Divorce Failed My Wife's Secret Identities Shock the World novel Chapter 33

Maeve was speechless.

Should she tell Jasper she was currently living under the White family's roof?

Jasper, determined to make sure she didn't pick a fight with the wrong people, kept going. "The White family has been established for a century. Their power is a lot more complicated than it looks from the outside."

"Ever since Mr. Andres took over, Aethelburg's balance shifted. And if you want the reason…" Jasper's voice turned gossipy despite himself. "It has something to do with the romance Mr. Andres once had with Aethelburg's 'goddess.'"

Realizing he'd gone off on a tangent, Jasper pulled himself back. "Aethelburg is practically the political center of the country. Every family is tied to interest groups you don't even see. Maeve—do me a favor. Before you do anything, give me a heads-up first."

Maeve accepted the concern for what it was. "I hear you."

After she hung up, she sat staring at the screen for a long moment.

Jasper's careless comment echoed in her ears.

Andres once dated Aethelburg's "goddess"?

Between that, and Anya, Andres's love life sounded a lot more colorful than Maeve had assumed.

She didn't waste more time thinking about him. Instead, she got to work, hands steady as she slipped into the state's vital-records database.

That old bastard thought he could control her future with a marriage certificate. She wasn't about to let him have his way.

The Binding, huh?

In the hacker world, ZERO was a name spoken internationally—top of the food chain.

And almost no one knew she was ZERO.

Anya's award-winning system might be airtight in its niche, but against ZERO? It would get ground into the floor.

If Maeve could get into the registry and sever her legal tie to Andres, maybe the Binding would collapse on its own.

But from the moment Andres walked into 1908, he'd been somewhere else.

Five minutes ago, Hans had texted: Maeve had arrived at Azure Bay Villa with her luggage.

Starting tonight, Andres would be sharing a bed with a woman he didn't love—and barely knew. The feeling was… hard to name.

"Andres," someone said, "the guy who murdered your father is already behind bars. Why do you still look like you're at a funeral?"

The one who came over was Landon Hart—another friend.

Two decades ago, the Hart family had been untouchable in Aethelburg. "Calling the wind and summoning the rain" wouldn't have been an exaggeration. Their old patriarch had built an empire for his descendants.

After his death, the family's glory faded year by year, until it was a shadow of what it had been.

Landon, the most capable leader of the younger generation, had been steering them back toward relevance.