The Unwanted Husband Returns To The Top

The Uber app glowed on the cracked screen of his phone.

Two hours remaining.

Connor's breath hitched. Three years. One thousand and ninety-five days of this self-imposed exile, this test of endurance orchestrated by a dying grandfather's will. All to prove he was worthy of an empire he never asked for. The Hoffman empire.

It all came down to these last two hours.

He took a deep, steadying breath, the worn fabric of his Toyota Camry's driver's seat a familiar weight against his back. It was a rental he'd been using for the final weeks of the test, another layer of anonymity. His finger hovered over the screen, then accepted the ride.

The last one.

The navigation lit up, directing him to the Olympus Spire, the most opulent residential tower in Ninverton. A bitter smile touched his lips. He knew the building. He'd attended the groundbreaking ceremony with his grandfather a decade ago, a lifetime away.

He pulled up to the curb. The rear doors opened, and two figures slid into the back. He kept his eyes forward, his worn baseball cap pulled low and a disposable face mask covering the lower half of his face-a common sight for drivers in the city. He offered the rote greeting he'd repeated thousands of times, deliberately pitching his voice a little lower.

"Good evening. Heading to the Spire?"

A woman's voice, a silken murmur that sent a shard of ice through his veins, answered.

"Yes, thank you."

Genevieve. His wife. She was too lost in her companion's gaze to even glance at the driver.

A man's voice, low and possessive, followed. Jett Maddox. Ninverton's golden boy, the ambitious scion of the Donovan family's local branch, who'd built his empire on stolen code and ruthless ambition.

"Step on it, driver. We're in a hurry."

Connor's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. He glanced at the rearview mirror, and his world fractured.

Genevieve was nestled against Jett, her head on his shoulder, her hand resting intimately on his thigh. The sight sucked the air from his lungs, leaving a hollow, aching void.

"I can't believe Clarissa's wedding is tomorrow," Genevieve sighed, her voice dripping with a familiar, cloying sweetness he now recognized as poison. "I have to spend the whole night playing the perfect wife to that useless husband of mine."

Jett chuckled, a low rumble of contempt. "Still driving that piece of junk for a living? I thought his accident would have made that impossible."

"What else?" Genevieve's laugh was brittle. "He's a ghost, Jett. A cripple. He lives in my parents' house, eats their food, and contributes nothing. He's a walking embarrassment."

Connor's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. Each word was a precise, surgical cut.

"Don't worry," Jett murmured, his lips brushing her temple. The reflection in the mirror was a grotesque parody of intimacy. "After the wedding, you file for divorce. I'll set you up. You'll never have to look at that failure again."

"Promise?" Genevieve whispered.

Her promise was answered not with words, but with a kiss. Deep and hungry. Right there, in the backseat of her husband's car. They moved against each other, the sounds of their passion filling the small space, a suffocating, obscene soundtrack to his life's implosion.

Connor's stomach churned. He focused on the road, on the yellow lines illuminated by his headlights. He drove. That's all he did. He drove as his marriage, his three years of sacrifice, turned to ash in his mouth.

He pulled up to the gleaming entrance of the Olympus Spire.

Jett broke away from Genevieve, his face flushed. He pulled a few crumpled bills from his pocket and tossed them onto the front passenger seat.

"Here you go, driver," he said, his voice thick with condescension. "A little tip. Try not to be as useless as my friend's husband."

Genevieve got out without a single glance in his direction, her hand already linked with Jett's as they disappeared into the lobby.

The doors closed, sealing Connor in a tomb of silence and betrayal.

He stared at their retreating figures until they were gone. The fire he had suppressed for three long years finally ignited, a white-hot rage that burned away the pain, leaving something cold and hard in its place.

His phone buzzed. A text from Genevieve.

Staying at a friend's tonight. Don't wait up.

A laugh, raw and humorless, escaped his lips. He picked up the crumpled bills-Jett's charity-and slowly, deliberately, tore them into tiny pieces.

Then, a different phone rang. His personal one. A sleek, encrypted device hidden in the glove compartment. The number was blocked.

He answered.

An elderly, respectful voice spoke, a voice he hadn't heard in three years. "Mr. Wise, sir."

Finchley Abernathy. The Hoffman family's majordomo.

"The final three minutes have passed, sir," Finchley's voice was laced with an almost imperceptible tremor of emotion. "The test is officially over."

Connor closed his eyes. The weight of a thousand days lifted from his shoulders.

"The board of the Hoffman Group has voted unanimously," Finchley continued. "As of 9 a.m. tomorrow, you will officially assume the position of Global CEO."

Connor listened, the humiliation and rage on his face slowly receding, replaced by an expression of absolute, chilling authority. He opened his eyes and looked at the Olympus Spire, at Jett Maddox's monument to his own ego.

"Finchley," he said, his voice quiet but resonant with newfound power. "I need all the information you can find on Jett Maddox and Donovan Industries' Ninverton operations."

"Of course, sir. It will be in your secure inbox within five minutes."

Connor ended the call. He started the car, the engine a low growl in the quiet night. He didn't leave.

He pulled up the photo on his phone's lock screen. A picture of him and Genevieve on their wedding day. Her smile was radiant. His was a lie.

His thumb pressed the delete button. The image vanished.

He dialed her number. It picked up on the third ring, her voice breathless and annoyed.

"What is it, Connor?"

Three years of chains, forged from a dying man's will, shattered by a single, sordid kiss. The man they knew was a cage he had built around himself. And the beast within was finally, finally free. He used a voice she had never heard before. Cold. Final.

"Genevieve," he said. "We need to talk about a divorce."

He put the car in gear, made a sharp U-turn, and drove away from the Spire, heading toward the Barlowe family estate. A storm was coming to Ninverton.