Apocalypse Queen: My Space, My Rules Chapter 118: The Flood Recedes

Viola would never agree to let Harvey empty the family coffers to ransom Roxanna.

As far as she was concerned, the girl was a sickly jinx, nothing but trouble before the wedding had even happened. Marrying her into the family would be inviting disaster through the front door.

At the sound of Roxanna's name, something shifted behind Harvey's vacant stare.

"How much more does Mr. Guerrero want?" His voice came out raw and hoarse.

Yesterday's beating had been brutal enough on its own, but then came the dog.

He'd screamed himself voiceless trying to get Mariella to show any mercy, and only passed out cold before it finally stopped. Talking still cost him.

Connor felt a flicker of hope when Harvey asked. He was about to answer when Viola cut in first.

"Didn't you go to win Mariella back yesterday? What happened? Why did it blow up like that? What did you say to set her off?"

Harvey's thoughts went straight to his drained slush fund, and the wound reopened fresh. But he couldn't exactly admit to Viola that he'd been hiding money from her, so he swallowed it down and said nothing about that.

"How would I know what set her off? She just sicced some man on me out of nowhere, then the dog. I'm never forgiving her for this, and I'm definitely not taking her back."

"So you couldn't patch things up and you got humiliated for nothing?" Viola's voice sharpened. "That's not something we can just let go. We need to send people to rough her up, teach her a lesson. The Grahams aren't people you cross without consequences.

"I hired a top-tier assassin to deal with her once. Never heard back." Harvey couldn't suppress a shudder. "She's different now. Something's changed about her."

Just saying her name made his jaw tighten. He was genuinely afraid of her.

Viola absorbed this in silence. If even a professional killer couldn't handle Mariella, there wasn't much to be done on that front.

"Even if there's no hope of you two reconciling, I won't allow you to gut this family to rescue Roxanna. We've been through enough. There's nothing left."

Harvey didn't answer.

Fannie burst into loud, desperate sobs.

"Oh, stop your crying!" Viola snapped, then turned to the housekeeper. "Have someone remove this woman from the premises. She's bringing bad luck into this house."

Connor and Fannie were turned out of the Graham residence like strays with nowhere to go.

"Honey, what are we going to do? Think of something!" Fannie grabbed his arm and wouldn't let go, eyes fixed on him. "I know you still have supplies. You've been hiding..."

"Shut up." Connor clamped a hand over her mouth, his eyes hard. "Don't say another word. I don't have any money. Not a cent."

That stash was his last card to play. Hand it over and he'd have nothing. He'd spent too many years being poor to go back to it now.

"Harvey loves Roxanna. He'll find a way."

Fannie pulled his hand away, eyes swimming with tears. "But Roxanna's a girl. The longer she stays with Mr. Guerrero... if something happens to her, if she's not..." She couldn't finish the sentence. "Would Harvey still want her?"

"What does that matter?" Connor waved it off like it was nothing. "It's not worth losing sleep over. Give Harvey a few days to get his strength back. He'll figure out how to get her."

"If nothing else works, you could try Mariella again..."

"That girl is vicious. She's not who she used to be." The memory alone made Connor's skin crawl. "You saw what she did to Harvey. You want that to happen to me?"

Fannie threw her head back and wailed. "My Roxanna! My child! Where are you? Come back to me..."

Then the shouting started, spreading fast through the crowd around them, people crying out with a joy they'd almost forgotten how to feel.

"The water's going down! The flood is receding! It's over!"

The news tore through Celestine Ridge like wildfire, rolling out across the city in minutes. The water was pulling back. Hope was rising to take its place.

The flood was finally ending.

When the news reached Mariella, her stomach dropped.

In her previous life, the floodwaters had receded right before the long night fell, followed by temperatures so brutal that more people froze to death than had drowned.

But that happened four months later. Why was it happening now?

It felt like an invisible hand had seized the dial of fate and was spinning it forward, impatient with the storyline she already knew, rushing past the disasters she'd lived through once to get to the ones she hadn't.

As the water pulled back, the submerged floors of the buildings began to surface, everything coated in a thick layer of mud that made the world unrecognizable.

The recession stalled out at the third floor, as though it had run out of momentum.

Still, losing that much water was something. People could breathe again. A few more days, and maybe it would clear entirely.