He Said I Was Nothing Without Him And I Signed For Everything Chapter 08

Cassian began looking into what had happened years ago.

The first thing placed in front of him was the debt ledger from the year the Sallow family collapsed.

Page after page, dense with numbers.

All Cassian had known before was that Maren had left him without looking back.

She had said she didn’t want to marry a man with nothing. She had said the Sallow family was already in enough trouble, and she didn’t want to waste her life struggling beside him.

It had rained hard that day.

She stood outside the old Veyne residence under a black umbrella, her eyes painfully red, her voice cold.

“Cassian, let’s end this.”

“I’m not gambling my future on you.”

He remembered those words for years.

He remembered them until he had money, power, and the ability to make her pay.

He married her and brought her into Tallowmere Estate. He forced her to watch him favor Isla, forced her to paint Isla’s portraits, forced her to lower her head again and again.

He believed she owed him that.

But now, file after file lay across his desk.

The year the Sallow family went under, Maren had sold every painting she could sell.

She had become famous at eighteen, and the most valuable pieces from her

exhibitions were all sold off at low prices within the same month.

Half of that money went toward the Sallow family’s debts.

The other half was transferred into an offshore account.

And that account eventually led back to Cassian’s company, the one that had been on the brink of collapse.

Maddox stood in front of the desk, his voice low.

“Cassian, the timing lines up.”

“The anonymous investment your company received right before it ran out of cash was most likely from Maren’s painting sales.”

Cassian stared at those lines for a long time without speaking.

Only one lamp was on in the study.

The light fell across his face, making his eyes look bloodshot.

Suddenly, he remembered the first award-winning painting Maren had ever sold.

Back then, she had smiled and lied to him.

“I don’t like that one anymore.”

He had believed her.

Later, when she went abroad, he thought she had found someone richer.

The documents were clear. She had gone overseas to settle what was left of her family’s financial mess and get her mother into treatment.

She hadn’t left him.

She had carved herself out of his future.

Cassian sat in the study all night without closing his eyes.

Near dawn, he suddenly remembered the day Maren married him.

She had worn a white dress and stood quietly at the entrance of Tallowmere.

The wind lifted her veil. She looked at him with a faint light in her eyes. Back then, she must have thought he had finally come back to her.

But all he had given her was three years of humiliation.

On the other side, Isla had begun to panic.

She soon found out Cassian was digging into the past.

That same night, she ordered her assistant to contact the people involved back then and destroy the messages and transfer records.

“Move faster.”

Isla’s voice shook.

“Cassian can’t find out about that letter.”

Her assistant was scared too.

“But Maddox is already looking into it.”

Isla clenched her teeth.

“Then wipe everything clean.”

But she was too late.

Maddox had already intercepted the evidence first.

It turned out that when Cassian had been at his lowest, Isla had never been there for him at all.

She had only found an old letter Maren left behind.

The letter had no signature, but it mentioned the money, Cassian’s company, and the reason Maren had never been able to say out loud.

Isla understood it.

So she claimed everything for herself.

She told Cassian she had been the one secretly helping him back then.

She said she had been afraid he would feel burdened, so she had never dared admit it.

And Cassian had believed her.

By the time he brought that old letter to Isla, night had fallen completely over Tallowmere.

The moment Isla saw the letter in his hand, her face went white.

Cassian spread the paper open. Maren’s handwriting was on it.

He lifted his eyes to Isla, his voice cold as ice.

“How did you get this letter?”