Chapter 1182

Jeff had finally snapped. For all his brawls over the years, he’d never faced someone like Sunny. Every insult he had hurled landed on a wall of silence, leaving him furious and frustrated. Driven over the edge, Jeff had decided to end it the old-fashioned way—he had thrown a punch.

But Sunny had been no pushover. Before Jeff’s fist even got close, Sunny’s kick had sent him sprawling.

Jeff had hit the floor face-first. When he got up, dazed and sore, he finally understood why—Sunny’s parents were skilled fighters, and he had trained with them since he could walk. Ten Jeffs couldn’t beat one Sunny.

Utterly humiliated, Jeff had wanted to crawl under a rock. But his pride—and his wish to see Elliana—had kept him standing outside the door of Elliana’s hospital room beside his new rival.

After hearing the story, Elliana sighed and rubbed her temples. She hadn’t imagined that the two boys were fighting over her. Jeff, the Evans family’s little tyrant, had rarely ever lost a fight. Seeing him completely outmatched by Sunny was quite something else.

She took Jeff’s small hand and said gently, “It’s alright. Don’t be angry anymore.”

But Sunny quickly smacked Jeff’s hand away. “Stay away from Elliana, or I’ll hit you again,” he warned Jeff coldly.

Jeff puffed up in defiance, rolling up his sleeves. “Fine! Let’s go another round. Think I’m scared of you?”

Before the situation could explode again, Cole stepped in. In one swift move, he scooped both boys up—one under each arm—and carried them to the hallway. “If you two want to fight, do it outside. Don’t disturb my wife’s rest.”

He dropped them unceremoniously and shut the door with a solid thud.

It was a perfect display of Cole’s possessiveness. To everyone else, the boys’ squabble was childish and funny, a harmless clash of egos. But for a grown man like Cole—a father of twins—to be this jealous of two boys? It was both absurd and amusing.

Cole didn’t care, though. With his little rivals finally gone, the room felt calm again. But in that peaceful silence, a troubling thought crept into his mind.

ｍ?ｅ ｕｄｔｅｓ ｎ ｌ?ｖｌ.

Sunny’s declaration struck Cole with the force of ice-cold reality—he and Elliana had never actually obtained their marriage certificate.

Cole and Elliana had gone through a wedding ceremony once before, followed by a divorce, but all documentation of their union in Podgend had been thoroughly erased from existence. According to the law, they’d never officially been married at all. Here they sat, parents to two children, yet without any legal recognition of their relationship.

The awareness of this oversight made Cole’s cheeks burn with humiliation. He had become so absorbed in simply being by Elliana’s side, so satisfied with their life together, that the thought of filing for a proper marriage certificate had completely slipped his mind. Now, with Sunny’s pointed comment rubbing salt in the wound, remorse flooded through him.

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