The Billionaire CEO Betrays his Wife: He wants her back-Chapter 124: She is not real

The late afternoon sun filtered through sheer curtains, casting warm light across the room where Mara sat, curled up on the window bench with a book in her lap she hadn’t turned a page of in over an hour. Ethan then Rafael, Memories.

Mara sensed him before he knocked. The door creaked open slowly. Stanley stepped in, his expression unreadable. Mara blinked, smiling softly.

"You’re quiet. That’s never a good sign with you." Stanley offered a ghost of a smile but didn’t sit. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and Mara’s instincts stirred.

"What is it?" she asked, heart skipping. "Stanley?"He finally spoke, voice heavy.

"It’s Rhina." The name hit her chest like a soft thud. "What about her?"

He looked at her now. Direct. Honest. And Mara already knew. Her stomach dropped.

"She’s been working with Philip."

Silence. "What?" Mara whispered, blinking as if the words hadn’t landed right.

Stanley stepped closer. "We found a money trail. Steve confirmed it. She’s been receiving payments from one of Philip’s shell companies. She admitted it to me last night he sent her here to infiltrate the family. To get to you, to us."

Mara’s breath caught in her throat. "She... she looked me in the eye and told me she was happy you made her feel safe."

"She lied to me." Stanley nodded slowly. "She says she didn’t plan to fall for me. That what she felt was real. But Stef, she had instructions. And she followed them until now."

Mara stood up, her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold everything in. "Why does it always feel like people only come close to us to destroy us?" she said softly, voice cracking. "Were you just... a mission to her?"

Stanley’s face softened with guilt. "I don’t think it started that way, I don’t even know what to think but we know Uncle Philip... he poisons everything." A tear slid down Mara’s cheek, and she brushed it away quickly.

"She knew what he did to us. She knew what he cost this family. And she still worked for him. Stanley this woman is carrying your baby," Stanley moved to her side, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I’m sorry, Stef, I should have known better." Mara let out a shaky breath and looked up, eyes tired but blazing.

"What are you going to do, Stanley? We must end whatever Philip is planning. Because I swear... I’m not going to be anyone’s pawn again." And just like that, the fire in her returned.

Not from revenge. From survival.

—

The room was small, sterile, and cold. But to Philip Shepherd, it was simply another office. Another battlefield. And every pawn he placed was a part of his masterpiece.

He sat at the table, hands folded neatly. A smug smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as the prison guard stepped out, leaving him alone with his visitor.

A man in a suit entered lean, clean-cut, with a manila envelope under his arm. "They’re onto Rhina," the man said quickly, without sitting. Philip didn’t blink.

"Of course they are," he replied coolly. "I expected them to be faster, frankly."

"She confessed. To Stanley. Steve traced the payments."

"And?"

"She’s turning. She might flip on you." Philip let out a soft laugh, low and bitter.

"Let her. Her role is finished." He reached into the envelope and pulled out a new file photos, names, maps. He slid it across the table.

"It’s time to push the next piece forward."

"And your niece?" the man asked.

"No," Philip said, dark eyes glittering. "Stefania is the endgame. This next one..."

"This one hits their heart. The brother who’s too good. The one no one suspects."

"Stefan?" Philip nodded once.

"He’s clean. Too innocent. Let’s fix that." He leaned back, gaze unblinking.

"We give the world something to question. A scandal. A slip-up. I don’t care how clean his record is everyone bleeds under pressure."

"And Stefania?" the man asked again, quietly. Philip’s smile twisted into something darker. "She took everything from me. I’ll take everything from her and make her watch." The door opened suddenly. A guard returned.

"Time’s up, Shepherd." Philip stood slowly, buttoned his prison shirt like it was a designer blazer, and whispered as he walked past the guard:

"Time is mine."

—

Somewhere downtown in an abandoned Lot at about 2:03 A.M.

Rhina’s breaths were ragged as she crouched behind a rusted crate, her phone shaking in her hand. Her chest was tight, every inch of her body screaming in fear but she couldn’t stop. Not now.

She’d intercepted the message meant for one of Philip’s men.

"Shepherd target number 2: Dr. Stefan. Hospital locker. Setup clean. Anonymous tip drops at 6 A.M."

They were framing Stefan for drug trafficking, something that would ruin his license, his name, his soul. Rhina knew what it meant to be used. But she wouldn’t let it happen to Stefan. Not to the only family that gave her love.

Not to Stanley.

She sent the message to Steve. A pin. The locker number. The warning. Then she ran.

Steve is home, going through some case file when his phone buzzed once. He frowned, unlocking it. When he read the message, his face went cold. "Stanley!" he shouted, already heading toward the main hall. Stanley came running, hair tousled from sleep. "What is it?"

Steve showed him the phone. "It’s Rhina. She’s trying to stop something. Stefan’s in danger." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

Stanley’s heart dropped, Stefan is at the hospital and Stanford is fast asleep. "Where is she?"

"She’s already there." Steve replied. "I will get the car, and wake Stanford up," Stanley said running back upstairs to change, trying hard not to wake Mara up. The three brothers drove out of the mansion, as the weight of what this could mean weigh on them.

—-

Rhina reached the car just as one of Philip’s men stepped out of the shadows gun already drawn pointing at her she froze with her hands up in surrender. "You just couldn’t stay out of it, could you?" he hissed.

Rhina stood her ground, trembling, hands still raised. "Don’t do this. I’ll disappear. I’ll never talk. Please..."

He scoffed. "It’s not about you anymore. It’s about sending a message." And then a shot rang out. She gasped, stumbling backward.

Blood bloomed across her shirt. Another shot, the brothers hear the shot and runs to the place, but it was too late Stanford tackled the man from behind, fists flying in rage. Steve arrived next, disarming him, and holding him down.

Stanley turned to Rhina, cradling her as she collapsed into his arms. "No. No, no, no—stay with me, Rhina look at me."

Her lips trembled. "I’m sorry... I was trying to fix it..."

"You did, baby. You did. Just hold on help is coming, okay?" She reached for his hand, pressing it to her belly.

"Our baby... I’m sorry, I love you Stan–" And then she went still. Stanley screamed her name. By the time the police and ambulance arrived, Rhina had no pulse, and Stanley rode with them to the hospital.

Stanley sat on the floor, arms wrapped around himself, eyes empty. Steve and Stanford stood by the door, watching their brother break, guilt thick in the room.

Stefan entered slowly, eyes red from what almost happened. He crouched beside Stanley.

"She saved my life." Stanley nodded slowly.

"And I couldn’t save hers." By evening, the Shepherd brothers had one plan: Burn every last one of Philip’s men to the ground.

They weren’t waiting for law or mercy. Philip may have been locked in a cell but his war just crossed a line. And the Shepherds? They were done playing nice.

Stanley held it together when they arrived home, Mara sensed something but the brothers brushed it off telling her to get enough rest since it was the weekend. "I might call Vera, so we could hang out so the four of you can keep hiding whatever you are hiding, I’m watching you guys I will know," Mara said with a bowl of cereal in her hand, if only they had told her pregnancy was actually more than a full-time job, she would have spiked her mind in preparation.

The brothers watch her as she moves herself upstairs. Mara turns to see them still standing still, she shakes her head and leaves.

Later that night Stanley stood in the center of the concrete space, dressed in black. His knuckles were wrapped, jaw clenched. Steve, Stefan, and Stanford flanked him. No suits. No pretense. Just fire in their eyes. To protect Mara, they hid the truth from her even when she could sense it.

"We hit them tonight," Steve said. "Three warehouses, four key men, one delivery route."

"Make it clean," Stefan added. "No bodies. Just silence."

"I want him to feel it," Stanley growled. "Every breath his men take, I want him to know they’re only alive because we allow it."

"He took my baby," Stanely said quietly. "And he almost took Stefan."

Steve nodded. "Then let’s finish what she started." They were standing in front of the entrance of the first warehouse. It started with smoke.

Then came the black SUVs. Before the guards could draw their weapons, Stanford and Steve had them pinned down, disarmed, and unconscious.

The crates marked supplies were rigged with explosives. Not to kill.

To send a message. A loud, violent message.

Boom.

Half the warehouse went up in a flash of fire. Steve tossed a burner phone onto the ground. "Tell your boss we are done playing defense." They ran off before the police came, the first mission done, two more to go.

The second target was trickier. Philip’s tech guy. The one who managed accounts, wiped records, buried trails. He never saw Stefan coming. Stefan entered through the back, gloved and calm.

"You were part of setting me up."

"I—I was just following instructions!"

"Then follow this—" Stefan jabbed a syringe into his neck, a fast-acting sedative. They left him tied to a pole with every detail of Philip’s operation dumped on a USB and nailed to his chest.

The last one was Philip’s right-hand man wasn’t so lucky. Stanley stood on the rooftop edge, one foot pressed against the man’s chest, holding him over the railing.

"She was carrying my child," Stanley growled. "It wasn’t personal—"

"You made it personal when you pulled the trigger."

"Philip will never stop—he’ll burn this city before he lets you win!" Stanley’s eyes burned like wildfire. "Then let him try." He pulled the man back—not to save him. To knock him out.

As sirens echoed in the distance, Stanley turned to Steve. "Now... we go for Philip."