No Second Chances Ex-husband (Lauren and Ethan) novel Chapter 196

LAUREN’S POV

My eyes snapped up to Sophia’s face. No. Not this time. Not after everything. The memory of Elena’s empty room, the hollow stillness that followed, still haunted me, but it no longer had the power to crush me the way it once did. I cared too much now, too many people depended on me. Tessa believed in me. Roman stood by me. And Aria… Aria’s tiny hands wrapped around my finger in the dark had become the reason I dragged myself up every morning. I would not let that love be wasted tearing me

down.

“You should have just stayed out of the country,” Sophia spat, the words like acid, “because now that you’ve come back here, I’m going to send you to see Elena one last time forever. And after that, your boyfriend and your daughter will join you.”

Her threat should have sent me back into the darkness and should have seeded that old, paralysing grief but instead something else swelled in me: a hard, hot ember of defiance. Tears that had been gathering in the corners of my eyes dried up as if scorched. I would not be intimidated. I would not let history repeat itself while I stood frozen.

I knew I couldn’t just lunge, it would be rash, and Sophia had a weapon. I had no weapon, no plan, just a fierce need to keep breathing long enough to take Aria away from this nightmare.

Where were the officers? Had they all been taken out? My brain darted through possibilities. If more help were here, I might buy time; if not, I had to create an opening myself. I prayed silently that fate would hand me one.

Then I heard a small voice, so soft it nearly got lost under the thud of my own pulse.

“Mummy,” a boy said.

Sophia’s body changed in an instant. The venom seeped out of her face and a softer mask slid into place. She turned as if pulled by a string, and a tiny figure stepped from behind her. The sight of him tugged at me in a way I hadn’t expected. He reached for his mother’s dress and gripped it like a child seeking safety. He called her “Mummy,” and in that single word, the whole room

shifted.

So that was who he was her son. The very child she’d carried, the one whose existence I had known only in outline. For a heartbeat, confusion flashed through me: why was he here in this chaos? Shouldn’t he have been hidden, protected from whatever darkness had driven Sophia to these extremes?

Sophia’s eyes softened completely as she addressed him. “Junior, I told you to stay hidden in the basement. It’s not safe for you up here,” she scolded, though her voice kept a tone of relief underneath.

Her attention had slipped away from me. It was the exact opening I needed.

I moved without thinking, the decision already made, my feet carrying me closer. My hand hovered a mere breath from the stick. If I could get it away from her, Sophie’s threat would lose its immediate bite. Maybe I could disarm her, run for the door, find Aria whatever I had to do.

But fate has a cruel sense of timing. Just as I reached in, Junior glanced up. His little eyes found mine, and the flash of awareness shot to his mother like an alarm. Sophia’s head snapped back toward me, the soft maternal mask crumpling into something

vicious. She struck with the stick, wild and quick.

I’d hoped to beat her by surprise, but she moved faster this time crouched, hands low, aiming to strike at my legs where I’d be easiest to unbalance. Instinct overrode fear. I lashed out with my foot, catching her wrist with everything I had. The impact was a clean, forceful kick and the stick skittered across the floor, clattering like a dropped drumstick before thudding into the carpet.

A sharp scream ripped from Sophia as she clutched her wrist, pain spiking across her face. That shriek was a small victory. The stick was free, the moment fragile and breathing. I didn’t pause to savor it. There was no time.

I surged forward. The door freed from Sophia’s blocking presence beckoned like a promise. I took two hurried steps and reached for the frame, the cool air beyond it a whisper of freedom. But then Sophia recovered faster than I expected. Anger and pain braided into something ferocious. She lunged, snatching the stick back up with her other hand, and swung it hard. Her aim wasn’t for me; it arced wide, the stick cutting a path toward her son.

1/2

Instinct is a sharp blade. Without thinking, I yanked at Junior’s arm, pulling him out of the stick’s path. The weapon whooshed past where he’d just been, missing him by inches.

“Get your hands off my son,” Sophia screeched, standing so quickly she almost wobbled.

I held him fast, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it would burst through my ribs. Rage answered rage in a way that surprised me. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “You were just about to cripple your own child, and this is what you can say? I saved him. I could have left him there an eye for an eye but I didn’t because that’s the right thing to do.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify