Filed to story: Watch Me Win Alpha (Olivia & Ethan)
I braced myself.
There was Olivia’s voice-weak, panicked, barely coherent. “Ethan… I need-“
Then Chole’s voice cut through, loud and smug. “Oops. He’s a little busy right now. Try again later,wife.”
My jaw clenched. The memory clicked into place like a knife in the gut. I had been at the office. Chole had walked in, uninvited. I remember her laughing, picking up my phone,
And I had let her.
The recording stopped.
The silence afterward was deafening.
“Why wasn’t your phone with you, Mr. Hawthrone?” the officer asked. “Why was your mistress the one who picked up your wife’s emergency call?”
I buried my face in the crook of my arm. The pain in my chest pulsed like a heartbeat. I wanted to scream.
When I lifted my head, my voice was hoarse. “She came into my office uninvited. Took my phone. I didn’t realize… I didn’t think she’d-“
I paused. That sounded pathetic.
“I was working,” I added. “I didn’t even look up when she grabbed it. She said she wanted to play a game. I assumed she’d put it back. I never imagined…”
“You let someone else take your personal device,” the cop repeated.flatly. “And that person just so happened to inter- cept your wife’s only plea for help-during an attempted assault.”
I flinched. “I know how it looks. But I didn’t plan this. I never wanted Olivia hurt.”
The officer tapped his pen on the table, his face unreadable. “We’ll check the security footage from your office.”
“I have cameras,” I said quickly. “You can pull all of it. I didn’t know what Chole was doing. I swear it.”
He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t fully buy it.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said, closing the folder. “Every word. Every second.”
Olivia’s POV
I woke up with a dry throat and aching limbs. The couch wasn’t the most comfortable place to pass out on, but it had done the job. My head was heavy with the kind of sleep that doesn’t refresh-it only numbs.
There was a message from Ava waiting on my phone.Everything’s going the way it should. Except… Alexander showed up. You didn’t tell me that part.
I sank deeper into the cushions, rereading her text. Everything else, I expected. The lawyers from both the Hawthrone and Windsor families were already preparing to fight for bail. Ava had anticipated it. She’d personally driven to the police station, submitted more evidence-digital messages, audio files, transaction logs. She’d even attached a formal document outlining my personal claims against Chole and her accomplices. It was airtight. Chole wasn’t walking free anytime soon.
And Ethan… he wouldn’t see daylight until at least eight in the morning.
Good.
Chapon LU
SUUTINUED
It was nearing 2:00 a.m. when Ava arrived. She brought coffee, but I switched to beer. The two of us sat on my bal- cony, the silence between us soothing, not awkward. The night was cool, and the stars were surprisingly clear. This city rarely gave me stars.
I ran my fingers along the edge of my glass and stared up at the sky. “People always say revenge should feel satisfy- ing,” I muttered.
Ava glanced at me, then said nothing.
I raised my glass and downed it in one gulp. It burned, but not enough.
“I don’t feel satisfied,” I said. “I just feel… empty.’
Ava didn’t say anything for a while. Then she smiled-gently, painfully. “You went through hell. Years of holding on to a marriage that gave you nothing but pain.”
I blinked. She was right. I had tried so hard to be the perfect wife, the loving partner. Even when I knew about Chole. Even when Ethan came home with guilt on his breath. I still held on, hoping that if I gave it my all, I’d get peace when I finally walked away.
But he hadn’t even let me have that.
“He took everything,” I said quietly. “Even the way I wanted it to end.”
Ava reached out and touched my arm. “You still have a future, Liv.”
“Do I?” I turned my head and looked at her. “What kind of future is that, Ava? I don’t even know if I can trust again.”
She gave me a pointed look. “Not every man is Ethan.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered, pulling the blanket tighter over my shoulders. “He taught me how to doubt everything.
Even kindness.”
My fingers tightened around the empty glass.
Ava looked at me with soft eyes, and Yve also agreed with Ava. Not every man is like Ethan.
But I was scared.
Olivia’s POV
The morning air still clung to the quiet of dawn. I dragged my suitcase into the living room, the wheels humming low against the floorboards. Ava was already waiting there, barefoot, holding two mugs-one for each of us. She put hers down and wrapped me in a tight hug.
“Don’t worry about anything, okay?” she murmured against my shoulder. “Let me handle the rest. Just go, breathe, come back when you’re ready. And by then, your divorce papers will be ready too.”
I didn’t answer. I just nodded against her. There wasn’t much left to say.
I was doing it-I was finally leaving. Escaping, even if temporarily. After the disaster at the charity event and the emotional wreckage that followed, I needed to be anywhere else. A window seat, some cheap airport coffee, silence. I didn’t care where the flight landed. The destination didn’t matter. It was the leaving that I needed.
Ava was supposed to drive me to the airport, but as I zipped up the last corner of my suitcase, she sighed and glanced at her phone. “Something urgent just came up,” she said. “I have to handle it, but you can grab a cab, right?”
“Of course,” I said, slinging my small backpack over my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve already done too much.”
Ava gave me one last tight hug at the door. “Have a safe flight. Text me when you land, alright?”
I stepped out of the apartment building, tugging my luggage behind me. The streets were still quiet, the sunlight bare- ly stretching across the pavement. I stood at the curb outside the gated entrance, checking my phone for a cab. That’s when it buzzed.
A strange number.
I stared at it, frowning. My instincts whispered-don’t answer that. I didn’t recognize the digits, but something about them felt… strange. Cold.
Just as I hit the decline button, a sleek silver Maybach turned the corner and rolled up slowly from within the neigh- borhood. I recognized the car almost instantly. The window rolled down halfway, and there he was-Mike.
“Miss Olivia?” His smile was polite, warm, like he’d been expecting me. “Where are you headed so early in the morn- ing?”
I hesitated. “Airport.”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?