The Officer's Runaway Wife and Secret Son novel Chapter 474

“Clara,” Rhys said, his voice low and heavy as he gripped her wrist.

Clara turned her hand over and patted the back of his twice.

“It’s fine. Go.”

Rhys stared at her for a moment.

“Five minutes,” he said, releasing her. He bent down, scooped Felix into his arms, pressed the boy’s face against his shoulder, and turned to leave.

After they had gone some distance, the noise of the arcade faded slightly. Felix, perched on Rhys’s broad shoulder, looked back.

“Daddy, why aren’t Mommy and Aunt Margot coming?” he asked, confused.

Rhys’s temple throbbed. “Who told you she was your Aunt Margot?”

Felix reached into the pocket of his puffer jacket and pulled out a faded old photograph.

“Isn’t she Daddy’s sister? That makes her Aunt Margot.”

Rhys’s gaze fell on the picture, and his breath caught in his throat.

-

Clara watched Rhys walk away before turning to face Margot.

Margot watched with a detached expression as Clara approached, stopped in front of her, raised her hand, and landed a solid slap across her face.

The force of the blow was so great that the sharp crack of it momentarily drowned out the electronic chimes of the nearby claw machine.

Several parents in the vicinity gasped, pulling their own children a little farther away.

Margot let out a dry laugh. “Ever since you came back to Brighton City, it seems all I do is get hit.”

“That slap was for taking my child without a word,” Clara said, her voice calm. “As his mother, it’s a warning I had to give you.”

Margot lowered her head, a smirk twisting her lips. “You know perfectly well that if I’d really wanted to do anything to him, you wouldn’t be seeing him now.”

Clara replied, “That only proves you haven’t gone completely insane yet.”

Margot glanced in the direction Rhys and Felix had gone.

“I wasn’t going to do anything. He’s very cute.”

Margot staggered back, bumping into the claw machine behind her.

A normal life.

For her, those words were an impossible luxury.

After the car accident, everyone pitied her, but they also despised her.

She had loved him for reaching out to her when she was in the abyss.

And she hated him for being the one who had caused it all.

She had desperately clung to him, but in the end, Clara had pulled Rhys up and away from her.

“Rhys nearly died to pay back what he owed you,” Clara said without a trace of mercy. “I don’t care what your relationship with Owen is, but you won’t be taking anything else from me.”

Margot bit her lower lip so hard that she drew blood.

“Crawl back into your own pit. And don’t you ever show your face in front of my family again.”