Chapter 29\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her voice was calm-no anger, no resentment, not even a ripple of emotion. Yet each word was sharper than any blade, striking one by one on Ethan Fletcher\u2019s already shattered heart:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan Fletcher, just look at you now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPathetic. And truly, what a joke.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She paused, her lips slightly parted, then spoke the words that killed whatever hope he had\u00a0<\/p>\n
left:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI once loved you, and that was the greatest shame of my entire life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease,\u201d her voice was firm and absolute, leaving no room for argument, \u201cleave my world forever.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She finished. Not giving him so much as a backward glance, she reached out, slid her arm around Derek\u2019s, and gently leaned against him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Derek wrapped his arm around her waist, shooting a cold, dismissive glance at Ethan Fletcher -who was still kneeling in the snow like a statue turned to stone by the wind. Holding Natalie close, Derek turned and walked with her toward the warm and bright glass house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Natalie never once looked back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan stayed there, frozen, still kneeling on the icy ground like a statue turned to stone by the\u00a0<\/p>\n
wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All he could do was watch as those two white figures, so perfectly matched, walked into the dreamy glass house. The door closed behind them with a soft click, shutting him out into the dark and cold, for good.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Above, the northern lights still danced gracefully, shifting in dazzling colors, so breathtakingly beautiful it hurt to look.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But no matter how bright they shone, not a trace of that light touched Ethan Fletcher\u2019s eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that instant the door closed, his entire world collapsed, falling into eternal night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAaaah-!!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A howl ripped from the bottom of his throat-sharp, animal, inhuman. It echoed across the silent ice field like the last desperate cry of a dying beast.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He fell backward into the snow, body curling up, convulsing with sobs so raw and desperate that despair seemed to tear him apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 29\u00a0<\/p>\n
212\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everything was over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019d lost her-completely, forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan Fletcher didn\u2019t leave Iceland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He drifted around a nearby town for two days, empty as a ghost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t eat, didn\u2019t sleep. All he did was drink, pouring liquor down his throat in a useless attempt to numb the agony. But it didn\u2019t work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the third day, he rented a better off-road car, bought a few bottles of hard liquor, and drove straight toward the depths of the great glacier.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He knew what that place meant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Death, or endless cold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He drove for hours, surrounded by nothing but a blinding expanse of white. At last, he stopped where the glacier was nothing but ancient ice and cutting wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Silence all around-only the howling of the wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ethan got out, standing in snow up to his calves. The freezing wind sliced at his face and his thin clothes like knives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He pulled out his phone, the screen sluggish in the cold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He dialed his assistant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The phone rang forever before it picked up. His assistant\u2019s voice was frantic. \u201cMr. Fletcher! Where are you? We\u2019ve been looking everywhere! The company-\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cListen,\u201d Ethan cut him off. His voice was calm. Too calm. Like all the emotion had burned away, leaving nothing but dead ashes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDissolve the Fletcher Group\u2019s core management team. Freeze all my assets. Then, use the money to set up a charity fund.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He paused, breathing in air so cold it stabbed his lungs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cName it\u2026 the Natalie Fund. For the independence of women everywhere, and\u2026 for art and design.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His voice was soft, but his tone was absolute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t look for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 29\u00a0<\/p>\n
He hung up before his assistant could say a word.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then he threw the phone-hard-as far as he could, straight into a deep, bottomless crack in\u00a0<\/p>\n
the ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The phone spun through the air and vanished into that endless blue. No sound, no echo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He stood there, stripped off his soaking, frozen suit jacket, and tossed it onto the snow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next came his dress shirt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All that was left on his upper body was a white undershirt, skin already turning purple in the\u00a0<\/p>\n
subzero cold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He felt nothing. Not the pain, not the cold. Only a strange, peaceful lightness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He thought of the way Natalie looked at him, that last time-nothing but pity and disgust.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He thought of her saying, \u201cLoving you was my greatest shame.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He thought of her leaving with another man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He laughed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A twisted smile-uglier than tears-pulled at his lips.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And then he walked, step by steady step, deeper into the glacier. Into the cold. Into the dark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every breath stabbed like needles in his chest. His mind started to go fuzzy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a moment, he thought he saw her-not far away, standing there in the fiery red dress she\u2019d worn the first time they met. She was smiling, bright as a rose blooming in snow, reaching out to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNatalie\u2026\u201d Ethan murmured, a faint smile on his lips as he reached for the vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time\u2026 I won\u2019t trouble you again\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll use my life\u2026 to atone to you\u2026 Is that enough\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His voice grew softer and softer, until the wind carried it away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His body finally gave out. He collapsed, face-down on the eternal ice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The cold closed in, sharp as knives. And then everything-light, sound, pain\u2014was gone, swallowed up by darkness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woke Up and Left the Cage of My Marriage 29 Chapter 29\u00a0 Her voice was calm-no anger, no resentment, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-woke-up-and-left-the-cage-of-my-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}