The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 536

hapter 536 Fury Unleashed

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“I… I never did such a thing. Weston. You can’t possibly believe a servant’s wild gossip over my word. Ordering her to pass along that sort of message would have brought me no benefit at all.”

“It wasn’t gossip.” Lily blurted, her voice trembling yet resolute. “Ms. Rowe stopped me that day and told me to say Mr. Windore refused to see the other lady. She even transferred fifty thousand to me. The record’s still there–you can check.”

The words tumbled from Lily in one frantic rush, as though delay alone might doom her.

“I… I only felt sorry for you,” Claudia stammered, her face blanching. “That’s why I gave you the money, Lily. It had nothing… nothing to do with any scheme.”

“Sorry for her?” Weston stepped close until his shadow swallowed hers, his eyes glacial. “Since when does a servant of the Windore family need your charity, Claudia? Why did you meddle?”

Fear pinched Claudia’s lips together. She bit down, unable to utter a sound.

“Speak! Why?” His temper spiked like a stormfront. “You know my methods, Claudia. Anger me, and neither you nor the Rowe family will find any mercy.”

Terror bled across her features, washing out the last of her defiance.

Across the room, Laura stared at Weston in stunned silence. The man before her felt like a stranger, impossible to reconcile with the courteous scholar she remembered.

Weston snapped his fingers, the crack as sharp as a gunshot. “Make her tell the truth. I don’t care what it takes.”

“Yes, sir.” The men answered in unison, already moving.

“Help me–please!” Claudia whirled toward the gathering of former classmates. “You know him, don’t you? You’re his friends. Say something, beg for me!”

Yet no one lifted a hand or even met her desperate gaze.

This version of Weston was foreign even to those who had called him their friend since freshman year.

After graduation, only two–perhaps three–of them still shared more than a passing greeting with him. For everyone else, the gulf between their worlds had become vast and impassable.

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Chapter 536 Fury Unleashed

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Claudia had tried to cling to him once classes ended, but the Rowe family’s influence could never rival the Windore wealth.

Beyond the campus gates, their social circles split like diverging rails.

At the occasional banquet, she could only admire him from across a sea of crystal and candlelight.

“Fine–fine! It was me,” Claudia burst out, lurching to her feet as though diving from a sinking ship. “I bribed the maid to lie. A woman like Laura Wentworth is utterly unworthy of you.”

“Whether she is worthy isn’t for you to decide,” Weston answered, voice like steel sliding from a sheath.

“If she hadn’t chased you so shamelessly back then, you’d never have dated her! I was protecting you, Weston. She broke up with you, yet she still has the gall to come crawling back. I only meant to spare you annoyance, to turn her away before she pestered you.”

Rage ignited behind Weston’s eyes. He grabbed Claudia by the hair and slammed her face onto the glass coffee table; the dull thud reverberated through the lounge.

“Helping me? You have some nerve. Who gave you that right!”

Claudia went sheet–white. His fingers felt capable of crushing bone.

“Ouch! It hurts!” she cried, the words smearing against the glass.

“Not enough.” Weston’s reply was ice. He snatched a fruit knife from the tray and raised the blade, murderous intent gleaming in its polished edge.

A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers, terror cracking the air.

“Don’t!” Laura surged forward, hand striking his wrist, the only barrier between Claudia’s life and the descending steel.

The blade glinted in Weston’s hand, but Laura’s fingers shot forward and clamped around his wrist before it could move an inch. “Are you trying to land yourself in prison? Do you still want to practice law, or have you forgotten who you are?” she hissed, every syllable alive with

urgency.

He pivoted slowly, the captured knife–hand hanging between them, and fixed his eyes on hers. “What? Are you concerned about me?”

Laura kept her grip but softened her tone. “I don’t want anyone dying because of my past. That was years ago. We’ve uncovered the motive. That’s enough.”

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Chapter 536 Fury Unleashed

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Her lips curved in a wry little smile. “Besides, Weston–if no one had been meddling back then, would you really have met me just because I showed up at your door?”

Weston’s mouth opened, but only a single, fractured syllable escaped. “I-“The sound hung between them, thin as glass.

Laura let out a laugh that held no joy. “We both know the odds were against it. You, Weston Windore, proud as a crowned eagle–why would you welcome the woman who had just broken up with you? Whether that other woman interfered or not, the ending would have been the same.”

With a sigh, she released his wrist, letting his arm fall between them. “I refuse to inherit someone else’s hatred over ancient history. If your goal was to tell me you never ordered the maid to send me away, message received. Weston, I’m done blaming you.”

Something inside Weston clenched without warning, as though a fist had wrapped around his heart. She had said she wouldn’t blame him anymore, yet his chest felt frighteningly hollow, as if her forgiveness had carved out a piece he could never retrieve.