Chapter 6

Mandy was panting, hurling every poisonous word she could summon at Camila like shrapnel: "Your mother couldn't hold onto a man either—threw herself off a balcony because of it—and you're headed down the same path! Why do you think Stanley runs out in the middle of the night? He's with Laura! He wants Laura's young, fresh body. He wants the baby in Laura's belly! You're nothing but a barren waste of space—a discarded wife waiting to be kicked to the curb!"

"You're still standing there playing Mrs. Martinez, but Stanley's been disgusted by you for ages! He probably can't even look at your face without feeling sick! A worthless whore nobody wants—you should do everyone a favor and end up like your mother. Just die already!"

Her shrill voice ricocheted off the walls of the living room like something feral.

Victor made no move to stop her. He simply watched from the sidelines, eyes cold and calculating—content to let Mandy's venom do the work of breaking Camila down until she had no choice but to comply.

But Camila didn't cry. She didn't crumble.

She stood perfectly still, watching Mandy's face twist with jealousy and rage, and felt nothing but a hollow, almost absurd sadness.

Once upon a time, words like these would have shattered her. She would have bled for Stanley's betrayal, would have let the pain consume her whole.

But now there was a tumor growing inside her skull alongside the baby growing in her womb, and her life had become a countdown clock ticking toward zero.

When you've already stared death in the face, losing a cheating husband barely registers as a flesh wound.

"Are you done?" Camila's voice floated out—light, almost weightless—yet threaded with a coldness that made the air in the room feel thinner.

She lifted a hand, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the corner of her mouth curving into something razor-sharp. "Do you honestly think throwing Stanley's name at me like a weapon is going to make me fall apart?"

She looked directly at Mandy, enunciating every syllable with surgical clarity. "Mandy, you're pathetic. You really believe everyone is like you and your daughter—building their entire existence around a man?"

"Stanley sleeping with Laura—you see that as a triumph. A bargaining chip. But in my eyes?" Camila's voice was unhurried, yet every word landed like a hammer strike. "He's just a man who can't keep it in his pants. Garbage."

"A filthy, broken man that you two treat like a priceless trophy—I've been sick of him for longer than you know. Who he loves, who he sleeps with, who he gets pregnant? I couldn't care less."

"To me, Stanley is nothing. He doesn't even deserve a glance. You want him so badly? Take him. Just keep that trash out of my sight."

The air in the room seemed to solidify.

Then—a deafening crash from the entryway.

The front door flew open, kicked inward with such force that a gust of frigid night air swept through the living room like a storm front.

"Camila. What did you just say?"

The voice that cut through the silence was low, dark, and vibrating with barely contained fury.

Stanley stood in the doorway, his tall frame blocking out the light from the porch. His face—normally devastatingly handsome—was now a mask of thunderous rage, his deep-set eyes churning with something volatile and dangerous as they locked onto Camila.

Half a step behind him, Laura lingered with a look of smug satisfaction playing across her features.

Stanley crossed the living room in three long strides, stopping directly in front of Camila. "Did they hurt you?"

He'd only caught the tail end of what she'd said—that last sentence—and he refused to believe she'd meant it. She loved him. She'd always loved him. There was no world in which she'd call him garbage.

So it had to be them. Victor and Mandy must have pushed her to the breaking point, forced those words out of her mouth.

"Victor." Stanley pulled Camila against his chest in one swift motion, his gaze cutting toward the Gonzalez couple like a blade unsheathed. His voice dropped to a register that promised consequences. "Is this how you treat my wife? Who gave you permission?"

The living room plunged into suffocating silence.

Stanley's towering presence carried the bite of the winter air still clinging to his coat, and the raw authority radiating from him—the kind that came from years of commanding boardrooms and crushing competitors—pressed down on the room like a physical weight.

Victor and Mandy looked like two birds whose necks had been seized mid-squawk. The vicious confidence that had animated their faces moments ago froze solid, draining to a sickly white as they stared at Stanley like he was death incarnate.

But Stanley wasn't looking at them. He was looking down at the woman in his arms.

No one was allowed to hurt her. No one.

"Camila, I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner." His voice softened, and he reached up to gently brush a stray lock of hair from her face.

Camila stood rigid in his embrace. The scent of cedarwood cologne flooded her senses—but underneath it, unmistakable, was the cloying trace of another woman's perfume. She didn't pull away. She simply looked up at that mask of tender devotion and felt nothing but a bone-deep weariness.

But the manuscripts came first. Everything else could wait.

She let vulnerability creep into her expression, her voice small and wounded. "I just came to get my mother's manuscripts back. But they told me I'd have to give up my place as your wife first."

Stanley's head snapped up. His gaze sliced back to Victor with the precision of a scalpel. "Victor. Who gave you the audacity to use Camila's mother's belongings as leverage against her?"

Beads of cold sweat broke across Victor's forehead. His knees threatened to buckle beneath him.

He knew exactly what Stanley Martinez was capable of. In the business world, this man dismantled empires without breaking a sweat. Crushing the Gonzalez Group would require less effort than swatting a fly.

"Stanley, you've misunderstood—" Victor stammered, forcing his face into a smile so strained it looked more like a grimace. "We were just joking around with Camila. We're family—why would we ever threaten her? Right, Mandy?"

Mandy had retreated behind the sofa like a cornered animal, nodding frantically, not daring to utter a single syllable.

Stanley let out a cold laugh—the kind that made the temperature in the room drop another ten degrees. "Joking. You think you have the right to joke with my wife? Hand over the manuscripts. Now."

Victor swallowed hard, a flicker of greed and resentment passing through his eyes.

Those were Elena's one-of-a-kind jewelry design manuscripts—irreplaceable, worth a fortune. He'd been planning to use them as permanent leverage over Camila, a way to squeeze more investment capital out of the Martinez family for years to come.

"Stanley, listen—these manuscripts are Gonzalez family property, after all. Camila's married out of the family now; it's not really appropriate for her to take them." Victor steeled himself, attempting to negotiate even as his voice wavered. "How about this—the Southside development project. Give the Gonzalez Group a share of the investment allocation, and I'll hand over the manuscripts immediately—"