The Billionaire CEO Betrays his Wife: He wants her back-Chapter 149: The Judas’s deal

The question floated in the air like mist, soft and untouchable. Mara looked at him, unsure. Her heart beat a little faster. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to lean in and stop thinking, just feel, just be.

But living in the moment had cost her before.

It had gotten her married to Ethan. It had given her two children and taken one away.

She hesitated.

"Rafael..." she said slowly, wondering if this was another one of his jokes, something he’d laugh about in five seconds.

But he didn’t.

He stayed perfectly still. No pressure. No movement. Just his eyes on hers and his hands firmly planted at his sides, no boundary crossed.

He wanted the kiss, clearly, but only if she wanted it, too. Her chest rose and fell with quiet turmoil.

She wasn’t ready. Not fully. Not when guilt still wrapped around her like a second skin. It wasn’t just about Ethan. It was about everything. About loss. About who she used to be.

Rafael seemed to understand.

He stepped back with a smile, a genuine, unbothered one, and said, "I’ll check on Audrey and get you more chocolate tea. With cookies, of course."

He turned to go.

But Mara reached out and gently caught his hand.

He turned, brows raised.

"It’s okay," she whispered.

Before he could say another word, Mara leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. Her chest still trembled, and she cursed herself for how hard this was. But the kiss lingered, gentle, warm.

Rafael closed his eyes briefly, taking in her scent as he brushed his nose lightly along her cheek. God, he wanted more. Every fiber of his being screamed for more. But he didn’t move. He wouldn’t steal a moment not freely given.

Instead, he kissed her cheek back, just as softly, and smiled.

When Mara was alone, she cursed under her breath. "Why didn’t I just say yes..."

And when Rafael was alone in the kitchen, pouring water for the tea, he gripped the edge of the counter with white-knuckled restraint. Being near her, touching her even so briefly, had his body coiled tighter than a spring.

He sighed. "Chocolate tea and cold showers. That’s the new routine."

---

The mansion was too quiet. Too big. Too cold.

Ethan sat alone in his study, the whiskey in his glass untouched, his eyes locked on a photo. The picture was slightly worn, as if handled too often Baby Audrey, barely two months old, wrapped in a blanket Mara had sewn herself. Her eyes were wide open even then, already carrying that fierce, defiant spark from her mother.

He stared at it like it might speak.

One year.

A whole year since Mara had left without a word. A year since he last held Audrey. A year since Andrew died. Not this Andrew, not the one Lucy paraded around like a crown but the first one. The real one. His son.

His heart twisted.

He remembered how his world had revolved around that little boy. Every decision, every day, every hour had been built around him. And now that boy was buried, and the woman he truly loved had taken his daughter and vanished. Leaving him with... this.

Just then, the sound of high heels echoed down the hall.

Lucy entered the room, perfectly composed, dressed like a first lady on the campaign trail. And in her arms was the baby Andrew.

Her Andrew.

Her trump card.

Ethan’s eyes lifted slowly, not even sparing Lucy a glance. His gaze went straight to the boy.

Despite everything, his heart cracked a little.

Andrew was a quiet child soft around the edges, with a pair of deep brown eyes that always seemed to be watching the world like it confused him. Maybe he got that from Ethan.

Ethan rose, gently reaching out. "Come here, little man."

Lucy handed the baby over with a practiced smile, hoping for warmth, gratitude, anything.

She got nothing.

Ethan cradled Andrew with a tenderness that made her sick. Not because he loved the boy, but because he would never look at her the way he looked at that child.

He sat back down with Andrew in his lap, bouncing him slightly, whispering nonsense words under his breath. Lucy stood awkwardly at the side, watching this perfect little father-son image that didn’t include her.

"I need to talk to you," she said finally, voice tight.

He didn’t respond.

"Andrew... he needs to see the doctor."

That got his attention. His head snapped up.

"What for?"

"I... he hasn’t been feeling well. I noticed a few things and had some tests done. The results came in."

"You what?" Ethan roared, rising to his feet with Andrew still in his arms. "You ran tests on my son and didn’t tell me?"

"I was trying to avoid panic," Lucy replied calmly, too calmly, as if she’d practiced this in the mirror. "You’ve been distant. I didn’t think—"

"You didn’t think to tell his father?" he barked, storming past her. "We’re leaving. Now."

Lucy followed close behind, fury bubbling beneath her carefully painted face.

He hadn’t even looked at her.

Not once.

She had endured so much. Played the long game. Manipulated, plotted, survived. She gave him this child. She stayed behind when Mara fled. She stayed.

And yet, here he was, treating her like air. As if all her sacrifices were meaningless.

No.

She wouldn’t allow it.

Ethan Anderson would marry her. He would fulfill his duty. And if she had to force his hand through guilt, through secrets, through blackmail so be it.

She didn’t come this far to be invisible.

She adjusted her pearl earring as she followed Ethan and Andrew out the door, her smile returning slowly like a weapon being sheathed.

You will be mine, Ethan. No matter what it takes

—-

Power doesn’t fall in a day. It crumbles, crack by crack, until the whole empire is hollow and no one inside knows it’s already burning.

Mara knew this. She’d studied Philip’s kingdom like an anatomy chart. She wasn’t after blood yet. Not until she drained the very last drop of his wealth. And to do that?

She needed someone who knew where he hid the bones. Luis.

Philip’s personal accountant. Trusted for twelve years. A quiet man with weak eyes, trembling hands, and a gambling habit big enough to drown a country.

Mara didn’t threaten him. She understood him.

"You owe him your loyalty," she’d said softly in the candle-lit back room of a luxury hotel, "but you owe your son a future."

Luis had frozen. Blinked hard.

Mara placed a photo on the table: his child, in a school uniform, laughing beside a cracked fountain. "Philip doesn’t care if your son eats or rots. I do."

That’s when he broke.

He gave her everything.

Six vaults. All off-record. Hidden behind shell corporations and buried trusts. Three in Tagena, one in Cura, another in Bubai, and the last in a private vault beneath a factory in Salvador because Philip thought even God wouldn’t look there.

But God didn’t need to.

Mara did, and she remembered that factory, the same one that went into flames.

Like clockwork, Rafael’s team of ex-special ops, hackers, and a few ghosts from his past hit every vault within the same six-hour window. Not just stealing.

Erasing.

They didn’t leave fingerprints. They left burned documents, sabotaged hard drives, and corrupted thumbprints.

And the money?

Swept into a maze of offshore black holes before Philip even woke up.

By the time his team noticed the first missing vault, four were already gone. By the sixth, his men were turning on each other, knives out, everyone suspecting betrayal.

They were right.

Because someone had betrayed him.

And he didn’t know who.

Luis stood in Philip’s office, hands shaking, sweat crawling down his spine. He thought maybe he could lie. Maybe he could fake ignorance.

But Philip looked at him just once, and Luis knew the end was near.

Then—

BOOM.

The office doors blew open.

Smoke. Screams. Flash grenades.

Rafael walked in first, gun drawn. Silent.

Then Mara.

She didn’t need a gun. Just her presence.

Luis fell to his knees.

"I told her everything," he whispered. "Forgive me—"

Philip, stunned and bleeding from his temple, locked eyes with her.

"You," he rasped.

Mara stepped forward, calm, composed, dressed in the same black heels she wore to her son’s funeral.

"You had everything," she said. "And you took everything from me."

He laughed, broken and bitter. "You think money was power?"

"No," she said quietly. "Control was power."

She tossed a gold flash drive at his feet. On it: his entire fortune. Stolen. Laundered. And wired into a single trust under Andrew Shepherd’s name.

Her son’s legacy.

"I didn’t take your empire, Philip. You handed it to me when you underestimated a grieving mother."

Rafael stepped forward. "You want to kill him?"

Mara looked down at Philip, sweat, blood, fury, and fear all tangled on his face.