Divorce Me? The Despised Wife Is The Apex Boss

(Domenica) POV:

The aroma of scalding black coffee seeped through the cardboard cups in my hands, burning into my calloused palms. For three years, those same hands had gripped the steering wheel of a beat-up Chevrolet for fourteen hours a day, ferrying drunkards and tourists across Los Angeles - all to pay for Curtis's bespoke suits, his imported watches, and his relentless vanity.

Today was his big day. He claimed he was working a grueling thirty-six-hour overtime shift on the top floor of the Apex Group tower, trying to seal a career-defining partnership.

I came up here just to bring him dinner and coffee.

My low heels sank quietly into the thick wool carpet of the executive corridor. As I approached the mahogany double doors at the end of the hall, the silence was shattered by faint, breathless sounds drifting through a crack left slightly ajar.

"Mmm... Curtis, slower... what if someone walks in?"

"Who would walk in? The cleaning staff knows better," Curtis's voice came through, dripping with husky impatience. "Besides, Domenica is probably stuck in downtown traffic chasing twenty-dollar Uber fares right now. She's too busy playing chauffeur to even remember she has a husband."

A cruel, delicate giggle followed. "Poor thing. She works so hard, but you're in my bed."

"Don't mention her. It kills the mood. You're the one who can actually help my career, Brant."

My chest didn't ache. It felt hollowed out by a sudden, freezing numbness. Three years of sacrifices, three years of swallowing insults from the White family - reduced to a joke behind closed doors.

Without knocking, I kicked the heavy mahogany doors wide open.

BANG.

The heavy wood rebounded against the wall. In the dim luxury office, Curtis had a woman in a backless burgundy slip dress pinned against the leather couch, his hand hitched up her thigh.

Curtis whipped his head around, terror flashing across his face before settling into an ugly sneer. His dress shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, exposing flushed skin.

"Curtis," I said, my voice eerily calm, though my fingers clenched around the cups until the cardboard creaked. "Is this the critical Apex contract you've been slaving away on?"

The woman on the sofa pushed Curtis off with deliberate slowness. She smoothed her tousled chestnut curls, revealing a face I knew all too well - Brant Montoya, the heiress who had smiled to my face at family dinners while calling me her 'humble sister.'

Curtis scrambled to button his shirt, rushing between me and Brant as if shielding his prized possession from an eyesore.

"Domenica! Who gave you permission to come up here?" Curtis hissed under his breath, stepping into my personal space, his eyes darting toward the open hallway. "Get out. Right now. Don't make a fool of yourself in a place you don't belong!"

"I don't belong?" I laughed softly, a dry, bitter sound. "The coffee in my hands was paid for with my money. The shirt on your back was bought with my tips. And you're telling me I don't belong in the room where my husband is whoring himself out?"

"Watch your filthy mouth!" Curtis snapped, his face reddening with humiliation. "Brant is the key to my department's connection with Apex's executive board! We were discussing strategy. You barge in with your dirty, low-class paranoia - look at you! Smelling like cheap car air freshener. You're completely unhinged!"

Before I could answer, Brant clicked over on her three-inch Louboutins. She draped a slender, manicured arm over Curtis's tense shoulder, looking down her nose at my faded denim jacket.

"Curtis, darling, don't be too hard on her," Brant sighed, a condescending smirk playing on her lips. "How could an Uber driver ever comprehend the sheer pressure of high finance? Domenica, you live in the dirt. You survive on scraps. When Curtis climbs to the top of society, he needs a woman who can walk beside him on the red carpet - not an embarrassment who smells like exhaust fumes."

She tilted her head, her eyes flashing with pure malice. "Be a good girl. Go home, draw Curtis a bath, and pretend you didn't see this. Maybe then we'll let you keep living in the guest room."

The air in the office went dead still.

I looked at Brant's smug, painted face, then at Curtis, who stood there nodding along to every poisonous word his mistress spat at his wife.

"A red carpet woman?" I whispered.

"Exactly," Brant purred, leaning closer. "Know your place, Domenica."

"My place is right here."

Without warning, I flipped the lid off the first cup and hurled the boiling black coffee straight into Brant's face.

"AHHHH!" Brant shrieked like a slaughtered pig, clutching her face and stumbling backward as the scalding dark liquid drenched her silk dress, staining her pristine skin. "My dress! My skin! Curtis, she burned me! Kill this psycho!"

"You crazy bitch!" Curtis roared, his eyes bulging with rage. He lunged forward, raising his right hand, his palm whistling through the air aiming straight for my jaw.

He actually thought he could hit me.

My eyes snapped cold. Before his palm could travel halfway, my left hand shot out like an iron vice, clamping violently around his wrist. Using his own forward momentum, I twisted his arm outward and drove my heel hard into the side of his knee.

CRACK.

"AGHHH!" Curtis howled, his knees buckling under him. He dropped to the floor, doubled over in agony, his wrist contorted at an unnatural angle under my grip.

I leaned down, my face inches from his pale, sweating forehead.

"Curtis, you've mistaken my patience for weakness for three whole years," I said, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You think you're a high-flying executive? You think you're a man? Without my sweat, you wouldn't even be able to afford the gas to drive up here to cheat on me."

I shoved his arm away in disgust. Curtis collapsed onto the carpet, groaning and cradling his sprained wrist like a wounded dog.

"Security! Call security!" Brant wailed from the couch, dabbing desperately at her ruined chest with paper towels. "You're dead, Domenica! The White family and the Montoya family will bury you alive!"

I didn't blink. I picked up the second cup of coffee, unhurriedly walked over to Curtis's desk, and dumped the black liquid entirely over the stacks of contracts, pitch decks, and company badges he had laid out so proudly.

Brown liquid soaked through the logos of the Apex Group.

"Don't worry about security. The air in this room stinks of cheap ambition and betrayal. I wouldn't stay if you paid me."

I turned on my heel and walked toward the exit.

"Domenica!" Curtis screamed from the floor, his voice cracking with desperation and venom. "Walk out that door, and we are done! You will leave with nothing! Not a single penny! You'll sleep on the streets!"

I didn't pause. I grabbed the heavy mahogany handles, pulled the doors shut behind me, and slammed them closed with a thunderous BANG that echoed down the executive hall.

Stepping out of the Apex tower into the cold Los Angeles dusk, the autumn wind whipped through my hair, carrying the first heavy drops of a coming storm. I stood on the pavement, watching the city's neon lights flicker to life.

My hands weren't shaking. For the first time in three years, I felt alive.

Inside my jacket, a deep, rhythmic vibration sounded. It wasn't my battered everyday cell phone - it was the custom, encrypted satellite phone nestled in the hidden inner lining. The screen flashed with an intricate obsidian crest and a sequence of red alpha-numeric clearance codes.

I tapped the screen and brought it to my ear.

An aged, trembling, yet deeply authoritative voice came through the line:

"Miss Justice... the three-year seal has expired."

I closed my eyes, letting the cold rain touch my face. The obedient, subservient housewife who had smiled politely through three years of mockery vanished into the wind.

"Is the audit complete, Carlisle?" I spoke, my voice devoid of any warmth.

"Everything is in place, my Sovereign," Carlisle Dawson, the Grand Steward of the Justice dynasty, replied with immense reverence. "The family trust of three hundred billion dollars has been fully unlocked. As of sixty seconds ago, one hundred percent of the global equity and ultimate executive authority of the Apex Group has been officially transferred under your name."

I tilted my head back, looking up at the towering, ninety-story Apex skyscraper cutting into the gray clouds above me. Curtis was still up there, crying on the floor, desperately dreaming of conquering this very building.

A sharp, mocking smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

"And to think... Curtis just told me he was conquering Apex tonight."

"Shall I have our security detail drag Mr. White and his mistress out into the rain right now?" Carlisle asked, ice in his tone. "And freeze every single dollar in his department's pipeline?"

A yellow cab pulled up to the curb, its tires hissing over the wet pavement. I stepped forward, opened the back door, and slid inside.

"No," I murmured, staring at my own cold, unfamiliar reflection in the rain-streaked window. "Death is too merciful when given instantly. Let him believe he's about to touch the sun. Let him climb all the way to the top of the ledge..."

My eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits.

"...Then, I will kick him into the abyss myself."

"Your will is our command, my Sovereign," Carlisle answered.

I ended the call, tossed the encrypted phone into my bag, and looked at the cab driver.

"Where to, ma'am?"

"The White family estate in the hills," I said coldly. "I have some trash to throw away."