THE AWAKEN RAYMOND WEST STRIKE BACK

Chapter 9

At that moment, something shifted in Megan.

For years, she had told herself that everything she did was for Raymond. Every painful decision, every difficult compromise, every sleepless night had been justified in her mind by one belief that she was helping him climb. That she was shaping him into the man he was meant to become.

But standing there now, absorbing the weight of his rage, his accusations, his refusal to bend it no longer felt that way.

To her, it no longer looked like a man fighting for his dignity, It looked like ingratitude.

And that realization cut deeply.

She had expected resistance, yes. She had anticipated stubbornness. But she had never expected him to stand in front of her family in front of everyone and look at her as though she were his enemy. As though every sacrifice she had made was something to be ashamed of. As though she had spent years plotting against him rather than fighting for him.

She couldn't condone it. She refused to.

Her lips trembled. Her eyes filled.

And then she broke.

“I wanted to help you, Raymond,” she said, her voice cracking beneath the weight of everything she had held in. 

“I genuinely wanted to see you succeed. I poured myself into that belief into you.”

She swallowed hard.

“But now I understand something I should have seen a long time ago. I've been foolish. Painfully, embarrassingly foolish. For years, I believed every word that came out of your mouth. Every promise. Every dream you painted. I held onto all of it, but I shouldn't have.”

Then she paused.

“You're far blow me, and isn't deserving of me in anyways. So yes, Raymond. Let's get the divorce.”

The room erupted.

Megan's mother clapped her hands together sharply, as though the verdict had finally been delivered after a long and exhausting trial.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, her voice ringing with triumph. 

“And we still have time before the office closes. It's barely a minute's drive from here. We can go right now.”

Before anyone else could speak, Simon rose from his seat, his jaw set, his expression dark with finality.

“I'll take everyone there myself,” he said firmly, his eyes sweeping the room without even glancing at Raymond.

“This madness ends today.”

Immediately everyone nodded, the drive to the civil registry was silent.

When they arrived, the building felt colder than it should have. Ordinary. Bureaucratic. Indifferent to the magnitude of what was about to happen inside its walls.

The paperwork was laid out swiftly. Pens were produced. Officials moved with routine efficiency, as though what they were processing was just another file among hundreds.

And through it all, Megan hesitated.

Even now even after everything that had been said, everything that had unraveled in that room some quiet, stubborn part of her was still waiting. 

Still watching the door. Still hoping that Raymond would burst through it with something that would make all of this stop. An apology. A surrender. Anything.

At that moment Megan signed.

 so those Raymond.

And just like that, it was over.

What had taken years to build was dissolved in minutes. Officially. Legally. Permanently.

Immediately Simon wasted no time.

The moment they stepped outside, he moved deliberate, measured, like a man who had been rehearsing this moment for a long time. He closed the distance between himself and Raymond slowly, hands casually tucked into his pockets, a faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

He had successfully manipulated Megan and her parents, now it's time to embarrass Raymond.

“Now that it's done,” Simon began, his voice low and almost conversational, “let me be honest with you, Raymond.”

Raymond didn't walk away. Not yet. He simply stood there, eyes forward, expression unreadable.

“I knew from the very beginning,” Simon continued, “that you were never going to make it. Not really. You don't have what it takes not the connections, not the capital, not the instinct for survival in this industry.”

He paused, letting the words settle.

“Megan loves you. Loved you.” He corrected himself with deliberate precision. 

“But love alone doesn't build a life. There are things she needs that you were never going to be able to give her. Things I can give her fully, and without struggle.”

His tone shifted, taking on the texture of false generosity.

“But I'm not a cruel man. So I'll extend one final offer, Kiss my feet right in front of everyone, and I will allow you work for me. You know as well as I do that the forgery case is going to cost you five million dollars. You know your company has been flagged, that no serious investor will touch you now, that every door that was even slightly open is now firmly closed.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Your company is already dying, Raymond. And the taxes alone will finish off whatever is left. So this is it your last option. kiss my feet and I will allow you work for me, and at least salvage something from the wreckage of all—”

“In your dreams.”

Raymond said it quietly. No heat. No theatrics. Just two words, clean and final, like a door clicking shut.

And then he walked away.

The moment Raymond’s figure disappeared into the distance, Megan’s father let out a long, disgusted breath and shook his head slowly.

“Just look at that,” he muttered bitterly. “What a disappointment of a human being. Even now, after everything, he’s still angry. Still full of himself. Still acting like he’s the one who was wronged.”

He scoffed and folded his arms across his chest.

“But it doesn’t matter. We don’t need him anyway.”

At that, Simon gave a small shrug, though the smugness in his expression made it clear he was far from offended.

“I was only trying to give him one last opportunity,” he said, his tone polished with false humility.

 “A final chance to come work for me, rebuild himself, and perhaps salvage something from the mess he’s made. But clearly, he’s still as proud as ever.”

Megan’s mother turned to him immediately, her face softening with admiration.

“You are far too kind,” she said. “Far too kind. Honestly, Simon, your heart is too good.”

She clicked her tongue and glanced in the direction Raymond had gone, her expression hardening again.

“Just imagine that. After all that has happened, after everything he has lost, you still offered him another opportunity, and he rejected it so freely. No gratitude. No sense. Nothing.”

She sniffed disdainfully.

“Well, nobody needs him. Let him go. Let him suffer.”

Her voice dropped, cold and certain.

“And very soon, he will understand what it really means to live a life without Megan.”