I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 12

I’ll Marry His Rival and Burn His Empire to Ash Chapter 12

Those pages had been the divorce papers.

The realization was a block of ice sliding down Jackson’s spine. He had signed them. On that rainy night, agitated over another woman’s tears, he had signed away his own marriage.

Ava had been planning to leave him from that moment.

Not because Chloe was hurt. Not because he’d locked her in the stable. It started earlier. From the moment she woke up in the hospital, she had been calculating her escape.

All the “forgiveness” and “dignity” he thought she had shown had been a performance.

“Where is she?” Jackson suddenly let go of the past and grabbed the lawyer by the collar, slamming him against the wall. His eyes were wild. “Where is Ava?”

The lawyer was so frightened he was on the verge of tears. “I… I don’t know! Mr. Devereaux, I really don’t! I was just following instructions!”

“She can’t have just disappeared!” Jackson’s roar held a note of panic he didn’t recognize himself. “She and Ethan Blackwood… that’s a joke, right? A prank to make me angry!”

“No… no, it isn’t…” the lawyer whispered. “The judgment is final. They… they really are married. I heard… Miss Monroe… no, Mrs. Blackwood, may be preparing for her wedding.”

Wedding.

The word was a punch to the gut. Ava was going to wear a wedding dress for another man.

Just as he was about to lose control, his private assistant hurried in, his expression grave.

“Sir, the investigation you ordered into the stable incident is complete.”

Jackson shoved the lawyer away and turned to his assistant, his voice hoarse. “Speak.”

The assistant handed over a file but reported the most important part directly.

“It was Miss Savannah-Claire. She privately contacted the estate groundskeeper and gave him a sum of money far exceeding his annual salary.”

Jackson stopped breathing.

The assistant continued in a flat tone. “She told him to first unlock the kennel and release the Dobermans. Then… she told him to wait until your former wife and Miss Chloe thought they could escape, and then to lock the stable gate from the outside.”

It hadn’t been an accident. It had been a carefully planned hunt, with all the cruel pleasure of a cat toying with a mouse.

Jackson tasted something metallic in his throat. He forced it down and asked in a voice almost too soft to hear, “Chloe… her leg…”

The assistant’s gaze sank. “Yes, sir. I obtained the final medical report from the hospital. Permanent, irreversible nerve damage. She will limp for the rest of her life.”

The world went quiet.

Jackson slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, all the regret and pain had condensed into a lethal chill.

“Have Savannah-Claire come in,” he said.

The assistant seemed to have anticipated this. He nodded slightly.

“She has been waiting outside for a long time, sir. She said… she prepared a late-night meal for you.”