The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 561

Chapter 561: An Unwelcome Call

The phone rang, slicing through the quiet hum of the office. Quinn answered with a sharp edge in her voice. “You didn’t call just to boast about getting out, did you? Or is taunting me the only trick you have?” Her tone was dark, laced with barely concealed anger.

As she spoke, Quinn snapped open her laptop with practiced ease. Her fingers danced over the keys, launching a tracking program that spread across the screen like a neon web, ready to hunt down the source of the call.

From the corner of her eye, Laura noticed the sudden tension in Quinn’s shoulders. A cold shiver ran down her spine. Something was very wrong—urgently wrong. She pushed herself up so quickly from her chair that it nearly toppled over. Moving swiftly into the corridor, she leaned toward the receptionist and whispered a firm command, “No one gets in. No exceptions.”

Satisfied that the order was clear, Laura slipped back inside the office, turning the lock with a sharp click that sealed them off from the outside world.

Meanwhile, Quinn kept Joaquin on the line, using practiced small talk to buy precious time for her team. Her free hand flew over the keyboard, launching a trace to pinpoint the call’s origin.

“Last time, you caught me off guard,” Joaquin’s voice hissed through the speaker, low and venomous. “I admit, I was surprised. But there won’t be a second chance. Julius is my son, and his fate will be the same as mine.”

“Is that why you can’t bear to see your own child happy?” Quinn shot back, her voice steady, almost clinical.

“He doesn’t deserve happiness,” Joaquin spat, his words sharp and wild. “If he’s content, what does that make me? He failed to keep his mother alive. I lost my wife because of him!”

“That was your failure, not Julius’s,” Quinn retorted, every word dripping with icy resolve. “You never earned her love. You trapped her in a cage disguised as affection, until she lost everything—her family, her hope—until death seemed like the only escape.”

“What do you mean by ‘lost her family’?” Joaquin’s voice cracked with desperation. “I was her family—the one who loved her more than life itself. I was right there beside her.”

“But you never cared to understand what she truly wanted,” Quinn said softly but firmly. “It was always about what you wanted.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he snapped. “Humans are selfish by nature. Whatever I desired, I took—no matter the cost. I told her plainly: stay with me, and she could have anything else.”

“You locked her in a gilded cage,” Quinn said, voice heavy with sorrow. “It didn’t matter what you gave her. What she craved most was freedom.”

The more Quinn uncovered, the heavier her heart grew for Julius’s mother—a woman imprisoned by so-called love, driven to madness, and finally pushed to choose death when life offered no escape.

“Joaquin, you never learned how to love,” Quinn said quietly. “Julius is different. That’s why I love him. That’s why we will be happy.”

“Happy?” Joaquin laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “Aren’t you afraid your children might inherit the madness? Do you really think this happiness will last?”

“Escaped,” Quinn interrupted sharply, the word slicing through the room like shattered glass.

Laura’s mouth fell open in shock. That word belonged in crime dramas or late-night news reports—not in their everyday reality.

Her eyes widened, and she gripped the edge of the coffee table as if it were a lifeline. “He called you? Is he after revenge?” The question tumbled out, thin and sharp, betraying the depth of her sudden fear.

After all, it had been Quinn who testified against him, Quinn who watched the handcuffs click shut, Quinn who sent that man to prison.

Quinn placed a steadying hand on Laura’s sleeve, her own heartbeat calm and measured. “Maybe,” she admitted quietly, “but there’s no need to panic. Jexburgh has already stationed a small army around me, and pregnancy hasn’t dulled my reflexes one bit.”

Only now did Quinn connect the dots—the way Julius’s gaze had drifted into empty space these past few nights. More than once, she had woken in the middle of the night to find him sitting on the edge of the mattress, watching over her instead of sleeping.

At the same time, the security team shadowing her had quietly doubled in number.

The tension in the room thickened, but Quinn’s resolve only hardened. Whatever came next, she would face it head-on—for Julius, for herself, and for the fragile hope of their happiness.