A Warrior's Second Chance (Faye and Alexander) novel Chapter 631

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Chapter 610

ALEXANDER

I was back in my office before I fully realized I had left the chambers.

I closed the door behind me and stood there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular.

My mind was already working through every possibility.

It seemed like that was what I had been doing lately. Weighing one possibility against another. Looking at details I had previously dismissed and trying to understand whether they meant something more than I had initially thought.

I had suspected Helen was sick.

The thought had crossed my mind when I visited her alone just to be sure. There had been something about her that hadn’t felt right, something I couldn’t quite explain. I had even

asked her about it. But she had told me she was fine.

And she had looked fine. Healthy, even.

There had been no obvious sign that anything was wrong with her, so I had eventually pushed the thought aside.

Now Faye had told me otherwise. Helen was really sick. And she had specifically asked Faye

not to tell me.

I suddenly remembered the night Faye was crying and blamed it on a headache. Could that be the real reason she had been in that mood?

If Helen had only been dealing with something minor, there would have been no reason to make Faye promise to keep it from me.

Whatever was happening had to be serious. I walked toward my desk and stopped beside it.

I stood there for a minute before turning my attention to my phone. I found my mother’s number and stared at it briefly before pressing call.

The phone rang once, then the call connected.

“Hello?” Her voice came through exactly as it always did.

There was no weakness in it. No indication that she was struggling to speak. If I had called

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But I couldn’t anymore. I didn’t say anything at first. There was a brief silence on the other end too.

“Alex?” Helen called.

I remained quiet. I was still trying to put my question together in my head.

“Alex, are you there?”

Something in her voice changed. Concern.

I finally spoke.

“Mom.”

There was another pause.

“Is everything alright?” Helen asked.

I closed my eyes and took a slow breath. I needed to keep my voice steady. I thought it would be a bad idea to let out my frustration right now.

I needed to hear what she had to say without allowing my anger to control the conversation.

When I opened my eyes again, I stared across the room.

“I want to ask you something, Mom.”

My voice was calm. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lie to me,” I said. And I meant it. One more lie and I might actually lose it.

Silence.

For about a minute, I heard nothing but the faint sound of her breathing.

Then she spoke. “What is the matter?”

I tightened my grip around the phone.

“When were you going to tell me that you’re sick?”

The silence that followed was different from the others. It wasn’t confusion, it wasn’t surprise.

It was the silence of someone who had just realized there was no way to avoid the conversation anymore.

“Mom?”

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I waited. I could hear her breathing hard on the other end. Then I heard her take a deeper breath.

“I see Faye told you after all.”

My jaw tightened. So it was true. Helen was sick, and she had known that Faye had been keeping it from me. Of course, she was the one who asked Faye to keep it a secret.

“How much did she tell you?” Helen asked coldly.

I stared ahead.

“Everything.”

The lie came easily. I knew it wasn’t true; Faye had barely told me anything. But that was the only way to make Helen talk.

I needed her to believe there was nothing left to protect.

There was a long silence, then Helen spoke again.

“I’m sorry, Alexander.”

I swallowed.

“You’re sorry?”

My voice remained controlled.

“You are sick, and I had to hear about it from Faye.”

I walked around the desk without really thinking about where I was going.

“Why would you keep something that serious from me?” I asked again.

I could hear the emotion in her breathing. Her voice was quieter now.

“I didn’t know how to face you and your sister and tell you that I’m dying.”

I stopped moving. Everything inside me went still.

Dying?

The word replayed in my head. I couldn’t process what I had just heard. So Helen wasn’t just sick; she was dying.

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