I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 25

I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 25

His body was thrown onto the lawn outside the church. Dust and crushed rose petals clung to his expensive suit. But Jackson felt no pain, and he smelled no flowers.

His entire world had been burned to ash by Ava’s smile.

That smile was a key, opening the floodgates of his memory. All the truths he had ignored, all the lies he had told himself, now rushed in and drowned him.

His thoughts were dragged back to the empty Devereaux Group office, soon to be seized by the bank.

His assistant had placed a document in front of him.

“Sir, the investigation is clear.” There was no warmth in the assistant’s voice. “The groundskeeper admitted that Miss Savannah-Claire gave him money and told him to claim that Miss Ava had deliberately exposed the infant to peanuts.”

“And… this is a copy of the records from the pediatrician’s office. Miss Savannah-Claire forged the baby’s allergy report. That child was never allergic to peanuts.”

Jackson had stared numbly at the report, every word a branding iron on his retinas.

For such a clumsy lie, he had locked his wife in a cold, damp stable.

The tide of memory rolled on, smashing him against another, colder reef.

The day the lawyer delivered the final divorce judgment. Like an enraged beast, he had torn the humiliating document to shreds, roaring that he would never acknowledge it.

But on that night of fury, the image of another rainy night had appeared like a ghost.

Ava stood under the porch, drenched, holding out a stack of documents.

“Some estate trust papers. They need both our signatures.” Her voice was calm.

He had waved impatiently, grabbed a pen, and scrawled his name on the last page.

“Hurry up, Ava. I’m meeting friends for cards.”

He hadn’t even looked at the document’s title.

Until the lawyer reminded him coldly, “Mr. Devereaux, this divorce agreement was signed by you personally and is fully legally effective.”

In that instant, the anger had vanished. Only a bone-chilling cold remained.

But the heaviest blow came from another, thinner sheet of paper.

His assistant placed Chloe’s medical report on his desk. One phrase pinned him in place.

“Permanent nerve damage.”

His Dobermans. His self-righteous “lesson.” On his friend’s daughter’s leg, he had left a wound that would never heal.

For the first time, he realized that his arrogance and violence had caused not a mistake that could be compensated, but irreversible evil.

Jackson had sat alone in the empty office, looking out at the Charleston sunset. The Devereaux family’s century of glory was sinking below the horizon with the dying sun.

For a false love, a clumsy lie, he had destroyed everything.

He had suddenly laughed, a hoarse, distorted sound more heartbreaking than a sob.

He had spoken to the empty room as if making a final statement.

“I had a paternity test done.”

He paused, every word squeezed from the shards of his soul.

“That child wasn’t mine.”