Welcome To Hell, Dear Wife-Chapter 70: Dinner and Divorce

A deafening silence crashed over the dining table. Even the air itself seemed to freeze.

Jack stopped eating with his fork hovering in mid-air even though a slow ugly smile spread across his face while his eyes glinted with undisguised pleasure at the unfolding drama.

Callis on the other hand also had this sharp interest as she looked from Mira to Lucas and back again, like someone watching a very interesting tennis match.

Lucas slowly and deliberately leaned back in his chair. The movement was smooth and controlled, yet it felt predatory, like a big cat settling in before it pounced.

"What," he said as his voice came out dangerously soft with each word dropping into the silence like a stone, "did you just say?"

Mira’s heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides while her nails dug into her palms. "What did you just hear?" she fired back in a voice that was trembling with a mix of terror and pure rage. "I assume you aren’t deaf. I said we should get a divorce."

Lucas stared at her with an expression that was completely and utterly cold. There was not a single flicker of emotion in his eyes. "You’re can not be serious."

"Do I look like I’m joking?" she shot back gesturing wildly at her own tense posture, her flushed face and her heaving chest. "This marriage is a joke! This whole situation is a nightmare!"

"This isn’t a restaurant where you can send back a meal you don’t like, Lorena," he said as his eyes narrowed to slits. "You don’t get to just ’end this.’ You don’t get to walk away from me."

"Why? Because you say so?" she challenged as she leaned forward over the table while gripping the edge for support. "You promised me one thing and did the exact opposite! You promised to save my father’s company! The deal is broken!"

"The deal," he said, emphasizing the word as if it were a weapon, "is exactly as I choose to interpret it. Not you. My word is the final word."

"So you’re a liar and a tyrant then? Good to know." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

A cold humorless smile touched his lips. It was more frightening than any scowl. "Be careful with the labels you throw around, wife. They might stick."

"What’s the matter?" she goaded him, feeling completely reckless now. The dam had broken, and there was no stopping the flood. "Worried the truth might ruin your precious reputation?"

"My reputation can handle a troublesome wife," he replied with a voice like ice. "Can yours handle being utterly alone and penniless? Because that is what waits for you on the other side of that door." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"I was already there when I married you!" she exploded, the truth of it making her voice crack. "You just gave it a fancy address!" She swept her arm out, indicating the opulent, hateful room.

"We don’t like each other!" she continued as she let the words pour out in a furious torrent. "The only reason for this farce was to save my family’s company, and you’ve done the exact opposite so far! I’m still canceled, I’m still hated, and now the company is ash! I am gaining absolutely nothing from this! Nothing!"

Lucas’s lip curled in a sneer. "Welcome to my club, then. I’m gaining a constant headache and a public spectacle for a wife too," he retorted. "So no, I’m not winning anything either. We’re both losing. That just makes us even."

Mira stood up so fast her chair legs screeched loudly against the polished floor. The sound was harsh and grating. "You knew that from the start! I asked you so many times why you were doing this! Your motives were never clear, so your buyer’s remorse is not my fault at all!"

"I knew you would be difficult," Lucas corrected as his own temper was starting to show in the tight line of his jaw. "I just didn’t know you’d be this much work."

He leaned forward, his eyes blazing. "Your part," he snarled, his voice dropping to a growl, "was to be silent, compliant, and do as you are told. You have failed at every single turn. You always act as if you have nothing to lose."

"Oh, I see!" Mira yelled, throwing her hands up. "So destroying my father’s company is my punishment for having a spine? For not being a perfect little robot?"

"Yes," he stated coldly as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If you do not uphold your end of a bargain, why should I uphold mine? You go against the contract, I don’t uphold the contract. It’s as simple as that."

The word "contract" hit her like a physical slap.

The papers. The one she never read.

A cold dread washed over her, almost drenching some of her fiery anger.

The real Lorena had signed a contract. Mira had only seen the front page and the marriage certificate when he showed her that day. She had been so confused that day that she never thought to read it at all.

"What... what was my part of the deal, then?" she asked in a voice that was suddenly quiet and small. The fight seemed to drain out of her. "What was I supposed to do?"

Lucas let out a cold mocking laugh that echoed in the silent room. "Are you truly so uneducated that you cannot remember? Or did the scandal burn out your memory along with your reputation?"

He shook his head in disgust. "You read the contract. Thoroughly. You signed it. Don’t play the fool now."

Mira’s mind raced.

The real Lorena read it. She, Mira, was flying blind.

"I want to see it," she demanded while trying to sound confident again. "My memory is a little fuzzy these days," she deflected, even though the lie feeling weak and transparent on her tongue. "Just show me the contract. The one I signed."

"I’m not your secretary," he dismissed her as he picked up his fork as if the conversation was over. "You’ll get an email with a scanned copy when I have time."

"I want to see it now!" she insisted, her voice rising again.

She slammed her palm flat on the table, making the glasses jump. "The original physical copy. The one with my signature on it. I want to see what I supposedly agreed to."

A tense silence stretched between them. Lucas stared at her, his expression unreadable. Finally, he gave a curt nod to a maid who was hovering nervously by the door. "The document from my study. The black folio on the left side of the desk."

The maid scurried out and returned a moment later, placing a heavy, black leather binder in front of Mira. It felt ominous.

But she couldn’t stay in that room with him for another second.She feared that she might hurl a knife at him at this point.

"I can’t read this in this house with you in it," she saidIn a very tight voice like she was forcing herself to speak to him.

She looked at the maid. "Is there a library in this house? Somewhere else?"

Lucas answered without even looking at her while his tone dripping with boredom. "Take her to the estate library." He waved a dismissive hand. "Let her have her dramatic reading."

Mira snatched up the heavy folio. It felt like a lead box in her hands, containing all the secrets of her prison. Without another word, she turned and stormed out of the dining room, leaving the stunned silence behind her.

She followed the maid back across the manicured grounds, surprised when they didn’t head to another wing of the massive mansion but toward a separate, elegant stone building nestled among a grove of ancient trees. It looked like a small, beautiful temple.

The maid unlocked a heavy, carved wooden door and pushed it open, revealing a breathtaking, circular library. The walls were lined with dark wood bookshelves that soared up, up, up to a domed glass ceiling showing the darkening evening sky. The air smelled deeply of old paper, leather, and polished wood. It was utterly silent and still, a peaceful, scholarly world away from the toxic tension of the dining room.

"You may read here, ma’am," the maid said softly, before giving a small bow and closing the door, leaving Mira completely alone.

Her heart was still pounding. Clutching the black folio, she stormed down a narrow aisle between two towering bookshelves, looking for a reading desk. The quiet calm of the place was already starting to soothe her nerves.

She used to love reading as Mira, getting lost in stories.

Maybe this place could be her own little haven, a place to escape from the madness, at least for a little while.

She was looking for a desk, intending to finally face the contents of the contract, when a flash of gold lettering on a dark, worn spine on a high shelf made her stop dead in her tracks.

Her eyes locked on the title. It was an old, heavy-looking volume, bound in dark brown leather that was cracked with age.

The title in faded gold, read: "The Atkins Wolf Bloodline: A Chronicle."

The word "Wolf Bloodline" seemed to pulse in the quiet, dusty air. It in fact seemed to suck all the sound from the room.

Her breath caught in her throat. The strange word "Alpha" from Elias, the monstrous wolf she saw in the woods that she still didn’t know if it was indeed a dream or not.

She forgot about the contract in her hands.

The heavy black folio was suddenly unimportant.

Her fingers acting like they had a mind of their own, reached out to pick the book.