Reclaimed By My Ex-husband-Chapter 63: You are a monster, not a father.

Zara didn’t flinch. Slowly, she leaned forward despite the searing pain in her body, locking her gaze onto Isaac’s.

"Then why didn’t you let him kill me?" she spat with unwavering defiance. "Why stop him at all? Just finish this damn game already. I’m tired."

For a second, his hand shot up in rage, ready to strike her again. But he froze midway. His fingers curled into a tight fist, trembling with fury.

Instead of hitting her, he pointed a finger in her face and hissed, "Don’t worry. Once we get the money, he will end it for you. We can’t let you walk out of here alive."

A cruel sneer stretched across his face, and for a moment, the malice in his eyes burned brighter than ever.

"Let me tell you a little secret," he said, taking a slow step toward her. "I never loved your mother."

His words were deliberate, cruelly chosen to wound. "I married her because of the inheritance she was going to get from her family. That was it. My heart always belonged to Lina."

Zara’s battered face grew taut, her expression hardening as the weight of his words sank in. The revelation was both shattering and enraging.

"You... you cheated on her?" she choked out.

"That’s not cheating," he said smugly. "I was with the woman I loved. Your mother? She was just convenient. Gullible. Obsessed with me."

He chuckled dryly. "She did everything to please me. She gave me her money, her property, and her trust. She invested everything she had to help build the company. She made it what it is today. And things were perfect... until she found out about Lina."

Zara sat frozen, as if every part of her had gone numb. The man in front of her, her father, was a stranger, ruthless, calculating.

Her bruised features twisted further as the revelation took a darker turn. The thought of her mother being betrayed so cruelly was almost too much to bear.

"She... she knew?"

The image of her mother discovering the betrayal, the pain she might have silently endured, twisted Zara’s insides. She couldn’t imagine the heartbreak.

Isaac nodded, his tone disturbingly calm. "Yes. She knew."

There was no shame, no hesitation, no guilt—just a cold truth delivered without empathy.

"But a few well-placed apologies, some carefully chosen words of regret, and she forgave me," he said. "I swore I’d cut ties with Lina. And I did—at least for a while. I stopped contacting her for months, just to convince your mother I was sincere."

His lips curled into a cruel smile. "But that was all part of the plan. I didn’t want forgiveness. I wanted freedom."

Zara’s stomach twisted violently. The sinister glint in his eyes made her skin crawl, a cold dread creeping over her limbs.

"What do you mean? Did you... did you kill her?"

Isaac shrugged, feigning innocence. "What are you talking about? She died of a heart attack. Don’t you remember?"

But the glimmer in his eyes betrayed him.

Zara froze, her heart screaming in denial.

He stepped closer, voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Since you’ll be seeing her soon after you die here, tell her I’m sorry." His gaze held no remorse. "I was exhausted of pretending, of being trapped in a loveless marriage. I wanted Lina. So I did what I had to."

He finally revealed the secret he had kept locked in his heart for so long. "I started giving her a little something every day. Just enough to weaken her heart, slowly, unnoticeably."

Zara’s mouth went dry, horror etching every line of her face as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

"You... you killed her," she whispered, "just to be with that woman? Why? If you didn’t love her, why not just divorce her?"

Isaac scoffed, as if her question was laughably naïve. "Divorce?" he repeated. "If I divorced her, she’d take half the company. And she had a life insurance policy worth ten million. Why would I walk away from all that?"

"I can’t believe this..." Zara shook her head, disbelief and fury mixing in her blood. "You killed her for money. Just for a few million..."

Her chest heaved with emotion, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Rage, heartbreak, and disgust churned inside her like a storm.

"You’ll rot in hell," she spat. "You’ll never find peace."

"Shut up!" Isaac roared, his face twisting with fury. He stormed forward and struck her again. "You ungrateful brat. How dare you curse me?"

In his rage, he kicked the leg of the chair she was bound to. It tipped violently, and Zara’s body hit the hard ground with a sickening thud. Her limbs, still tied, couldn’t protect her from the impact.

A jolt of pain tore through her abdomen, stealing the breath from her lungs. "Ahh—" she cried out.

Isaac froze. For a brief second, the rage faded from his eyes, replaced by a flicker of worry. He instinctively stepped forward, his hand half-raised, as if to help her.

Bang

A gunshot exploded, rattling the place. Isaac flinched, his eyes widening in terror. He turned and bolted out of the room without caring about her.

Zara lay on the floor, her breath ragged. "My baby..."

A warm wetness spread beneath her.

"No... no, no, no..." she sobbed. "Not again..."

The pain was unbearable. Her vision blurred, consciousness slipping through.

She whispered, "I’m sorry... Mommy is so sorry... I couldn’t protect you..."

Outside the room...

Nathaniel and his team had already arrived at the abandoned factory. They crouched behind a line of rusted-out cars on the outskirts of the factory. The building loomed like a skeleton of steel and concrete, its broken windows and cracked walls hiding God-knows-what inside.

Through his earpiece, a voice whispered, "Two on the east wall, both armed."

Nathaniel’s sharp eyes scanned the perimeter. A pair of goons paced lazily near a dented steel barrel, rifles slung carelessly in their hands, unaware they were already being hunted.

He gave a subtle hand signal.

Like shadows, his men fanned out. One silently scaled the half-collapsed scaffolding, another slithered low through the brush. In seconds, two suppressed shots cracked. The guards dropped where they stood, their bodies crumpling like rag dolls.

Nathaniel didn’t slow. He sprinted toward the factory, ducking low and weaving between cover. His team closed in behind him, silent, swift, efficient.

At the main entrance, a third guard stood smoking. He barely turned before a gloved hand wrapped around his mouth, dragging him backward. He didn’t make a sound.

Inside, the air was colder. Dust floated in beams of pale light spilling from holes in the roof. The silence was broken by faint voices as the rest of the guards were taken down.

Nathaniel raised his fist.

They split again. The corridor opened into a vast loading bay. Five armed men stood around a makeshift table. Before any of them could react, the team struck swift takedowns, one after another, in close-quarter combat.

The sound of fists connecting flesh and muffled grunts filled the air. While his team was dealing with them, Nathaniel moved, pressing forward into the maze of corridors.

Then, suddenly, gunfire rang out. A bullet tore through the air, grazing the corner just inches from his head. He dove to the side, his back slamming against the cracked concrete wall.

"You?" A man barked. "Since you came here, you will never escape this place." He raised the gun and fired.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺