Chapter 14
Serena
Kieran didn’t raise his voice.
He sat across from me sitting on the table. His expression was unreadable but he had a soft look in his eyes that was only misleading to people.
“Let me explain something to you,” he said. “I’m a businessman. Everything I do comes down to one thing which is profit.” He tilted his head. “I didn’t ask for a prenup when we married. Do you know why?”
I didn’t answer.
“Because I knew you’d never be able to touch a single cent of my money. The accounts, the assets, the properties, you cannot touch even a cent of my money because you are in debt, Serena.”
My mouth opened but nothing came out.
I wasn’t surprised. Our marriage was already destroyed. Wigat remained was just numbers and terms and the colh
him which apparently
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was nothing.
Tears burned down my cheeks.
“Then tell me how much I owe you,” I said. “Give me a number. I’ll write you an IOU and we can be done.”
He laughed. A rather amused o, like inhad just cracked a joke or I was being silly.
“That’s just the financial side.” He leaned back. “You’re forgetting the political cost. When Blackthorn collapsed, Crimson absorbed your territory, your people, your debts. I funded reconstruction. I gave your family a home, medical care, a future.” He counted each item like entries on a balance sheet. “That’s not a marriage expense. That’s a political investment. Can you repay that too?”
I froze.
Every exit was sealing shut. He wasn’t arguing with me. He was boxing me in until the only direction left was back to him.
Being caged like this, I couldn’t feel anything but suffocation. “What do you want from me?”
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Kieran stood, straightened his jacket, and looked down at
“If you want a divorce, you can have one. Pay me one billion dollars. Cash.”
The number knocked the air out of me.
“I can’t ” My voice cracked. “You know I can’t come up
with that.”
“I know.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder, heavy enough to make his point. “Then the only option you have is to remain my wife. No more papers. No more running. No more crazy ideas.”
I shoved his hand off. “I can’t do that either.”
“You can.” His voice didn’t waver. “I’m losing money in this marriage too, but I do what’s necessary. If you want out, the price is on the table. If you can’t pay, you stay.” He paused. “The marriage, or the billion. Choose.”
stared at him for a long time.
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He truly saw us, our vows, five years of my life as nothing more than a business deal. A contract with terms and
penalties.
Kieran must have noticed me thinking, because his next move was just as calculated.
“Your mother just left the hospital. Follow-up treatments, specialists, medication, those bills aren’t stopping. Who do you think has been covering them?”
I flinched.
“And the house your parents live in, that’s Crimson property. If I take it back, where do they go?”
My nails bit into my palms.
“Then there’s Nicholas.” My brother’s name in his mouth made me sick. “Top of his class. The boy’s a genius. But geniuses still need tuition, housing, funding. Would you really let that go to waste?”
He knew every pressure point. Every person I loved who depended on the safety net he controlled.
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My mind spiraled. If I told my parents about his demands, about who he truly was behind the mask, they would destroy themselves trying to free me. My father would sell whatever scraps he had left. My mother would push herself out of recovery. They would sacrifice everything, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
And Nicholas, my little brother who followed Kieran around like a shadow, who called him “big brother” with so much admiration – if he found out the truth, he’d drop out of school in a heartbeat. He’d refuse to accept another dollar out of pride and loyalty to me. He’d throw away his entire future.
Kieran watched me spiral. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t need to.
When I didn’t respond, he scooped me off the chair. I didn’t fight him. My body had run out of resistance. He carried me to the bed and set me down gently.
“We’re still married,” he said. “Until you come up with the money, you do your duties as my wife.”
I looked him dead in the eyes. “I don’t understand what that means.”
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He sat beside me and took my hand. “It means as long as we’re married, you don’t say things you’re not supposed to say. You don’t do things you’re not supposed to do.”
“Will you give Sophie and her son a formal place in the pack?”
His expression sealed shut. “Don’t ask about Sophie. Don’t go near her. Don’t speak to her. Don’t mention her
name.”
So that was it.
He was banning me from acknowledging the woman who had taken my place while expecting me to clean up whatever mess his affair created. If rumors spread, if the pack found out, it would be me, his Luna, stepping forward to smooth things over and protect his image.
I thought about the whispers I’d overheard at pack events. Women saying behind their wine glasses that the only reason Kieran never married Sophie was because she wasn’t high-born. He loved her, everyone said so. But a low-born Luna would weaken him politically, so he married for strategy and kept the woman he wanted on the side.
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Not divorcing me had nothing to do with wanting me. I was the cover story. The legitimate wife who made his affair invisible.
“I can’t pay you back,” I said. “And I can’t meet your demands. What other choice do I have?”
“There is no other choice.”
I sat with that in silence. Kieran seemed to take it as
surrender.
“Drop it,” he said. “We move on.”
He switched off the lamp and told me to sleep. It was late.
I lay beside him in the dark, eyes wide open.
I wasn’t at peace. My mind kept cycling, every option. a dead end, every door bolted shut with money and obligation and the people I loved most.
“I want to get a job.”
The words left my mouth before I’d fully decided to say
them.
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Kieran was quiet for a while.
“Fine,” he said.
“And I’ll be moving out.”
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