No Second Chances Ex-husband (Lauren and Ethan) novel Chapter 197

0197

LAUREN’S POV

I looked down at her, watching the pain etch across her face as she lay on the floor. The way she winced was small, almost pathetic after the force I’d used to flip her. She had asked for it; she’d confessed and smiled about Elena’s death like it was a prize won. The thought of breaking her hand had been a raw kind of justice that pulsed through me–short, hot, and precise. But then I saw the boy.

His eyes were fixed on me, huge and wet now, and he stared as if I were some kind of monster. He didn’t understand. He was too young to grasp how much damage hate could cause, too young to know the history between us. All he could see was his mother, his whole world and I could already imagine the story he would tell himself: the stranger who hurt mummy, the woman who came and scared us. That image dug into me harder than any pain Sophia could have felt.

I let out a small sigh and unclenched my hands. I eased her wrist away from my grip. I couldn’t make this little boy watch me break his mother’s bones. Not while he still believed in hugs and bedtime songs. Not today. I had promised myself I wouldn’t let Aria grow up in a world where I had become a monster by my own hand.

“I suggest you stay down,” I said, my voice low, every syllable deliberate. “This is your final warning.”

For a moment, it looked like she might stay down. Her chest rose and fell in ragged pulls, and the room held its breath. But then, stubbornness, old, ugly took her. She forced herself up, hands scrabbling for support on the nearest shelf, and spat at me, venom sharp enough to sting. “Don’t you tell me what to do. I’m not done with you yet.”

Seriously? She still wanted to pick a fight, and with her son watching? Even after what she’d confessed? Rage burned in me again, but I swallowed it. There was no time for theatrics.

She lurched forward, a clumsy, unbalanced move that made her easy to read. I moved before my brain could start weighing the pros and cons. I grabbed her collar hard feeling the fabric crumple beneath my fingers, and without thinking I drove my forehead into her face with everything I had.

It hit the nose dead on.

She screamed, hands flying to her face as the blood came hot and fast. Her body folded, and she collapsed back to the floor, clutching at her nose like it was already a part of her that had been wrenched away.

“You broke my fucking nose!” she howled, and the sound tore through me but didn’t stop me.

Good. If she wasn’t getting up again, I could run.

I didn’t wait to see if she’d try. There was no back door directly to the yard, so I had to go out the front and run around the house. I pushed through the ruined kitchen doorway and ran for the front. The neighbourhood had erupted into panic, the distant wail of an ambulance threaded the air and people were running wildly, sprinkling confusion into the chaos. I didn’t care who saw me or what they thought. This was about getting to my daughter.

I ran hard down the side of the house, my lungs burning, my legs pumping like pistons. Adrenaline kept me moving faster than any coherent thought. At the corner of the house, the backyard opened up and everything slammed into me at once.

Ethan stood there like some twisted portrait: one hand clamped to Aria’s small frame, the other holding a pistol against the side of her head. He had her pressed to him like she was armor, a shield against everyone else. She looked tiny, and her face was white with terror. Her mouth moved once, “Mummy,” she whispered and my knees nearly gave.

“Stay back, all of you,” Ethan barked, steady and frightening. His eyes were hard, flat as polished stone. He wasn’t playing any longer.

“Drop the gun, Ethan,” the investigator shouted, his voice trying to keep calm even as the tension cut the air. “You’ve already lost this battle. Your men are down and there’s nowhere for you to run.”

Ethan’s grip on Aria didn’t loosen. He wasn’t listening to reason. He had a single–mindedness that chilled me: this was never about negotiation. It was about revenge.

1/2

“Mummy!” Aria cried the moment she saw me across the yard, the sound ripping through me. For a brief, shining moment her body tried to wrench toward me. Instinct told her what to do. Love pulled her like a magnet. But Ethan tightened his arm and dragged her back against himself as if to prove she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Glad you could join us, Lauren,” Ethan said, voice thick with a satisfaction that made my stomach churn. He didn’t sound surprised I’d come; he seemed almost pleased by my arrival, as if my presence finished the tableau he’d built.

Roman’s head snapped toward me as I stepped into the open, and for the first time in hours, I saw the question on his face: What are you doing here? His mouth opened as if to shout something, but the sound was swallowed under the roar of my thoughts.

“Ethan, please, we can talk about this,” I said, hands trembling but raised slightly in surrender. “You can let her go and I’ll come. We can swap places.”

I wasn’t sure it those words were a lie or a bargain. I was willing to trade everything for my daughter. If that meant I had to take her place, then so be it. If I could spare her life with a piece of myself, I would.

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