02
1620 Words
Riley's POV
I pushed the door open slowly, my hand trembling around the handle. For a second, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe I was hallucinating from exhaustion and heartbreak.
But no.
The moment the door widened enough for me to see inside, reality slammed into me with brutal clarity.
Ethan—my husband—was inside. Inside Wendy. On his desk.
Her body was arched over, her blouse pushed to her shoulders, skirt bunched around her hips. His hands were gripping her waist, pulling her back into him, driving into her like he had no shame, no hesitation, no fear of being caught. Like he had done this a hundred times before.
Her moans were loud, echoing off the office walls, breathy and unrestrained. She wasn’t even pretending to be quiet. She wasn’t afraid of anyone hearing. She wasn’t afraid of anyone walking in.
And why would she be?
No one walks into the Alpha’s office without knocking.
No one except me.
They noticed me at once. Wendy’s head snapped toward me so fast her hair whipped across her cheek. Her face drained of color, lips still parted around a moan that died in her throat.
Ethan didn’t freeze but he didn’t pull away. He didn’t even bother to reach for his pants.
He just turned his head lazily toward me, still buried inside her, and stared like I’d interrupted him on something important.
His expression instead of guilt was filled with pure irritation, like I was an inconvenience.
My heart stopped. My mind blanked and my vision tunneled.
For a moment, all I could hear was my own heartbeat slamming against my ribs.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
I opened my mouth, but the words fought against the grief strangling my throat.
“Our son…” I whispered, barely audible. “He died today, Ethan.”
Tears instantly filled my eyes, spilling over my cheeks in silent, panicked streams as Wendy's hands scrambled to pull her blouse together, covering herself with trembling fingers.
Ethan finally, slowly, slipped out of her and pulled up his pants like he had all the time in the world. Like I was standing there asking him what he wanted for lunch. He moved with the same sluggish confidence he always had when he knew he was untouchable—the way most Alphas did.
I swallowed hard, but it felt like glass in my throat. “And you’re here,” I continued, my voice barely holding together, “f*****g Wendy? Your own stepsister?”
Wendy shook her head, stumbling away from the desk. “Riley—Riley, I’m so— I didn’t— I swear I thought—”
Her words tangled, collapsing over each other, but I couldn’t look at her yet. I couldn’t look at the woman who stood by the hospital bed just last night and only left very early this morning. The woman who held me when they took my baby into surgery. The woman who hugged me each time my baby was having one sickness or another.
She was family.
My best friend.
My confidant.
The person I trusted with everything I had left.
The betrayal cut deeper than any knife ever could. But then Ethan scoffed, and my attention snapped back to him.
“You think I care about your dead kid, Riley?” he said, irritation slicing through every syllable.
My heart… broke again. Right there. Like it hadn’t already been crushed enough.
He continued, stepping closer as if I were the problem.
“That’s all you’ve been for months—a walking tragedy. I’m tired of it. Tired of your crying. Tired of the hospitals. Tired of pretending I give a damn. You’re too boring, Riley!”
Wendy gasped, covering her mouth, horrified.
But he wasn’t done.
“You wanted sympathy? You wanted me to fall apart with you because of a child you managed to have but couldn’t even take care of? Sorry.” He shrugged. “I’ve got better things to do.”
The coldness in his voice seeped into my bones like ice water. It froze whatever warmth I had left. I stood there, staring at him, barely breathing, every cell in my body trembling from shock and rage and devastation.
“You…” I choked on my words. “You’re disgusting,” I whispered.
He smirked, the same arrogant Alpha smirk he used when belittling employees or dismissing problems he didn’t want to deal with. “You know you always hated how I was lazy, how I didn’t act like your fantasy perfect husband. Well, guess what? I’m done pretending.”
My nails dug so deep into my palms I felt something wet. I didn’t know if it was blood or sweat or both.
“Because that’s what you are, Ethan,” I said, voice breaking with each word. “I held everything together. Everything. Our child. Our business. Our home. While you—”
“While I what?” he cut in sharply. “Did nothing? Yeah. That’s right. And you yet stayed. So what does that say about you?”
I took a shaky breath.
He wasn’t finished.
“And honestly…” He leaned against the desk, folding his arms, eyes cruel. “You were always the pathetic one, Riley. Everyone knew it. Everyone felt sorry for me because of it. Maybe that’s why he died. Maybe the kid just wasn’t meant to survive with you.”
The world tilted in my head at once. The air was sucked from my lungs. My knees nearly buckled. A sound escaped me—something raw, wounded, unhuman. Something I had never heard myself make before.
“Ethan…” Wendy whispered, horrified. “Stop. Stop it—”
But he didn’t care.
He didn’t care about my shattered chest or the milk stains still on my dress from the last time I held my baby. He didn’t care that he had just used the death of our child—a child he barely acknowledged—to hurt me deeper than any man ever should.
Something snapped inside me at once, my hands moved before I could think and I gave him a heavy slap!
The slap echoed across the room. Ethan’s head snapped to the side from the force of it as genuine shock crossed his face.
A red mark slowly spread across his cheek and the room fell silent.
Wendy stared at me with wide eyes, frozen beside the desk, one hand clutching her half-buttoned blouse.
Ethan turned back slowly, touching his cheek with disbelief. Then his expression darkened.
“Have you lost your f*****g mind?” he hissed.
I stared straight at him, breathing hard. “No,” I said. “I think I just found it again.”
His jaw tightened. I could tell he wasn’t used to this version of me. Ethan was used to the woman who swallowed her anger. The woman who fixed problems quietly while he created them. The woman who chose peace over pride because she was too busy trying to save her marriage, her child, and her sanity all at once.
But that woman was gone. And whatever was left of me died the moment I walked into this office.
I wiped at my tears angrily and laughed once, a small, broken laugh that even sounded unfamiliar to my own ears.
“You know what’s funny?” I said. “All this time, I kept blaming myself. I thought maybe if I tried harder…” My voice cracked, but I forced myself to continue. “Maybe you’d finally love me the way I loved you.”
Ethan rolled his eyes impatiently. “You’re just—”
“No.” I cut him off sharply. “Don’t interrupt me.”
That seemed to irritate him more than the slap itself. His expression hardened instantly.
I took a step closer.
“I buried our child today while you were here f*ucking her.” I pointed at Wendy without sparing her a glance.
Wendy’s face crumpled instantly. “Riley, please…”
I ignored her completely. My eyes stayed locked on Ethan’s.
Then, slowly, I said the words that finally rose to the surface of my chest.
“I want a divorce, Ethan”
The silence after that was immediate.
Wendy looked between us anxiously. Ethan, however, only stared at me for two seconds before laughing. Actually laughing.
Mocking laughter.
It made something cold settle inside me.
“You’re serious?” he asked. “You want a divorce because you walked in on me f*****g another woman?”
This time, a slow smile curved his lips. And somehow, that expression unsettled me far more than all his shouting ever had.
“Go ahead,” he said casually. “File.”
“But before you do…” He reached for his phone on the desk, unlocked it, and tossed it toward me. “You should probably check the company records first.”
I caught the phone awkwardly and looked down at the screen.
Properties. Shares. Assets. Accounts.
Transferred. Moved. Signed over.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. So that was all I had ever been in this marriage—a joke. A fool too blind to see the game being played around her.
I lifted my gaze to meet his eyes.
The smug look on his face deepened instantly. He thought he had finally broken me.
He had underestimated me.
No. I wouldn’t lose. And I would never let a man like him hurt me again.
Who said divorce was the best revenge?
“I’m not divorcing you anymore.”
His brows lifted slightly.
A cold smile touched my lips.
“I want an open marriage.”
- Writer
