The Loser Programmer Husband is a Quadrillionaire

Chapter 6

Clara stepped through the door with her heels clicking softer than usual against the tile floor. She pulled the chair close to the bed and sat down, her hands folding together in her lap, her eyes carrying a heaviness that hadn't been there the day before.

"I talked to the doctors again," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "The damage to your spine is severe. There's a surgery that could fix it, but the risk is enormous. The mortality rate is over eighty percent." She reached for his hand, wrapping both of hers around it. "I don't want you to take that risk, Ethan. I'll take care of you myself, for the rest of your life if I have to. We don't need the surgery."

Ethan stared at her for a long moment, and then a laugh slipped out of him, dry and sharp, with no warmth in it at all.

Clara's brows knit together. "Why are you laughing?"

"No reason," Ethan said, his voice flat. "Please, continue."

Clara's jaw tightened at his tone, but she pressed on, choosing to ignore it. "I also pulled some strings. I spent all of yesterday making calls, and I finally found out who caused the accident."

Ethan's eyes sharpened, though his face stayed carefully blank. "Who was it?"

"A drunk driver," Clara said, her chin lifting slightly. "I already hired the best defense lawyer in the city to handle the case from our side. He's going to make sure the man gets more than ten years behind bars."

Ethan let out another laugh, longer this time, deeper, the kind that came from somewhere hollow inside his chest. "A drunk driver."

"Yes." Clara's fingers tightened around his hand. "Why do you keep laughing like that?"

"Because it's funny." Ethan's eyes locked onto hers, unblinking. "Three men got out of that car after it hit me, Clara. Three. One of them took a photo of me while I was bleeding and said the mission was accomplished. Tell me, does a drunk driver usually bring friends along to take pictures of his handiwork?"

Clara's gaze slid away from his, fixing instead on some invisible point near the window. "That's already the best outcome we could get," she said quietly. "Ten years is a lot of time. Justice is being served."

"Justice." Ethan repeated the word slowly, tasting how wrong it felt in his mouth. He studied her face, the way her eyes refused to settle anywhere near his, the way her fingers had gone stiff around his hand. Something inside him, some last small hope he hadn't even realized he was still holding onto, finally gave out completely.

"You know who did this to me," Ethan said, his voice quiet now, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse. "Don't you, Clara."

"Ethan, you're exhausted, you're in pain, you're not thinking clearly." Clara's eyes darted anywhere but his face. "You've always had a habit of jumping to conspiracy theories when you're stressed. This was a drunk driver. That's all it was."

Ethan looked at her, really looked at her, at the woman he had built his entire life around, and felt something inside his chest crumble into ash. He didn't argue anymore. He didn't have the strength left to argue. He simply watched her avoid his eyes, and that silence between them said more than any accusation ever could.

At that exact moment, Clara's phone buzzed sharply on the small table beside the bed. She reached for it out of habit, and Ethan's eyes caught the name lighting up the screen before she could turn it away.

John Carvesh.

Ethan's mouth curved into a slow, disdainful smile, cold and humorless, the kind of smile a man gives when the last piece of a puzzle finally clicks into place.

Clara's face went pale. She fumbled with the phone, her fingers slipping as she jabbed at the screen to silence it, nearly dropping it in her lap.

"That's nothing," she said quickly, too quickly, her voice climbing half an octave higher than usual. "Work. It's always work with him, calling at the worst times."

Ethan said nothing. He simply held her gaze with that same quiet, knowing smile, and watched her unravel under the weight of it.

"I need to go," Clara said abruptly, standing so fast the chair scraped against the floor. "There's something urgent at the company, I have to handle it myself." She grabbed her purse from the foot of the bed, refusing to look at him now. "I'll come back tonight. Get some rest, Ethan."

She was gone before he could respond, her footsteps hurrying down the hallway outside, quick and uneven, nothing like the confident stride she usually carried.

Clara didn't stop walking until she reached the elevator, and once the doors slid shut around her, she let her back sink against the cold metal wall. Her chest rose and fell in short, ragged breaths, and her eyes burned with tears she refused to let fall in front of the hospital staff.