He Gave Me a Divorce, I Gave Him Ruin Chapter 03

He Gave Me a Divorce, I Gave Him Ruin Chapter 03

Those self-righteous fans and reporters, as if they’d won a great victory, finally parted to let me through.

“Should’ve done that from the start,” someone laughed behind me.

I didn’t have the strength to look back.

I pulled myself up from the ground, ignored the blood on my knee, and ran toward the white building.

By the time I reached the ward door, it was too late.

The corridor was terrifyingly quiet. A nurse stood with her head bowed. The doctor at the door just shook his head.

Inside the room, the line on the heart monitor had already flatlined.

For a moment, I truly thought I had just overslept.

That when I woke up, I would still be the girl my father drove to her college classes. I wouldn’t have met Ethan, wouldn’t have signed that foolish agreement, wouldn’t have become someone who couldn’t even see her father one last time.

But reality dragged me back.

I had chosen the wrong person and the wrong path.

I had thought it was a fair transaction. In the end, it was just a scam.

That day, I held my father’s cold hand and sat beside his hospital bed, unable to shed a single tear.

A few hours later, the family lawyer found me. He handed me a cup of hot water, his voice heavy.

“Before he passed, your father was asking for you.”

I looked up at him, saying nothing.

“He said he didn’t blame you. He just hoped you could live a life that was truly your own.”

A life that was truly my own.

Those were the last words my father left me.

They were so gentle, yet they cut me to the bone.

The numbness finally cracked. I covered my face, my body shaking with silent, wracking sobs.

I don’t remember much of what happened next.

Returning to the old house in New England. Arranging the cremation. Preparing the funeral. I moved through the motions like an automaton, my face a blank mask.

On the day of the funeral, I stood before my father’s photograph and thanked the people who came to pay their respects.

After the guests had gone, I sat alone in the empty chapel and made one final call to Ethan.

I had thought that even if our marriage was just a transaction, he should at least show up for the man who had always seen him as a brave young hero.

The call connected.

But it wasn’t Ethan’s voice on the other end.

It was Chloe, laughing.

“Oh, Amelia. What is it?”

My throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. My voice was a raw whisper.

“My father… passed away.”

“Really? Congratulations,” she said lightly. In the background, I could hear a yacht’s engine and the cry of seabirds. “But Ethan’s a little busy right now. He’s with me in the Caribbean.”

I said nothing, my thumb already moving to end the call.

Just then, my phone chimed.

She had sent a photo.

In the picture, Chloe was lounging on the deck of a yacht, chin tilted defiantly at the camera. The sapphire necklace around her neck gleamed in the harsh sun.

I recognized it immediately.

It was the one Ethan had bought last month for three hundred thousand dollars, charged to the trust’s supplementary card.

And that charge was logged right in my ledger.

I calmly ended the call.

After sitting in the chapel all night, I returned to New York.

I called a moving company, had my lawyer notify Ethan that I agreed to the divorce, and packed up my personal belongings to be shipped back to New England.

The love, the hate, the transaction and betrayal we called a marriage—none of it mattered anymore.

When I returned to my father’s ivy-covered house and sat in his study, I opened my laptop and clicked on the Excel file I had named “Ledger.”

Now, it was time to get down to business.