Chapter 202 - 0202: Let’s Go To The Club

Chapter 202: Chapter 0202: Let’s Go To The Club

Elena’s Point Of View

The quiet in the room wasn’t just a lack of noise; it was a suffocating pressure, the heavy kind that settled in the back of my throat and made every breath feel like a chore. The ambient glare of my laptop screen flickered against the darkened glass of the office window, reflecting my own pale, tired face back at me.

I barely recognized the woman staring back... hollow-eyed, drawn, a stranger wearing my clothes. My glasses kept slipping down the bridge of my nose, slick with the heat rising from my skin, but I didn’t push them up. I just stared at the spreadsheet on my screen until the black figures bled into jagged, meaningless lines.

11,400. 45,000. Refusal to settle.

My fingers hovered over the mechanical keyboard, plastic keys cold against my fingertips, but I couldn’t bring myself to press down. Every ten seconds, my eyes darted to the right corner of the desk... to the dark, silent face of my phone. I hated how much power that small rectangle held over me, how it had become the axis my entire evening spun around.

Nothing.

No notification. No message from Jaxx. Just the quiet, steady ticking of the wall clock counting down the seconds of a night I was losing control over. I sucked in a harsh breath through my teeth, the air tasting like stale coffee and ozone, and forced my eyes back to Clara’s email summary.

Focus, Elena. Just read the damn audit.

The numbers refused to behave, swimming and doubling no matter how hard I blinked.

Chime.

The sound was sharp, high-pitched, cutting through the silence like a dropped blade.

My whole body recoiled, my heart slamming against my ribs with enough force to make my chest ache. The air left my lungs in a silent, ragged gasp. My hand shot out toward the device before my brain could even process the movement, my fingernails scraping against the mahogany finish of the desk as I dragged the phone closer.

My palms were suddenly slick, cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. Some small, desperate part of me had been waiting all night for exactly this sound, praying it meant something good.

Please let it be him.

I swiped the screen open, my thumb trembling so hard I missed the icon twice.

The preview box popped up. No name. Just an eleven-digit string of numbers.

The tiny spark of hope that had flared in my chest died instantly, replaced by a cold, heavy knot of dread that dropped straight into my stomach. My thumb hovered, paralyzed, before I finally tapped the notification.

The screen refreshed. A high-resolution image loaded from the top down.

It was a floor. A dark hardwood floor I recognized down to the faint, polished scratches near the baseboards, and scattered across that wood, jagged, torn, and ripped into ribbons, were sheets of ivory paper. The heavy cream cardstock of our decree nisi. The official seal from the clerk’s office was sheared directly in half, lying upside down near the edge of the frame like a severed limb.

Below the photo, the text bubble loaded.

I’m never divorcing you.

My pulse thundered in my ears, a loud, roaring rush of blood that drowned out the quiet hum of the computer fan.

You’re my wife, Elena.

My fingers clenched around the edges of the phone so tightly the casing creaked. My knuckles turned stark white, the metal edges digging painfully into my skin.

Till. Death. Do. Us. Part. Never forget that.

"You bastard," I whispered to the empty room, my voice barely a raspy breath, fragile and dry. "You absolute bastard."

My chest heaved as I fought for air, the room spinning slightly around the edges. I didn’t cry. I refused to give him a single tear... he didn’t deserve the satisfaction, not even from three miles away, not even through a screen. Instead, a hot, searing wave of pure rage rushed through my veins, melting the ice in my stomach into something sharp and lethal. I dragged my thumb across the screen, selecting the image, selecting the text, and slamming the Forward button.

I pulled up Mr. Vance’s direct line and sent the full transcript along with the raw media file. I didn’t even wait five seconds before I hit the call icon.

He picked up on the third ring, his voice calm, measured, and entirely lacking the panic that was clawing at my ribs.

"Elena. I just saw the file transfer."

"He destroyed them, Vance," I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to hold it steady. I gripped the edge of my desk with my free hand, my nails digging into the polished wood. "He shredded the formal response. He sent a photo of it to me."

"Listen to me carefully, Ms. Elena," Vance said, the rustle of papers audible in the background as he worked. "This is no longer just a stubborn party in a civil dissolution. This is written intimidation, and it violates the temporary standstill agreement we filed last week. I am drafting an emergency motion for a restraining order right now, along with an injunction for cyber-harassment."

"Will it stop him?" I demanded, my tone sharp, cutting him off. "Will a piece of paper actually stop him from showing up here?"

"It gives the police the authority to arrest him the moment he steps within five hundred feet of you," Vance replied smoothly. "Don’t engage with the number. Don’t reply. I’ve already flagged this to our security liaison. If you notice anything out of place... a vehicle parked outside your building, an unfamiliar caller, you do not wait for me. You call emergency services immediately."

"I understand," I said, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat. "Thank you, Vance. Just... make it hit hard."

"It will. Have a safe night, Elena."

The line went dead. I set the phone back down on the blotter with a heavy, metallic clink.

The silence returned, but the quiet no longer felt cozy - it felt like a cage. I looked around my office. The framed degrees on the wall, the neat stacks of folders, the brass desk lamp - everything I had built to create a life away from him felt frail, like cardboard cutouts easily kicked over. Every object suddenly seemed like evidence of a life he could still reach into and crumple with a single photograph.

He thinks he owns me.

I stood up so fast my office chair rolled back and hit the wall with a dull thud. My hands were still shaking, but the terror was giving way to a white-hot anger that made my teeth ache. I reached out, grabbed the lid of my laptop, and slammed it shut with a loud, final crash that echoed off the glass walls.

I yanked the power cord from the wall socket, wrapped it violently around the brick, and shoved it into my leather tote bag.

"You don’t get to do this anymore, Graham," I muttered to the dark window, watching my own reflection stare back at me with wide, dark eyes. "You don’t get to threaten me from the shadows."

I grabbed my coat off the rack, throwing it over my shoulders, and snatched my phone off the desk. My fingers were flying now, adrenaline pumping through my system as I scrolled down my contacts until I hit Lexy’s name. I didn’t care that it was getting late. I didn’t care if she was busy. I needed an anchor before I lost my mind entirely, a voice that could remind me who I was outside of all this fear.

I pressed call, jamming the phone against my ear as I paced the length of my office, my heels clicking sharply against the hardwood flooring.

Ring. Ring.

"Elena! Oh my God, I was just thinking about you!" Lexy’s voice blasted through the speaker, accompanied by the background clatter of dishes and television noise. "How are you? Please tell me you’re not still drowning in paperwork."

I stopped right in front of the window, staring out at the grid of city lights below, my reflection hovering over the traffic eight stories down. I tried to laugh, but it came out as a ragged, raspy breath. "Oh, I wish that was my biggest problem right now, Lex."

The background noise on her end instantly stopped. The clatter of plates ceased. "El. What’s going on? You sound... weird. What happened?"

"It’s been a day," I said, rubbing the back of my neck where the muscles were tied in tight, painful knots. "A really, really bad one."

"Ugh, spill," she demanded, her voice shifting instantly from casual chatter to that fierce, protective sharpness I knew by heart. "What happened? And don’t you dare sugarcoat it to keep me from worrying. Tell me right now."

"Graham sent a text," I said, pacing back toward my desk, unable to stand still. "From a random number. A picture of the divorce papers shredded on his floor. Confetti, Lexy. He ripped up the court documents and sent a message saying he’s never divorcing me. That I’m his wife, till death do us part."

The line went completely dead for three full seconds. Not even the sound of her breathing came through.

Then... "HOW DARE HE?!"

The scream was so sudden and deafening I had to yank the phone three inches away from my ear, wincing as her voice vibrated through the speaker.

"Elena, I swear to God, if I see that man on the street, I will cut off his head and feed it to the neighborhood dogs! Who the hell does he think he is?! After everything he put you through... the gaslighting, the isolation, the pathetic emotional games, he has the actual, unmitigated gall to send you a threat?!"

Despite the tightness in my chest, a sudden, breathless laugh escaped me. It felt raw, almost absurd, but having someone else scream the rage I was holding in felt like opening a relief valve, like I could finally set the weight down for a moment and let her carry it instead. "Lexy, oh my God... calm down, you’re going to break your own phone..."

"I will NOT calm down!" she roared, and I could hear her pacing on her end, her heels snapping against her kitchen tiles. "I will end him, Elena! I will find out where he’s parking that stupid German car of his, I will take a crowbar to every single panel, and then I will ruin his firm! I will make sure he spends the rest of his natural-born life regretting the exact second he thought he could mess with you!"

"I know you would," I said, sitting down heavily on the corner of my desk, wiping a sudden bead of sweat from my temple. "I know you’d hide the body too. And honestly, right now? I might let you."

"Good!" she huffed, her breathing heavy into the mic. "Now tell me, what are you actually doing about this right this second? Because if you’re just sitting in that dark office letting him terrorize you into a panic attack, I am getting in my car, driving over there, and dragging you out by your hair!"

"I’m already packed up," I said, gesturing vaguely at my bag even though she couldn’t see me. "I sent the full text string and the image straight to Vance. He’s filing an emergency injunction and a restraining order first thing in the morning. If Graham so much as looks in my direction again, he’s going to be answering to a judge from a holding cell."

Lexy let out a low, predatory hum. "Good. Because if the legal system doesn’t put a leash on him, my bat will."

"You don’t even own a bat, Lex."

"I’ll buy one on the way over!" she snapped back, though I could hear the sharp edge in her voice softening just a fraction. "God, El... I hate this so much. I hate that he still thinks he can reach out and yank your chain whenever he feels like being a monster. You’ve worked so hard to rebuild everything. You don’t deserve this lingering trash."

I pressed two fingers against the bridge of my nose, right between my eyes, closing them tight. "I know. But I’m done being scared of him. I spent three years walking on eggshells in my own house, worrying about what mood he’d be in when he walked through the door. I am not doing it in my own office. I am done."

"Damn right you are," Lexy growled gently. "He’s a ghost, Elena. A loud, pathetic ghost trying to haunt a house you already sold. Now... tell me something else. What else is going on? Because if we stay on the topic of Graham the Gargoyle, I’m going to go buy that bat right now."

I let out a long, slow exhale, letting my shoulders drop an inch away from my ears for the first time in hours. "Work is... busy. Overwhelming. Clara sent over three new acquisition files that need line-by-line review before Monday, and my brain feels like lukewarm porridge."

"And?" Lexy prompted, her tone shifting, becoming slyer, sharper. "And life? And certain people who aren’t ex-husbands?"

My hand stilled on my desk. My mind instinctively flashed back... to the dark interior of a car, the smell of leather and expensive cologne, the quiet, heavy way Jaxx had looked at me before I walked away. To the silence of my phone all week. A small, hollow ache opened somewhere beneath my ribs, separate from the fear Graham had carved there, something softer and infinitely more confusing.

"Elena," Lexy said, her voice dropping an octave, catching my silence instantly. "What’s that pause? Why are you pausing?"

"Nothing," I lied quickly, standing back up and grabbing my tote bag. "Just tired. It’s been a crazy week, Lex. I just need to get home, lock the door, and crash."

"Then go home," she ordered softly, her tone laced with genuine warmth now. "Double-lock the door, set the alarm, and get some sleep. And if you hear a bump in the night, you call me right after you call the cops, okay? I’m serious."

"I will," I promised, reaching out to switch off the desk lamp, plunging the office into the soft, blue light of the city skyline outside. "Thank you, Lex. Really. I needed to hear you lose your mind for a second."

"Anytime, babe. That’s what best friends are for... legal representation and light threats of violence." She paused, a wide grin almost palpable through the line. "Love you, El."

"Love you too," I said, turning toward the door. "I’m heading out now."

"Wait," Lexy’s voice cut through my exhaustion like a blade, sharp and sudden. "About you going home and sleep... I take that back. Let’s go to the club."

I blinked. Once. Twice. "What?!"