All Chapters of The Day I Stopped Loving Him: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

Elena's POVThe press release went out at midnight.Elena sat at the cutting table in the loft, her laptop casting blue-white light across the surface. Behind her, the Worn collection stood in the dark, twelve shapes waiting for the light that would return to them.Colette was on a secure video call. Her face was composed. Professional. The face of a woman who had spent thirty years navigating the legal architectures of the European fashion industry and had learned to show nothing until the outcome was certain.The Astrid Bauer documents were attached to the press release. All of them. The settlement agreement. The signatures. The dates. The payments traced from the Renaud estate through the Luxembourg shell company to the family of the woman who had died in the mill. Margaux's signature was on the settlement. Not a proxy. Not an intermediary. Her own hand.The story broke across the financial wires within the hour.*Renaud Heir Implicated in Mill Death Cover-Up.*The headline moved f

Léo's Pov The hearing was a delay, not a victory.Daniel would regroup. He would hire a different lawyer or return with the same one and a new strategy. He would find another pressure point. Another weakness to exploit.Margaux would regroup too.She was in Geneva, but Geneva was not a prison. It was a headquarters. The Astrid Bauer revelation had wounded her, but it had not stopped her. She was too well connected, too well funded, too convinced of her own righteousness to accept defeat.Léo left the courthouse and drove.He did not go back to the loft. He could not sit by the window and wait for the next attack. Watching was not the same as protecting.Instead, he drove to the community center.The building had been finished for three months. The ribbon had been cut. The doors had opened. People had moved in.Not residents. Not tenants.People.Textile workers learning new skills. Families using meeting rooms. Children attending after-school programs. Elderly women sitting in the ga

Maya's POVThe drive to the community center was a blur of red lights and blaring sirens. I sat in the back of Marcus's vehicle, my hands shaking, my mind refusing to process the words Marcus had spoken. The structure is collapsing. Léo was inside. The pillars of my life were buckling under the weight of a deliberate attack.The city streaked past the windows, a smear of headlights and rain-slicked streets. The concussion pulsed behind my eyes, a dull throb that reminded me of the parking garage, the concrete floor, the blood. The pain was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the man trapped in the wreckage of the building he had designed to hold people.Marcus drove fast. The tires gripped the wet asphalt, the engine roaring as we wove through the traffic. The sirens cleared a path, the other vehicles pulling aside, their drivers staring as we passed. The city was indifferent to the emergency, the restaurants still full, the bars still crowded, the streets still alive with th

Elena's POVThe television in the loft was broadcasting live footage of the collapse. Elena stood in front of it, her hands clenched into fists, her nails biting into her palms. Colette sat on the sofa, her face buried in her hands, the little girl clinging to her side, her eyes wide with a fear she was too young to understand. The footage showed the community center from above, a helicopter camera capturing the full scope of the destruction. The south wall was gone. The garden was a crater. The steel frame jutted from the rubble like broken ribs.The community center was gone. The south wall had been breached. The garden was buried. The steel frame was twisted and broken. And Léo was missing.Elena turned away from the screen. The anger was a physical weight in her chest, a solid, burning mass that demanded action. Margaux Delisle had escalated from surveillance to demolition. She had driven a car into a building full of civilians. She had crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.

Daniel's POVThe hospital corridor was a purgatory of fluorescent lights and anxious whispers. The smell of antiseptic and fear hung in the air, a toxic combination that coated the back of the throat. Daniel stood at the window, looking out at the parking lot. The emergency vehicles were still arriving, their lights flashing against the darkness. Each arrival was a reminder that the night was not over, that the catastrophe was still unfolding, that the city was still reeling from the impact of a woman who had driven a car into a building.Maya was in the waiting room. She was covered in dust, her hair matted, her clothes torn. She had not spoken to him since he tried to stop her at the site. She had looked at him with a hatred so pure it had frozen the blood in his veins. He had seen that look before, on the night she left the apartment with nothing but a bag and her sewing machine. He had thought then that she would come back. She had not come back. She had built an entire life witho