My Unchosen Ex Chases Reborn Me (Soren and Fiona) novel Chapter 65

Chapter 65 Fractured Loyalties

Chapter 65 Fractured Loyalties

Every face in the hall froze, as though the air itself had congealed.

Hannah had never dreamed her son would threaten to leave. Tears rimmed her you intend to cast off your own mother as well?” she whispered.

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“So now

Zachary let out a weary laugh. “It is you who has cast me off. Whether forcing a concubine on me before or insulting Meryl today, you have done it for yourself, never for me. You have turned my household inside out, counting on my filial piety to keep crushing my wife.”

The matriarch had no answer. Silence engulfed her.

“And Meryl’s dowry will never patch the Niven accounts, Zachary continued, voice carrying the quiet authority of a Minister of Rites. “Whoever sparked this blaze will see to extinguishing

it

Joanna dared not add another word.

“Mr. Zachary, those words cut Old Mrs. Niven to the bone,” Ruby murmured.

Zachary ignored the plea. He dropped his forehead to the floor three sharp times. “I may be an unfilial son, but Meryl is my only wife. If I will not shield her, I am no husband at all. I have stood with you too many times already, Mother. Think on that.”

With those words hanging in the air, he gathered his wife and daughter and walked out without so much as a backward glance, returning to Lily Garden.

Fiona, her knees still too bruised to stand, rode back in a sedan chair. “Had Father done this sooner, Mother would never have been humiliated,” she said quietly.

Guilt shadowed Zachary’s features. “From this day on, I will never allow your mother to suffer again.”

Even as he spoke, his eyes rested on Meryl–an unspoken vow burning there.

Fiona exhaled in relief. She had accepted the punishment of kneeling precisely because she had timed her father’s return. His resolve proved the bitter ruse worthwhile.

That night Duke Niven, Stanley, finally returned to the estate.

He and Zachary spoke until the candles burned low. When Zachary came back to Lily Garden, he mentioned nothing more about dividing the family, yet the easy warmth he once showed his elder brother was gone.

10:22 Sat, Oct 11

Chapter 65 Fractured Loyalties

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For now, Fiona no longer wished for a formal split. Too many adversaries already circled her father. In the eyes of outsiders, the Niven family could only be safer if it appeared perfectly

united.

Fiona’s aim had never been money or praise.

She wanted, very deliberately, to loosen the choking cord that bound Zachary to Hannah.

If her father stood firm, her grandmother would stop tormenting Meryl, and even Joanna would be forced to rein herself in.

And later, when the inevitable talk of dividing the household returned, the task would no longer feel impossible.

Had this crisis not erupted, Zachary–ever sentimental toward his eldest brother–would likely have kept funneling silver to the main branch.

Meanwhile, control of the household accounts would have lingered in Joanna’s hands, dragging on until the Niven family simply collapsed under its own debts.

So Fiona and Meryl staged their painful ruse, a calculated injury that slammed shut every path Zachary might have taken to lend more coin to the main branch.

Four days passed, then a fifth.

On the morning of the sixth, the crisp scent of bamboo still hanging in the mist around Bamboo Lodge, Hannah arrived in person to see her supposedly injured granddaughter.

Just as Fiona had predicted, Hannah’s attitude was pinned to Zachary’s. The moment her son turned cold, the matriarch’s frost began to thaw.

“Are you still angry with your grandmother?” Hannah asked, her sigh fluttering like a spent candle.

Her very presence on Fiona’s doorstep was, in itself, an apology delivered without the indignity of formal words.

“My tone that day was dreadful,” Fiona said, giving the older woman a graceful escape route. “I wounded your heart first, Grandmother.”

Relieved, Hannah produced a carved wooden box, its rosewood surface gleaming with fresh

oil.

“Inside is a pair of emerald earrings I had commissioned recently. Be a dear and carry them to your mother later,” she said.

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Chapter 65 Fractured Loyalties

“She will adore them,” Fiona replied, smiling with genuine warmth.

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Hannah studied the girl, realizing that her decision to apologize had less to do with Zachary and more with the fierce loyalty glinting behind Fiona’s calm eyes.

She could not bear the thought of that bright gaze turning away from her forever.

No sooner had Hannah’s servants cleared the path than Joanna stepped through the same gate, silk skirts swishing like restless water. She offered a few perfunctory words of concern about Fiona’s injury, then, almost immediately, tried to locate Meryl.

“If you have something to discuss, Aunt Joanna, you may speak with me,” Fiona said, voice steady as a leveled blade.

The matter concerns your mother. You are still a child; it would be impossible to make everything clear to you.” Joanna answered, her polite smile stretched thin enough to shimmer like cracked porcelain.

Without a word, Fiona opened a lacquered portfolio and fanned a stack of banknotes across the low table, crisp paper snapping in the quiet room.When Joanna grasped the figures etched on each note, the forced smile drained from her face, leaving it rigid as marble.

This pile comes to 20 thousand,” Fiona said softly. “I will send additional funds each month: before the year is out, your ledgers will be clean.”

Joanna’s heart lurched. She had no idea how the girl had unearthed the exact figure, and- more frightening–why Fiona had not exposed her before Hannah.

Fiona saw the question flicker in her aunt’s eyes and, recalling a lifetime’s worth of past. mistakes, decided to ride the suspicion instead of fighting it. “You know the sum. Aunt Joanna. I have already spared you a public reckoning.”

Joanna’s expression wavered between humiliation and relief. “Thank you,” she managed, the

words flat and brittle.

“The second branch does not want for money,” Fiona continued. “But Ulrich is at a crucial stage–building alliances costs coin. Letting this debt linger will only hurt the main branch, and you will blame yourself if his career stalls.”

That point jabbed deepest.

Joanna’s private stash could keep the household afloat only a short while longer.

Under other circumstances, she would have borrowed from Zachary, but that door was now slammed shut; desperation had driven her to Fiona’s door instead.

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10:22 Sat, Oct 11

Chapter 66 Terms Of Surrender