Chapter 967: Cuckold’s Last Stand?

A voice sliced down the corridor behind us. Male. Sharp. The special brand of sharp that only arrives when a man realizes his evening just pivoted from "mildly boring gala" to "catastrophic personal failure."

That my friend is exactly why I'd scooped her up and bolted... I'd seen him coming before he did us. Good instincts. Ten out of ten. Gold star for me.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and glanced back. I braced myself for the classic script: guilt tsunami, hesitation, the inevitable"put me down, I need to go back and explain"that reasonable women are supposed to perform on cue.

"Run faster,"she said instead.

I looked at her.

She wasgrinning. Full teeth. Eyes electric. Not a molecule of guilt or a politeshadow of regret.

Just the blinding, incandescent glee of a woman who'd spent years in a very tasteful cage and had just heard the lock pop like cheap champagne.

"He's gaining."

"Gen! Stop right there!" Closer now. Angrier.

The anger of a man who'd been luxuriating in comfortable neglect for years and just discovered someone else had finally picked up the toy he'd left in the corner to gather dust. This wasn't love chasing us.

This wasproperty rightschasing us. And property doesn't get to walk away.

Except this one just fucking did.

Genevieve twisted in my arms, looked straight back at him over my shoulder, and—with the calm, deliberate joy of someone who'd just filed for spiritual emancipation—shestuck her tongue out at him.

The single most elegant woman I'd fucked senseless tonight just blew a raspberry at her husband while beingfireman-carriedthrough a high-end gallery corridor by the teenager who'd single-handedly detonated their marriage.

I was basically watching a supervillain origin story in 4K, and guess who got to be theradioactive spider?

Me. Obviously. I'm the main character here.

"Faster, baby," she whispered into my ear, still laughing like she'd discovered oxygen for the first time. "I want to see how red his face gets before he strokes out."

"You're a terrible person," I said, rounding the corner at a dead sprint.

"Says the man currently carrying stolen goods at Olympic speeds."

"You came willingly."

"Repeatedly."She winked.

I nearly ate floor. Not because she weighed anything—she was bird-boned, practically designed to be carried—but because that single word, timed and curved like a blade, almost made me lose my legendary composure for the first time tonight.

Repeatedly.

This woman was going to beexpensivein every possible metric. The kind of problem I collect like limited-edition watches.

We crashed through the back door into the night. The gallery's rear lot stretched dark and empty, and like the perfect accomplice she always is, ARIAhad already summoned the car.

MySuper Lamborghinicrouched under a single floodlight, engine muttering low and predatory, waiting for permission to ruin someone's evening even harder.

Yes—the super Lambo. Heavily modified. Reinforced to cartoon levels. AI integration so complete the car was basically had it's nervous system. It looked like a Lamborghini the way adire wolflooks like a golden retriever: same taxonomic family, completely different apex-predator energy.

I set Genevieve down. She slid into the passenger seat, still breathless, still smiling—the smile that doesn't come from jokes but fromfinally being allowed to breathe without permission.

She melted into the leather; shoulders dropped, jaw unclenched, the last invisible chain linking her to her old life snapping with an audible metaphysicalping. She didn't glance back at the gallery. Not once.

"Nice car," she said, fingers trailing the dash like she was petting something alive. "Is this standard issue forsexual extractions now?"

"Part of the premium package. Comes with sarcasm and felony-level acceleration."

I rounded to the driver's side, looked back at her husband framed in the doorway—red-faced, chest pumping like a broken bellows, fists clenched like he thought punching air would retroactively fix his marriage—and raised my hand in a crisp, professionalmiddle finger.

Held it. Let the floodlight hit it just right. No ambiguity.

This wasn't a rude gesture; this was anofficial corporate communique.

Then I dropped into the seat andfloored it.

The Lambo bellowed and hurled us forward, smashing us into the leather. Zero to sixty in a number so obscene it should have its own age restriction. Organs became temporary passengers; spine filed a formal complaint.

Genevieve laughedlouder than the enginewhen she checked the side mirror and watched her husband—desperate, pathetic, suddenly athletic—scoop a random rock fromGod-knows-whereandyeetit at the retreating taillights.

It smacked the reinforced rear glass. The impact registered as a polite tap. My modifications laughed at it.

"Did he just throw a rock at us?" she asked, turning with wide, delighted eyes.

"Yep."

"That's themost efforthe's put into anything since our wedding night. And even then he phoned it in."

I laughed—real, full, the kind that lives deeper than comedy. The specific, vicious satisfaction of watching a woman rediscover her own savagery after a decade of playing nice.

She wasfunny. Not performative. Not trying to charm. Just... her.

The version that had been quietly asphyxiating under someone else's mediocrity.

And just like that, the gallery shrank. Her husband shrank. Her old life shrank to a sad little dot in the rearview.

The night opened ahead—black highway, city lights scattered like someone dropped a Tiffany's display case from orbit, Pacific glittering somewhere beyond the hills like it was waiting for us to notice it.

Genevieve leaned back in the passenger seat, still wrapped in my jacket like war paint, bare legs crossed, hair whipping in the wind from the window she'd cracked without asking—because she already knew the rules in my car were whatever she decided they were.

She turned those obsidian eyes on me. That face that introduced itself before her mouth did.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Wherever you want."

She smiled. Slow. Real. The kind of smile that was busy building new real estate in her soul while we spoke.

"Just drive."

The car vanished into the dark, and Genevieve was still laughing.