He threw money on the bed after our one-night stand.
I threw it back in his face at his own inauguration.
By sundown, we were engaged. By the week's end — married.
Franklin Flemington needed a wife to secure his empire. I needed a miracle to save my family. For two years, we played our parts flawlessly — the golden couple the whole city envied.
Behind closed doors, I was invisible to him.
When the two years were up, I handed him divorce papers without blinking.
He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "I've given you everything a husband should. What more do you want from me, Octavia?"
I smiled, signed my name, and walked out.
I thought that was the end. I thought I'd finally won.
I forgot one thing — Franklin Flemington has never lost anything in his life. And he has no intention of starting with me.
Game on.

The words kept replaying in my head. Dead. Bella was dead.


I should have felt something more. Relief, maybe. Closure. But all I felt was a strange kind of numbness, like my body had decided to shut down before my mind could process what this actually meant.


"Hey," Franklin said, his hand finding mine in the back of the car after we left the hospital. "Stop thinking about it. It's over now."


I looked at him, and he was right. The concern in his eyes, the way he was trying to pull me back to the present moment, that was what mattered. Not Bella. Not whatever had driven her to do what she did. We were alive. We were safe. And the people who'd tried to destroy us were either behind bars or… gone.


"You're right," I said, squeezing his hand. "It's over."


Chapter 205 - ~ 205