Chapter 34 - 0034: I’m Going To Find My Wife

Chapter 34: Chapter 0034: I’m Going To Find My Wife

Graham’s Point Of View

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass window, watching the heavy front door slam shut behind her.

The sharp, echoing bang reverberated through the grand foyer, but the silence she left in her wake was ten times louder. It felt like a vacuum, sucking every last ounce of logic from my brain and replacing it with a thick, suffocating wave of confusion... and pure, unadulterated rage.

My fists clenched tight at my sides, my short nails digging so hard into my palms that my skin split, but I barely felt it. I didn’t even understand what I was feeling. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything except the echo of her voice, and somewhere beneath the anger, something colder and more unfamiliar had begun to stir... something that felt dangerously close to fear.

What the hell had just happened?

Her final words kept repeating on an endless, maddening loop inside my head, each replay sharper than the last, carving themselves deeper into whatever remained of my composure.

"I’m going to get myself a boyfriend."

"Don’t forget... I can open doors, too."

A boyfriend?

That had to be a joke. A cruel, petty, twisted joke meant to get under my skin. Elena couldn’t possibly have a boyfriend. Not her. Not my quiet, obedient wife. The very idea felt absurd, almost laughable, and yet it lodged itself under my ribs like a splinter I couldn’t dig out, twisting a little deeper with every breath I took.

This was the woman who had clung to me like oxygen for five years. The one who used to cry into my chest, begging me to just sit with her for five minutes when things went cold between us. The same woman who used to leave the porch light on and wait up in the armchair until three in the morning, even when I came home reeking of cheap scotch and late-night board meetings.

She didn’t have the stomach for a lover. She didn’t have the nerve. Or so I had always told myself, because the alternative... that I never truly knew her, was too unsettling to consider. And yet, standing there in the wreckage of her absence, I could no longer summon the same certainty I once wore so easily.

"Elena," I whispered into the quiet room, my eyes fixed on the empty driveway. I half-expected her to turn back around, to open that door, come walking back up the marble steps, and apologize for losing her temper. Some small, foolish part of me was even ready to forgive her before she asked, ready to pretend the last ten minutes had never happened at all.

She didn’t. The red taillights of her cab vanished past the wrought-iron gates, and the night swallowed her whole, leaving nothing behind but the cold hum of the chandelier and the hollow ache spreading through my chest, an ache I refused to name.

Before I could even process the burning sensation there, my mother stepped out from the shadow of the formal dining room, her diamond rings catching the harsh light of the chandelier as she folded her arms over her silk blouse. Her heels clicked loudly against the polished marble floor as she closed the distance between us, her tone dripping with a cold, sharp judgment that I had heard aimed at others my entire life but rarely, until tonight, at someone I still considered mine to protect.

There was a strange satisfaction in her expression, as though Elena’s departure had confirmed some private theory she’d nursed for years.

"Let her go, Graham," Mother said, her voice cutting through the foyer. "She means nothing to this family anymore. Honestly, who cares what she does? Just divorce her already."

I turned my head slowly, staring at her, searching her face for even a flicker of the warmth I remembered from childhood and finding none. "You don’t understand, Mom."

"Understand what, Graham?" my mother countered, stopping a few feet from me with her chin tilted up, utterly unbothered by the hurricane that had just torn through my house. "Understand what, son? That you’re hung up over a barren bitch?"

"Mother..." I started, my voice tight with a hard warning.

"Oh, don’t ’mother’ me!" she scoffed, waving a hand dismissively in the air. "She’s been a weight around your neck since the day you brought her home. Six years, Graham! Six years of sitting at our table, eating our food, spending your hard-earned money, and she couldn’t even give this family a single heir. She’s useless. She has zero connections, zero pedigree, and now she walks out of here making threats? Let her sign the papers and rot in whatever cheap apartment she can afford!"

"It’s not about the papers," I bit out, my jaw aching from how hard I was grinding my teeth. "She’s still my wife. My name is attached to her."

"Only until the judge signs off on the decree," Mother said coolly. "She’s throwing a pathetic little tantrum because she knows her time is up. Let her run around town. Let her make a fool of herself. Nobody in our social circle takes her seriously anyway..."

Heavy, soft footsteps tapped down the grand spiral staircase behind us, interrupting whatever venom she planned to spit next.

Lillian was descending the stairs, clutching a silk robe tightly around her waist, her face pale and her lower lip trembling like a fragile porcelain doll about to shatter. Even half-asleep and supposedly startled, she managed to look artfully composed, as if she’d rehearsed this entrance in front of a mirror more than once.

"What’s all these noises for?" Lillian whimpered, her voice small, breathless, and delicate as she reached the bottom steps.

My mother’s entire demeanor shifted in a fraction of a second. The sharp, venomous dragon vanished, replaced instantly by a doting, panicked matriarch. She gasped, dropping her strict posture and rushing to Lillian’s side, wrapping a supportive arm around her shoulders before her foot even hit the main floor.

"Oh, baby! Oh, sweetheart, no," Mother cooed, her voice practically dripping honey as she carefully guided Lillian toward the velvet sofa. "That witch woke you up, didn’t she? I knew it! I knew she was doing this on purpose! She wants to stress you out! She wants to harm my grandchild! She doesn’t want you to have any child of your own, Graham! She wants your wealth for herself!"

"Mother, stop it," I growled, stepping away from the window. "That’s enough!"

"I will not stop it, Graham!" Mother snapped, turning her head to glare at me while her hands gently rubbed Lillian’s back. "Look at her! Lillian is carrying your blood! Your heir! My first grandchild! And that toxic, bitter woman comes in here screaming and slamming doors because she can’t stand the fact that another woman is giving you what she was too broken to provide!"

Lillian looked up at me through thick, tear-trimmed lashes, resting one small hand gently over her stomach, playing the innocent victim to absolute perfection. There was something almost theatrical in the timing, in the way her fingers trembled just enough to be noticed, but not so much that it seemed rehearsed. Watching her, I felt a flicker of unease I couldn’t quite justify, gone as quickly as it arrived.

"Graham... I’m sorry," Lillian sobbed softly, her chest heaving. "I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just... I got so scared when I heard her yelling at you. I don’t want her to hurt our baby..."

The sheer absurdity of the room... my mother babbling like a madwoman, Lillian putting on a tragic performance on the couch, and my wife somewhere out in the city promising to throw herself into another man’s arms, finally snapped the last thread of my sanity.

A dark, boiling fury spread through my ribs like a pool of gasoline waiting for a stray spark.

"Enough, mother!" I roared, my voice booming off the high ceilings so loudly that both women flinched. "That’s enough!"

The silence returned, instant and suffocating, pressing down on the room like a held breath. Even the chandelier’s hum seemed to quiet in deference to it.

I yanked my suit jacket straight, smoothing down the lapels with rough, violent movements. I didn’t look at Lillian. I didn’t look at my mother. I just stared at the heavy front door, my chest rising and falling in deep, jagged breaths as my mind raced down every dark alley in the city, imagining Elena alone, unprotected, walking straight into the arms of some stranger who had no idea what she meant to me... what she had always meant to me, even when I’d been too proud or too blind to say it aloud.

"Graham..." Mother started, her tone shifting into a cautious, hesitant hush. "Where are you going?"

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my car keys, and turned toward the garage door, my resolve hardening with every step, every doubt burning away beneath a single, unshakable purpose.

"I’m going to find my wife."