The Billionaire's Mistake (Anya and Daniel)

Chapter 167: To be Abandoned.

realized he no longer cared with unconditional adoration

And somewhere deep in the hollows of his shattered psyche, B to decipher it. The family he had once loved and looked up to

was severed…broken beyond all hope of repair.

Martin Jones felt the tension gradually begin to seep from his body as he settled back against the crisp hospital pillows. The past few hours had been utterly surreal – being visited by the detectives, recounting every agonizing detail of Gina’s betrayal, learning that she had already made an attempt on his life through a hired hitman.

But the officers‘ parting words had brought him a sense of relief he hadn’t realized he so desperately needed to hear.

“We’ve got them both in custody now, Mr. Jones,” Detective Carr had stated in a tone of grim satisfaction. “Your wife and her accomplice are going away for a long time for what they put you through.”

Knowing that Gina was finally facing real consequences for her deplorable actions helped to ease the lingering sense of fear and vulnerability that had plagued Martin. He was safe now, he reminded himself. Those intent on snuffing out his life for monetary gain were neutralized and would soon be brought to justice

A quiet rap at the door drew his attention, and Martin watched as a young nurse’s aide poked her head into the room with a warm smile.

“Good evening, Mr. Jones,” she said in a chipper tone. “I’m just doing my regular rounds to check in with our patients. Is there anything I can get for you this evening? Something to eat or drink, perhaps?”

Martin considered the offer for a moment before giving a small shake of his head. “No, thank you. I’m feeling quite alright for now.”

The aide made a note on her clipboard before pausing, tilting her head inquisitively. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir…have you had any visitors come by yet to see you since your recovery? Only, I want to be sure I direct them to your new room if needed.”

–

Martin felt his brow furrow slightly as he considered her words. It was true throughout his entire ordeal of regaining consciousness and relaying his statement to the authorities, not a single familiar face from his life beforehand had appeared at his bedside.

“Well, my…wife was here earlier,” he replied slowly, feeling a reflexive pang of resentment at being forced to refer to Gina that way. “But other than the officers, no. I can’t say I’ve had anyone else stop by.”

The aide’s expression morphed into one of surprise and concern. “No other family? Not even your children?”

Chapter 16/ Terbe Abandoned.

He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from leaking into his tone. “If you’re referring to my nieces left by my late sister….no, they haven’t bothered to look in on me. Not that I’m necessarily shocked by that.”

His relationship with Anya and Emma had become strained practically from the moment he had fallen for – and subsequently married – Gina all those years ago. His nieces had never approved of his wife, nor did they like his children or his mother. Their relationship was just that bad.

While a part of Martin had hoped his near–brush with death might cause them to put aside their vitriolic feelings for Gina, clearly that had been overly optimistic.

Grinding his teeth, Martin suddenly felt the fierce need to know for certain whether Anya and Emma were even aware of his current situation. Especially when his mother was still bedridden from a stroke. Surely hospital staff would have attempted to track down his next–of -kin after his emergence from the coma, if only to keep them informed…

“If you don’t mind, could you please get me my mobile?” he asked the nurse’s aide in a toneless voice. “There are a couple calls I need to make.”

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before inclining her head in assent. “Of course, let me just retrieve that for you from the belongings desk. I’ll be right back.”

True to her word, she returned within a few minutes carrying Martin’s sleek smartphone carefully cradled in her hands. He accepted it with murmured thanks before she discreetly excused herself, leaving him alone once more with his spiraling thoughts.

With shaking fingers, Martin pulled up his contacts list and selected the number for Anya. His younger niece, the one who had always been his self–professed “daddy’s girl” from the moment she took her first breaths in this world. Surely she couldn’t remain so cold and unaffected while he lay recovering from such a traumatic attack…could she?

The call connected, and Martin drew a shaky inhale as he prepared to pour out his heart to his sweet Liv. Before he could so much as speak her name, however, a chilly female voice cut through the line.

“Hello? Who is this?”

Martin frowned at the harsh, impersonal tone. “Anya…? It’s me, your uncle. Please, I need to speak with you.”

There was a weighted pause, as if his niece was considering her response with deliberate calculation. Then, without another word, the line abruptly went dead as she severed the call. Martin felt a rushing sound fill his ears, his hand beginning to tremble where it gripped the phone. There was no mistaking it – Anya had ended their connection on purpose.

Refusing to be so easily dismissed, he hastily redialed her number. But before the line could connect, an automated message filled his ear:

To be Abandoned

“The number you are trying to reach has been blocked from this device…”

His own niece had blocked his calls.

Hot, incandescent rage began to unspool within Martin’s chest. He couldn’t breathe around the smothering heaviness that seemed to grip his lungs How could his own flesh and blood cut him out so callously after everything he had endured? He thought of Emma, who had always been the more tempestuous and strong–willed of his two girls. Surely she would never stoop to such lows…

His hands moved in a blur, stabbing out Emma’s contact information with more force than

necessary.

The call connected, and he felt his entire body going rigid in anticipation of unleashing the full force of his scathing ire…

Only for the line to terminate after the briefest of connections, severed just as abruptly as Anya had done to him. Martin recoiled as if he’d been slapped, realization settling in with a suffocating finality.

Not only had his nieces abandoned him completely in his time of need…but they had walled themselves off to even allow him the chance to plead his case to them. To their minds, he was already persona non grata, unworthy of their care or attention.

The smartphone clattered from his limp grasp, forgotten as Martin crumpled over onto the hospital mattress. His vision swam with unshed tears of anguish and betrayal, and a ruined sob tore itself from deep within his chest. How had it come to this? What had he done to cause such a fundamental fracturing within what remained of his family?

“I’m so sorry, Martin. If I’d known they would behave this way, I never would have called…” The timid voice intruded on Martin’s misery, startling him into remembering he wasn’t entirely alone after all. Lifting his head from the mattress, he found himself staring at the slight, hesitant form of the last person he would have ever expected to find hovering in his doorway.

This child…the living embodiment of Gina’s bald–faced betrayal against him. The boy’s eyes were wide and shimmering with unshed tears of his own, and something in his expression cleaved straight through Martin’s heart like an loy dagger. Here was a child suffering just as acutely from the fallout of Gina’s despicable machinations, yet another victim of her selfish wake of destruction. All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

poor child

As their eyes met and held, Martin felt his earlier disgust and revulsion towards the begin to dissipate. In its place blossomed a shared kinship of abandonment and loss, one he had clearly inflicted on this boy just as deeply as his own nieces had done to him mere moments before.