My Husband Faked Our Marriage So I Destroyed His Empire Chapter 08
Seven days after Whitmore Group and Shaw Group fully collapsed, I returned to the country to handle the remaining assets.
I sat at an outdoor cafe by the river.
Wind skimmed across the water, carrying a faint chill.
Sunlight fell warm and bright over my shoulders.
A familiar, ruined figure walked over and sat down across from me.
It was Lydia.
Her hair was messy, bruises stood out on her face, and her clothes were worn and cheap.
All the elegance and arrogance she once had as the woman who ruled the Shaw household were gone.
Exhaustion filled her eyes, but when she looked at me, there was still unwillingness there.
I did not look up. I stirred my coffee slowly.
“How did you find me?”
Lydia laughed once.
“Evelyn, I underestimated you. You’re much stronger than your mother.”
At last, I lifted my eyes and looked at her coldly.
I said nothing.
“Your mother was weak and kind. All she knew how to do was cry in silence. I stole the title she waited eighteen years for, took the shares she legally owned, and ruined her reputation. Even at death’s door, she could only cry. She never dared fight back.”
Lydia tapped her fingers lightly against the table, her voice low and hoarse.
“But you’re different.”
“You knew what Chloe and Adrian had done, didn’t you?”
“You endured it. Then, when you struck, you dragged me, Chloe, your father, and Adrian all into hell. Not one of us escaped.”
“The Shaw family is gone. Whitmore Group is finished. My daughter is hated by everyone while holding a child. Your father is lying in a hospital waiting to die. Everything I spent my life scheming for is gone because of you.”
She looked at me and slowly nodded.
“You’re ruthless. Decisive. Clever. I, Lydia, spent my whole life fighting, and I don’t feel wronged losing to you.”
I set down my coffee cup. My eyes held no warmth.
“You lost, not because I was ruthless.”
“You lost because everything you had was built on something rotten. Ugly things always come to light.”
“You destroyed my mother.”
“You let Chloe push me down the stairs and scatter my mother’s ashes. You built your comfortable life on the blood and tears of my mother and me.”
“You think I’m cruel? Did you ever show mercy to us?”
Lydia’s face went pale. Her lips moved, but she had no answer.
“My mother was generous, and because of that, she suffered her whole life and died with hatred in her heart.”
My voice was calm, each word sharp as a blade.
“I won’t learn from her. Whoever hurts me, I destroy. Whoever owes me, I take back double.”
“Didn’t you say you admired me?”
My mouth curved into a cold smile.
“Then watch closely.”
Watch everything you spent your life clawing for turn to nothing.
Watch the daughter you treasured pay the worst price for her malice and vanity.
Watch every scheme you ever made end in betrayal, isolation, and ruin.
Lydia clenched her fists, her nails digging deep into her palms.
Hatred flashed in her eyes, then collapsed beneath total helplessness.
She slumped back in her chair and murmured:
“I lost… I really lost… If your mother had been half as ruthless as you, I never would have had a chance.”
“My mother didn’t need to be ruthless.”
I stood, smoothing my clothes, and looked down at her.
“She was clean. She was kind. She never hurt anyone. She lived honestly and openly.”
“That is something you will never match. Not in this lifetime.”
I turned and left.
Sunlight fell over me, warm and bright.
Behind me, Lydia finally broke down, covering her face as she sobbed by the river.
She had beaten my mother for half a lifetime and stolen everything that should have been ours.
In the end, she lost completely.
She had nothing left.
After finishing everything in the country, I boarded another flight to France.
I took out my phone and looked one last time at the city where I had lived for more than twenty years.
Then I held down the power button.
All the past, all the hatred, all the pain.
Blocked.
Deleted.
Forgotten.
From then on, the sky was wide and the road was mine.
Everyone who had hurt my mother and me received the ending they deserved.
Adrian lost his company, reputation, wealth, and status. He was buried in debt and had nowhere to go.
Because he forged a marriage certificate, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
In prison, he wrote on the wall every day.
When the guards came to check, they found the wall covered densely with the same words:
I’m sorry.
Later, people said he had gone mad.
He repeated the same things over and over.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“My wife is Evelyn. Stop lying to me.”
Before his sentence was finished, he took his own life in prison.
Chloe, holding her child, was hated by everyone.
She had no money and could only struggle to survive in a run-down rental, sinking to the bottom of society and paying dearly for her cruelty and vanity.
The child could not survive in that environment.
Three months later, he died.
Chloe disappeared soon after, and no one heard from her again.
Evelyn’s father lay paralyzed in the hospital. After the company went bankrupt, his caregiver ran off, leaving him unattended.
When he was found, he was already dead, his body reeking.
When the nurses cleaned him up, they found the bed covered in dried filth, disgusting beyond words.
Lydia was abandoned by everyone. Sick and wounded, chased by debt collectors, she spent her days hiding from place to place.
In the end, while fleeing, she fell from a building.
By the time the ambulance arrived, she was dead.
I sat on the plane and looked at the cloudless sky outside.
Slowly, I let out a long breath.
Now, every hatred had been settled.
Every wound had been answered.
Every debt had been collected.
I was finally free.
I finally did not have to love him anymore.
From now on, there would be no more Evelyn trapped by love, bending herself into something small.
There would only be Evelyn, living for herself.
Decisive.
Uncompromising.
Radiant.
The wind has carried me across.
The old ties are severed.
I leave the past behind.
And I will never return.