Dark Revenge Of An Unwanted Wife: The Twins Are Not Yours! - Chapter 516

Chapter 516: Truth? II

Dread pooled low in Athena’s stomach the longer she watched Ewan.

His complexion, already pale from shock, kept draining of color until he looked almost translucent, like someone on the verge of a panic attack.

She had never seen him like this—not even during the worst moments of the court case that had happened between them months ago. His breathing was shallow, shoulders tight, eyes unfocused, hands shaking against his thighs.

Her own mind, frantic and scrambling, was trying to piece together the last words she had spoken. The name she had uttered casually—Limey Linwood—suddenly tasted metallic on her tongue. A strange chill washed down her spine.

She whispered the name again under her breath, slow this time, as if tasting each syllable. And then her heart thudded painfully when the letters rearranged themselves in her mind.

Limey. Miley.

Her eyes flew open wide.

A pen name. A disguise. A scientist known by colleagues for her brilliance, but known to the medical world under an alias.

Limey Linwood… had been Ewan’s mother. She remembered Ewan talking about the latter just days ago, about her fascination with science and drugs.

The realization slammed into her with brutal force. A rush of heat, then ice, then a hollow trembling she could not hide. She stared at Ewan, watching his gaze fixed on the empty space before him like he was watching ghosts only he could see.

Beside the car door stood John, still flanked by guards. His brows were creased in confusion and something much darker—fear. His voice broke through the silence, strained and unsteady.

“Is someone going to tell me what the problem is? Have I talked too much?”

No one answered. Not Sandro, who sat rigidly in the driver’s seat. Not Zane, whose jaw hung slightly open. Not Aiden, who looked just as bewildered.

It was Athena who finally found her voice—cracked, small, trembling.

“She… Limey Linwood… she wasn’t just a researcher.”

The weight of the truth pressed down on the car like a storm cloud ready to split.

“She was Ewan’s mother.”

Dead silence.

Aiden’s breath hitched sharply.

Zane turned slowly to look at her, as though hoping she was joking.

Sandro swore under his breath.

And John…

John shut his eyes like the words were knives.

When he opened them again, tears shimmered there—not the tears of an innocent man, not exactly, but of someone who had just found reason to loathe his own past.

“I… please,” he whispered, voice cracking. “I swear on my life—I didn’t know. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t…”

He swallowed hard, chest rising and falling as the weight of the old sins he had just confessed settled around him.

“That time… I was taking any job I could. Anything that could push the Vipers up. Anything to build power. I didn’t know her name, her family, nothing. They told me she had blocked the project and needed to be… handled. And I was stupid. I didn’t ask questions.”

His voice broke completely. “If I had known—”

He couldn’t finish. The shame strangled the rest.

Ewan remained silent. Terrifyingly silent. He didn’t even blink.

Athena felt the tension radiating off him—a vicious, simmering rage she had only glimpsed once before, when her life had been threatened. But this rage was deeper. Older. Rooted in grief so heavy she felt crushed under its weight.

She had to break the paralysis before something catastrophic happened.

“John,” she said quietly. “Go.”

His eyes lifted, confused.

“Go,” she repeated, firmer now. “Just… go home. Safely. Don’t do anything stupid like hurting yourself. Please.”

Her voice wavered, but her reasoning was clear—there was only so much a man could face in a single day without collapsing under it.

And Ewan might be good with self control, but there were limits too…

John hesitated, gaze flickering to Ewan again, as if begging silently for forgiveness. But Ewan didn’t move. Didn’t look. Didn’t breathe.

John finally nodded, shoulders sagging, and turned away. The guards followed him immediately, guiding him back toward the second car and into the convoy already arranged to confuse any trackers Kael’s people may have placed.

As soon as he disappeared from sight, the silence in the car deepened—thick, suffocating, absolute. No one dared speak. Not even Sandro, who usually never lacked words.

The drive home was painfully quiet. Each turn of the road seemed to echo Ewan’s growing stillness.

—

The moment they stepped into the mansion, the air shifted.

Banners and balloons hung from the ceiling, indicators of the court victory celebration Florence had planned. Laughter lingered faintly, the house scented with cooked meals and the warmth of family.

But all of it froze as soon as the door shut behind them.

Florence, who had been laughing with Chelsea moments earlier, stopped mid-motion. Her eyes, sharp and wise, scanned Athena first—then Ewan—and her expression tightened. She didn’t need explanations. She could smell disaster.

“Cairo,” Florence said softly, “take the twins upstairs.”

Cairo, perceptive as always, took one look at Athena’s face and didn’t protest. She herded the younger ones away in quiet steps.

Jessica, standing near the kitchen doorway, stiffened when she saw Ewan’s storm-cloud expression. She quietly excused herself. She had avoided him before, mistrusting him, but what she saw now wasn’t coldness—it was pain, and she didn’t want to intrude.

Gianna and Chelsea stayed back, exchanging worried glances. Areso followed Jessica, not wanting to be interrogated by her mother if she lingered.

Spider walked in just then, ready to offer his congratulations. But he stopped immediately when he felt the tension. His cheerful greeting died on his lips. He simply nodded and took a seat, waiting.

When they were all settled, Athena finally told them what had happened, robotically.

Everything. John’s confession. The project. The connection. Ewan’s mother.

When she was done, there was deathly silence; there were gasps; there were expressions of shock.

Gianna, for one, was gripping the couch arm tight, pain and disbelief, a good mix on her face.

Zane was the first to speak—voice trembling with desperation.

“My father wouldn’t… He’s not… We don’t even know if John is telling the truth.”

Aiden shook his head slowly. “I don’t think he’s lying.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out a file.

A thick one—the one he and Spider had been working on for weeks.

He placed it on the table.

“Herbert owned the land where the first strain of the virus was found,” Aiden said quietly. “The same land where those criminal doctors were captured.”

Athena shut her eyes. This must be the reason for his melancholic state in the car before John’s confession. Her friend had held or suspected the truth.

“And Herbert had clearance into presidential offices. That explains how structures like that could exist undetected. Only someone with enormous political access could have funded a hidden research site like the one we raided.”