.

Tina Macy was sitting upright on the long leather sofa, her legs crossed and her arms folded tightly across her chest. She was wearing a gray business suit with a crisp white collar, her dark hair pulled back into a neat ponytail.

Her face was pale and cold, her sharp eyes glaring at Ethan the very second his shoes touched the tiled floor.

"Where have you been for the past three days?" Tina asked, her voice sharp and full of blame. "Do you realize what time it is? Do you know what kind of mess you left behind in this house?"

Ethan did not answer immediately. He walked to the entryway closet, took off his damp black coat, and hung it neatly on the wooden hook.

"I am speaking to you, Ethan," Tina raised her voice slightly, her eyebrows pulling together in frustration. "Why did you turn off your phone? Why did you vanish for seventy-two hours without giving anyone a single word of notice?"

Ethan turned around and looked at her.

"I was with my grandmother," Ethan said simply, his voice low.

Tina let out a short, mocking laugh, rolling her eyes as she leaned back against the soft leather cushions.

"Your grandmother again," she scoffed, waving one hand in the air with obvious irritation. "Every single time you want to avoid your duties in this family, you run off to that cheap suburban neighborhood. Do you think using an old woman as an excuse makes you look responsible?"

"She is the only family I have," Ethan said, standing near the edge of the living room carpet.

"And what about this family?" Tina demanded, leaning forward and pointing her finger at the clean coffee table. "My mother had to boil her own water for tea this morning because you were not in the kitchen. My brother Donald had to take his dirty laundry to the dry cleaner because you were not here to wash his shirts. You are the son-in-law of the Macy family, yet you act like an irresponsible guest who comes and goes whenever he pleases."

Ethan stood completely motionless, his hands resting naturally at his sides. "Is that all you care about? Washing shirts and making tea?"

"Of course that is what I care about," Tina snapped back without hesitation. "You do not have a real job. You do not bring home a single dollar of profit. You do not help my cosmetics company secure contracts. The only useful thing you can do for this household is take care of the chores, and you cannot even do that properly."

Ethan looked at her face. For three years, he had quietly guided her small, failing company from behind the scenes, secretly providing formulas and using his hidden connections to send multi-million-dollar orders to her desk.

She truly believed she had built her business through her own brilliant talent alone.

"I see," Ethan said calmly.

Tina looked at his quiet face, and some of the harsh anger in her eyes began to fade away. She let out a long sigh, pressing her fingers against her temples as if she was the one who had suffered a great hardship.

"Look, Ethan, I do not want to argue with you all night," Tina said, her tone becoming somewhat softer. "I know your grandmother is old, and I know she took care of you when you were young. I have always respected her. She was a kind, polite old woman whenever she visited."

Ethan remained silent, his gaze fixed on her face.

"How is she doing now?" Tina asked, looking at him with a calm expression. "Did the doctor give her some medicine? Is she resting at home now, or is she still in that hospital bed?"

Ethan looked straight into Tina's eyes.

"You do not need to care about her anymore," Ethan said quietly. "She is dead."

The living room fell into a suffocating silence.

Tina froze on the sofa, her hands dropping away from her temples. Her eyes opened wide in disbelief, her mouth parting slightly as she stared at Ethan as if he had just spoken a foreign language.

"What did you just say?" Tina asked, her voice trembling with shock. "What do you mean she is dead? Stop telling such horrible jokes, Ethan."

"I am not joking," Ethan said, his voice flat and cold. "Her funeral was finished this afternoon. She was buried on the southern hill three hours ago."

"She is dead?" Tina stood up from the sofa, her face turning completely white. "Why did you not tell me? Why did you keep this from me for three whole days?"

Ethan looked at her with a faint, mocking curve on his lips. "Why didn't I tell you?"

"Yes! Why didn't you tell me!" Tina shouted, her voice rising in defensive anger. "I am your wife! I am her granddaughter-in-law! If she was really dying, why didn't you call me? Why didn't you send me a message? How could you let her pass away without letting me see her for the last time?"

"I called you," Ethan said, his voice cutting through her loud shouts.

Tina stopped talking, her breathing coming in short, uneven gasps.

"I called you eleven times while I was standing outside her hospital room," Ethan continued, his tone calm. "Her heart was stopping, and her hands were getting cold. She asked for you with her very last breath because she wanted to see both of us together before she closed her eyes forever."

Tina's eyes flickered with panic, her hands clenching tightly into fists at her sides. "You... you called me?"

"Yes," Ethan said, taking one step forward. "On the eleventh call, you finally picked up the phone. Do you remember what you said to me, Tina?"

Tina swallowed hard, her throat suddenly feeling completely dry. "I... I was in an important meeting..."

"You told me that I was insane," Ethan recited the exact words with clarity. "You told me that I was lying. You told me that my time was worthless, and that your time was worth fifty thousand dollars an hour. You said you did not have time to sit in a dirty public hospital to watch me play the filial grandson."

"I thought... I thought you were just angry about the argument from the night before," Tina stammered, stepping backward until the back of her legs hit the edge of the sofa. "You always make a big deal out of small things. How was I supposed to know she was actually dying?"

"I told you her organs were failing," Ethan said. "I told you it was her last day. I told you she only wanted ten minutes of your time. And you told me never to disturb your work again before you hung up the phone."

Tina lost all the strength in her knees. She fell back on the soft leather couch, her face completely pale and her shoulders trembling slightly.

For the first time in three years, a heavy, suffocating wave of guilt pressed down on her chest. She had always thought Ethan was weak, soft, and easy to push around. She had assumed he was just creating drama to force her to compromise on a family business matter.

She had never imagined that the kind old woman who had given her a jade bracelet was truly taking her final breath on that cold hospital bed.

"Ethan... I didn't know," Tina murmured softly, looking down at the carpet, unable to meet his gaze. "I really thought it was just an excuse. If I had known... if I had truly known she was in danger, I would have gone to the hospital. You have to believe me."

Ethan let out a cold, sharp sneer.

"Do not pretend to be sad now, Tina," Ethan said, his voice filled with disgust. "You do not care about her. You never cared about anyone in this world except yourself, your status, and your money."

"That is not true!" Tina looked up, trying to defend her pride. "I respected your grandmother! I always spoke politely to her! I was just overwhelmed with business that afternoon! Our company was facing a critical moment, and I had to secure an investment!"

"An investment?" Ethan asked, reaching into his pocket.

He pulled out his mobile phone, tapped the screen twice to bring up the local news application, and tossed the phone on the glass coffee table right in front of her.

The bright screen showed the clear photograph from the Starlight Sky Lounge.

Tina’s eyes landed on the image. In the photo, she was wearing her red dress, smiling radiantly as she held a glass of champagne with a handsome, well-dressed man, their hands resting together on the table.

At the bottom of the photo, the red timestamp was printed in sharp, undeniable numbers: October 14, 4:08 PM.

"Look at the time, Tina," Ethan said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Look at the hour and the minute."

Tina stared at the screen, her heart slamming violently against her ribs.

"October fourteenth, four o'clock and eight minutes in the afternoon," Ethan read out. "That was the exact minute you told me you were in a business meeting. That was the exact minute you told me your time was too precious to waste on a dying woman."

Tina opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her face were filled with shame and panic.

"While my grandmother was taking her last breath, waiting for you to walk through the door, you were sitting in the most expensive revolving restaurant in the city, drinking champagne and smiling with another man," Ethan said coldly."You missed her final moments not because you were working, but because you were busy on a date."

"No! Ethan, listen to me! That is not what happened!" Tina grabbed the phone with trembling fingers, trying desperately to explain herself. "This is just cheap entertainment gossip! The reporters made up the headline to get clicks! It was not a romantic date at all!"

"Then who is the man holding your hand?" Ethan asked coldly.

"That is Steven James!" Tina said hurriedly, her voice high and desperate. "He is the eldest young master of the James Corporation! His family controls the largest beauty distribution network in the province! He invited me to dinner to discuss a twenty-million-dollar supply contract for our new cosmetic line!"

"And did the contract require him to hold your hand while you laughed together?" Ethan asked.

"He was just being polite! It was just business etiquette!" Tina shouted, standing up again, trying to regain her usual arrogant composure. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to run a company? Do you know how many powerful people I have to please every single day just to keep food on our table? Steven James has power, wealth, and connections! A single word from him can make Macy Cosmetics a top-tier brand!"

"So your business deal was more important than a human life," Ethan stated calmly.

"I didn't know she was dying at that exact second!" Tina yelled back, her guilt turning into bitter frustration. "Why do you keep twisting my words? Steven James offered us an incredible opportunity! If I offended him by going to the hospital, our company would have lost millions of dollars! What would you know about that? You have never earned a single cent in your life!"

Ethan did not argue with her. He simply looked at her with an indifferent gaze, as if she were nothing more than a stranger passing by on the street.

As his eyes moved across the glass table, he noticed a stack of white papers resting beside a black fountain pen.

The bold black title at the very top of the first page was impossible to miss.

Divorce Agreement.

Ethan reached down calmly, picked up the white papers, and held them in his hand.

Tina saw him pick up the papers, and her entire body instantly froze. The words in her throat completely disappeared, her face turning from red to an unnatural, pale gray.

She had prepared that document two days ago with her mother and her lawyer. She had planned to throw the papers in Ethan's face the moment he walked through the door, forcing him to sign away all rights to the family villa, the company shares, and the car, leaving him with only a few thousand dollars in compensation.

She had wanted to get rid of this "useless husband" so she could openly pursue a relationship with Steven James and take the Macy family to the highest social circles in the province.

But now, standing in front of Ethan after learning that his grandmother had just passed away, the papers felt like a burning iron in the room. Even with her arrogant pride, she felt a sudden, suffocating tightness in her chest.

How could she openly demand a divorce right after his only relative had died?

"Ethan... that..." Tina started to speak, her voice trembling slightly, but she could not find the courage to finish her sentence.

Ethan did not look upset at all. In fact, a faint, gentle smile slowly appeared on his handsome face.

"A divorce agreement," Ethan murmured, his voice entirely relaxed. "It seems you had everything prepared before I even walked into this house."

"Ethan, I can explain," Tina said, taking an involuntary step forward, her fingers clutching the fabric of her skirt. "We were having so many problems... my mother thought... we thought it was best for both of us..."

Ethan did not even bother to read the terms. To him, the entire Macy family's wealth was not even worth a single drop of water in the ocean.

He picked up the black fountain pen from the glass table, uncapped it, and pressed the metal nib against the signature line at the bottom of the final page.

With a few clean strokes, he wrote his full name.

Ethan Sanders.

He capped the pen, set it back down on the glass, and tossed the signed papers directly across the table. The white sheets slid over the smooth surface, stopping right in front of Tina’s trembling hands.

"There," Ethan said calmly, looking at her coldly."You have what you wanted. From this moment on, you and I have no relationship anymore.”