Free Web NovelChapter 64: Chapter 64
Aria’s POV
Peter tried to comfort me, his voice soft, steady and careful.
But I just shook my head.
My throat felt too tight to speak. My wolf’s ears were pinned flat, every instinct inside me taut like a stretched bowstring.
My fingers tightened around the paper until my knuckles turned white. The contract crinkled beneath my grip.
I dragged in a slow breath and forced my hands to loosen. Then, with deliberate calm, I placed the document back on the edge of the bed where I’d found it.
"Let’s eat before it gets cold," I murmured, though my voice barely made it past my lips. Even to my own ears, it sounded like thin, fading and insubstantial smoke.
I turned toward the door. My steps wobbled, but I didn’t stop.
---
Dinner was... unbearable.
It was nothing like the quiet comfort we used to share.
The silence tonight felt like a living thing, it was thick and suffocating, coiling around the table like a shadow determined to choke us.
Peter barely touched his food. His scent was all wrong. I could sense he was restless, ashamed and anxious. His face was drained of all color, and every few seconds, his eyes flicked toward me.
He was worried.
My fork had barely moved. My wolf lay coiled beneath my skin, pacing, rumbling, restless. I could barely force myself to swallow.
Even Lana felt it.
Normally she would babble, grab Peter’s hair, pat his cheeks, reach for the table, anything.
Tonight she curled quietly in my arms, her soft warmth pressed against my chest like she was trying to shield me from something she could feel.
Wolves always sensed tension.
Maybe my daughter... inherited more than just my eyes.
After we finished, Peter offered to clean up.
I just nodded. No protest, no polite tug-of-war over chores.
I couldn’t muster the energy.
I slipped into my room and shut the door behind me.
Darkness wrapped around me immediately.
I didn’t turn on the lights.
I didn’t want to.
I crossed the room by memory and sank against the window, Lana sleeping on my shoulder.
A cold breeze crept through the cracked window, sharp, slicing, almost punishing.
It brushed my skin like a blade, and I shivered.
But I didn’t move.
I just sat there, my arms around Lana, staring into the night sky painted in ink.
My mind couldn’t stop spinning.
Could all this really be a coincidence?
I had just faced Nathan earlier today, his eyes had been cold, his voice low, his threat unmistakable.
He wanted me to behave, to submit to him and fall back into the mold he carved for me.
And now, suddenly, Peter was hit with a thirty-million-dollar penalty?
My wolf growled deep in my chest. The sound was silent, but I felt it vibrating through my bones.
No.
This wasn’t coincidence.
Nathan planned it.
He wove the trap long before I saw the seams.
But when did he start?
Did he begin plotting the second Peter took me and Lana in? When I had nothing, when he knew I had nowhere else to go?
A low rumble built in my throat, and I clenched my fists until my nails bit painfully into my palms.
Where was Nathan when I was broken, homeless, carrying a child alone?
Where was he when Peter opened his door to us? When he stood between me and the world I no longer recognized?
Nowhere. frёewebηovel.cѳm
But now, not even Peter was safe.
My lips trembled, and I bit down hard until I tasted blood.
Nathan knew.
He knew where I stayed, he knew I stayed with Peter.
And he was using Peter’ career... his future... his entire life...as leverage.
To bend me, to cage me.
To force me into obedience.
For Sophia of course.
Oh, how meticulous of him.
How thorough, how vicious.
My wolf snarled inside me, the sound crackling through my veins like lightning.
I gritted my teeth, but a cold shiver slid through my limbs before I could stop it. My wolf felt it too—her ears flattening, her hackles lifting beneath my skin.
Nathan.
But how in the Moon goddess’ name had he found out where I was staying?
I forced myself to breathe slow, to think, even though my thoughts were tangled like thorns ripping at each other. One thread refused to let go.
Only Richard knew I was staying with Peter.
Could it be him? Did he still have feelings for Sophia and think helping Nathan might win her back?
If that was true...
I’d dragged Peter straight into my mess.
Guilt stabbed so sharply my breath caught. And then a darker thought froze my blood.
If Nathan knew where I lived... did he also know about Lana?
Panic surged through me like a wildfire. My wolf growled inside my chest, ready to claw her way out if she had to. I looked down at Lana nestled in my arms.
At some point she’d fallen asleep, her tiny lips puckered in that soft little pout she always made when she dreamed. She was so peaceful, so innocent and so vulnerable.
The sight of her snapped something inside me back into place, my maternal instinct, my wolf’s protective snarl, everything.
No.
If Nathan knew about Lana, with his power, his twisted methods... he would have stormed in long ago. Broken the door and dragged me out by my hair if he needed to.
Right now, he just wanted to squeeze Peter until I apologized to Sophia.
It was a show of dominance, a punishment.
A way to remind me that no matter how far I ran, he could always corner me.
Maybe... maybe he still didn’t even know Lana existed.
My heart eased for a single breath, only to sink even deeper into a colder, darker abyss.
Nathan... why do you leave me no way out?
Bitterness churned in my chest, thick as poison. Anger, too, causing my wolf to pace restlessly, snarling, wanting to tear into something. But exhaustion kept pulling my eyelids down like weights.
Why wouldn’t he let me go?
Why?
I had already lost everything—my place as the Darvin family’s eldest daughter... the brilliant lawyer I once was. I have scrubbed floors, emptied trash bins, took every brutal job I could get just to feed my child.
I sacrificed everything.
So why... why couldn’t I break free of him?
