Chapter 50
Kieran
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I set the thought aside and drove home.
Early the next morning, I went straight to the hospital
where Serena worked.
Her department sat at the far end of the east wing, behind a set of frosted double doors. I pushed through and scanned the room, but she wasn’t at any of the workstations. I turned toward the corridor and spotted a man walking into the department carrying a stack of folders.
I stepped into his path. “I’m looking for Serena.”
He stopped and adjusted the folders against his chest. “I’m Raymond, Gerald’s senior apprentice.” His grip was firm. “Serena isn’t here. She left yesterday for an exchange program in another city. She won’t be back until next week.”
What?
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An exchange program in another citu?
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She had packed her bags and left the territory without saying a word to me. No message, no call, nothing. I had texted her, and she hadn’t even opened it.
She hadn’t told me she was leaving or that she was planning to leave. It was as if I didn’t cross her mind at
all.
My throat felt tight; something heavy pressed down at the base of it and made it difficult to swallow.
“Thank you,” I said.
Raymond nodded once and stepped aside, and I turned back toward the exit.
I was halfway to the parking lot when I remembered that Sophie and Ethan were still in the hospital. The boy’s fever had broken last night, and I had left them and
returned home.
I changed direction and headed toward the pediatric wing.
The door to Ethan’s room was open. I didn’t step inside. I stood by the doorframe, watching the room.
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Sophie sat on the edge of the hospital bed with Ethan cradled against her chest. Her back was to me I watched her hand dig into his hair and gently ruffle it.
She pulled back and pressed her palm against his forehead, checking his temperature the old-fashioned
way.
There was no performance here, no tears staged for my benefit. Just a mother tending to her sick child in a hospital room at seven in the morning.
Sophie came from nothing. Her family had been poor, her status within the pack barely above the servants. She had no ambition beyond keeping her son safe; she had no grand design or hidden scheme, nothing like what Trevor had accused her of over and over again.
Everything she did circled back to the boy in her arms.
If Serena had a child of her own, she would understand Sophie. She would look at this scene and see a mother,
not a threat.
I turned away from the door and walked toward the elegator while I pulled out my phone. I dialed Mark’s11:37
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number.
“Alpha.”
“Cancel all my meetings,” I said. “Pack and business. I need to leave the city for a few days.”
A beat of silence. “Understood. How long should I hold things?”
“A week.”
He agreed without pushing, and I hung up.
Serena
Leaving home had nothing to do with wanting a vacation; it was for work.
But lying in this hotel room now, away from Kieran and his family and the constant need to hide, I felt free.
The air-conditioning hummed softly, and the sheets smelled like nothing and no one. I stretched across the bed in an oversized white shirt with the top buttons ungone so the fabric hung open across my stomach.
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I pressed my palm flat against my abdomen.
Still flat, there was nothing visible. No curve, no swell, no sign that anyone could see. Nobody would look at me and suspect I was carrying a child.
A knock came at the door.
I swung my legs off the bed and crossed the room without adjusting my shirt, my stomach still on display through the open buttons.
I pulled the door open.
The air left my lungs.
Kieran stood in the hallway, he was dressed in a dark casual but professional black suit. His eyes found mine the instant the door moved.
I blinked rapidly. “What are you doing here?”
“I came for work.” His voice was even and unhurried. “One of the allied packs needed a meeting. When I
arrived, I heard you were in town.” He paused. “Thought Ed say hello.”
I’d
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I nodded once and pushed the door shut.
It didn’t budge.
His palm was flat against the wood, holding it open without effort. I shoved harder, my shoulder bracing against the frame, but the door stayed exactly where he
wanted it.
He leaned against the doorframe and looked down at me.
“I booked a suite upstairs,” he said. “Come stay with me
there.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Sign the divorce papers, Mr. Thawthorne.” I watched the muscle in his jaw tick. “I don’t have time for you.”
His eyes darkened; the warm amber shifted to something harder, something that looked like flint before the spark.
“It’s not convenient to discuss this here.” His voice dropped half a register. “Come upstairs. We’ll talk properly.”
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“There isn’t anything we could talk about.” I held his gaze 678 without flinching. “You and I are done talking.”
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Kieran watched my face change, and I knew he could see every crack forming in the wall I had been holding up.
“I told Madam Knox that my wife would be joining us,” he continued, his tone unbearably calm. “She’s looking forward to seeing you.”
My teeth clenched until my jaw ached.
“If you don’t come to the dinner,” he said, and his voice carried no visible threat, but the words did all the work on their own, “it won’t end friendly.”
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