My Ex-husband's Revenge

Chapter One

"Guilty."

The judge's verdict hit me like a wrecking ball. I watched my father being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, hurling insults at the crowd that was celebrating his downfall. Tears streamed down my face, and I forced myself to leave with my head down, pushing through the crush of bodies.

I needed to get out of there. I could barely breathe.

The pain in my chest was twofold: the devastation of watching my father sentenced to prison, and the sting of the piece of evidence that had sealed his fate. My own husband, Frederick Lancaster, had dared to testify against him. Not only that — he had spent months gathering evidence for the prosecution.

It hurt to learn that my father was a criminal. It hurt even more to discover that the man I loved had married me with a single purpose: to destroy him. The love I had offered so freely, so wholeheartedly, had been trampled beneath Frederick's expensive shoes the moment we said "I do."

I walked faster, feeling like the walls were closing in.

The moment I stepped outside the courthouse, I was swallowed by a swarm of reporters. Camera flashes turned the world white. Hands shoved microphones into my face from every direction. The shouting, the questions, the chaos — it was suffocating.

"Ms. Charlotte Darclen, how do you feel about your father's verdict?" one reporter called out.

Did she seriously just ask me that? It was like asking a drowning person if they were wet.

"Did you know your father was embezzling funds?" another pressed.

"Is it true you're married to the CEO of the country's largest investment firm — the very man who testified against your father?" A camera lens was shoved inches from my face. "Viewers are stunned. The company has always operated anonymously; nobody had ever seen the owner's face before he revealed himself at your father's trial. How does it feel knowing your husband was behind it all?"

I shoved through the crowd, feeling as though my ribs were being crushed. No court officer stepped in to help. Hands grabbed at me from all sides — my arms, my shoulders, even my hair. I couldn't tell one person from another; there were simply too many of them.

I finally reached my car and threw myself inside. The reporters surrounded the vehicle immediately, pressing against the windows, blocking the road ahead.

"Move!" I leaned on the horn, but it was useless.

The questions kept coming in waves, and I covered my ears. I wanted the noise of the entire world to fall silent.

Everything they were asking was true. Every word of it. And that was what made it unbearable.

My husband — the man I believed to be humble and kind, the man I had chosen out of love — was the CEO of a powerful investment firm that had operated in anonymity for years. During the trial, he revealed that he had grown up in poverty because of my father. His family had been among the victims of my father's insurance company, which had routinely denied legitimate claims. After Hurricane Samantha destroyed their home, the company refused to pay out a single cent.

His family weren't the only ones. Countless others had lost homes, cars, and life savings. Some had drowned in hospital debt. My father's company had operated this way for years, quietly devastating lives while we lived in luxury.

I hadn't known. Not a word of it. And the moment the judge declared him guilty, something inside me went quiet — a small, irreplaceable piece of the love I'd had for my father simply died.

I looked around at the reporters still swarming my car, vultures circling a wound, and I started the engine. I pressed the accelerator. They scattered just in time.

I didn't stop driving until I reached my father's mansion.

My eyes went wide. Strangers were streaming in and out of the front doors, carrying furniture, paintings, ornaments — methodically stripping the house bare.

"What do you think you're doing?" I demanded, but nobody even glanced at me.

"Mrs. Charlotte, thank goodness you're here!" Fatima came running in her maid's uniform, her face pale. "These people are taking everything. They say they have orders to confiscate the entire property."

Everything?

I watched a young man carry out a portrait of my mother — the woman who had died giving birth to me, whose face I had studied my whole life in that painting.

"Stop! You can't take that — she's my mother!" I ran to him and grabbed the frame, but he refused to let go. "That portrait was in my bedroom!"

"Ma'am, let me do my job!" We struggled until he shoved me backward.

I hit the ground, scraping my palms and knees on the gravel. I stared at the dirt beneath my hands as the man hurled insults over his shoulder and walked away. I had never felt so utterly powerless in my life.

A firm hand closed around my arm, and I was lifted off the ground with effortless ease.

"I'll keep the portrait," said a deep, authoritative voice.

I recognized it before I even looked up. That voice had been my number one addiction. I had loved hearing it in the mornings, at night, in the quiet moments between — and I hated that it still reached right into my chest.

Frederick Lancaster.

A pair of electric blue eyes stared down at me. I had always gotten lost in them, and for one treacherous second I did again. I could hear the man who had pushed me give an affirmative answer and retreat, but I didn't bother to look. I couldn't look away from Frederick.

Then I felt his grip on my arm and yanked myself free, hating the warmth that lingered where his hand had been. Hating myself even more for noticing it.

This man had treated my heart like a prop. He had used it, played his role to perfection, and discarded everything the moment it had served its purpose.

"It seems all the pieces are finally falling into place," he said, his tone indifferent as he watched the strangers empty the mansion without a flicker of remorse.

"Are you satisfied?" I asked, fighting to keep my voice from shaking. "Are you pleased with what you've done to me? Don't you feel anything?"

"Poor little princess." He looked at me with a contempt I had never seen from him before, cold and deliberate. "She spent her whole life spending money soaked in other people's ruin. And now it's all been taken from her — because not even the dress you're wearing was paid for with honest money."

"I didn't know what my father was doing. I had nothing to do with the company," I said, shaking my head.

"Do you think that makes you innocent?" He took my chin in his hand, forcing my eyes to his. "You're just as complicit, Charlotte. You benefited from every stolen cent. You lived in a bubble of privilege built on the backs of people who lost everything. It's time you learned what the real world looks like."

Hot tears slid down my cheeks before I could stop them.

"Frederick," I whispered, "how can you say that to me? After everything we went through together — did none of it mean anything to you?"

He let out a short, contemptuous laugh, as though the conversation was beneath him.

"The only reason I married you was to ruin your father, Charlotte. Nothing more."

I felt my heart collapse inward, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the echo of it.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, something had changed in my expression. I was still crying — I couldn't stop that — but behind the tears was something steadier. Something that had not been there before.

"You know what's almost funny, Frederick?" I said, my voice quiet and bruised but unflinching. "If you had told me at any point during our marriage — even the day before the trial — what my father was doing and what you were planning, I would have helped you. Or at least stood beside you. Not only because I loved you, but because it would have been the right thing to do. A judge sentenced my father for his crimes." I held his gaze. "You sentenced me for them."

I looked down at the wedding ring on my finger. I took in its weight for the last time.

Then I pulled it off and let it fall.

"I never want to hear from you again, Frederick Lancaster. I want a divorce."

That day, I lost both my father and my husband.