Divorced, Now Watch Me Rise novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Brogan's POV

Brogan's POV

Dalton came up the last flight of stairs with a dark bruise on his jaw, and I stood up to meet him.

I did not hurry.

I had spent the night on that third stair thinking about what I'd say if he came, and in the end I said very little.

I put my shoulder against the wall and let him see that the landing was full.

"Get out of my way, Brogan."

"No."

"She's my wife."

"She's mine, by the county's paperwork. You filed for the divorce, you may recall."

Behind him, a door opened on the floor below.

Then another opened, and a third.

Two women in bathrobes and a man in a hockey jersey stood in the stairwell with their phones up.

Dalton looked at them, and then at me.

His voice came down, quick and low.

"I know about the clause. Mother told me at two in the morning. I was drunk on Sunday, Brogan. Everyone knows I was drunk."

"You weren't drunk."

"I'll say I was. I'll say I never meant it. I'll say she hit me first." He was breathing in gulps. "Tell the lawyer it doesn't count. Tell her to take it back."

"Say it louder," I said. "The neighbors are on every landing."

He turned to the open doors.

"The baby is mine!" he shouted. "It's mine, do you hear me? It's my child, it was always my child, and I want it back!"

His voice cracked against the stairwell walls.

On the floor below, a woman said, very clearly, "Did you get that?"

"I got it," the man in the jersey said.

Dalton froze.

I watched him hear himself.

"You admitted it," I said. "You said it on Sunday night in front of two witnesses that it wasn't yours, and you said it just now on camera that it is. Vera will have a very hard time telling a court which of those was a lie."

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