Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 167

Chapter 167: Chapter 167

Elara’s POV

"I don’t have a husband," I said through my teeth.

Gary leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. The luminescent glow of the enchantment lamps washed his face pale, deepening the lines around his mouth. He looked like a man who’d practiced disappointment in a mirror until it became permanent.

"Right," he said. "No husband. Sure." He gestured at my face with a lazy flick of his wrist. "Sarah, you look like a domestic violence poster. You know that? Three customers complained yesterday. Three. Said you were standing behind the register looking like you were about to murder somebody."

I set the crate down. Slowly.

"I was stocking shelves, Gary. Not standing behind the register."

"Doesn’t matter. You were visible. People saw your face and got nervous." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is a provision shop, not a shelter. I can’t have employees scaring customers."

The enchantment lamp above us buzzed. A faint, persistent whine, like a fly trapped behind glass. I focused on it. Breathed through my nose.

"And then there’s the matter of the crystal register," Gary continued, his voice sliding into something oily and rehearsed. "You still owe me for that."

My stomach tightened. "I don’t owe you anything."

"Two hundred gold coins." He held up two fingers, as if I might not understand the number otherwise. "That’s what the replacement cost. You broke it, you pay for it."

"I didn’t break it. Mia knocked it off the counter when she was—"

"Mia’s been here two years," Gary cut me off. Flat. Final. Like that settled it. "She’s reliable. She’s consistent. And now she’s gone because you made her feel unsafe."

The blood in my veins turned hot. Mia. Sweet, smiling Mia who stole tips from the jar when no one was looking. Mia who took my locker and rifled through my things. Mia who reported me for being late when she’d been the one to switch our shifts without telling me.

"Mia stole from me," I said quietly.

"See, this is what I’m talking about." Gary wagged his finger. "This dramatic nonsense. Accusations. Excuses. You create a hostile environment and then wonder why people don’t want to work with you." He straightened up, puffing his chest like a pigeon on a ledge. "Two hundred gold. You can pay it out of your future paychecks or—"

"No."

The word came out clean. No tremor. No hesitation.

Gary blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I said no."

He laughed. One short bark. "That’s not how this works, Sarah. You broke company property. You owe—"

"I didn’t break anything. Mia did. You know she did because you were standing in the stockroom doorway when it happened. I saw you."

His jaw twitched. Just once. Then the mask came back—smug, unshakable authority. The expression of a small man standing on a very small hill.

"Two hundred gold," he repeated. "Or I dock your pay and write you up. Your choice."

At register three, a customer stood frozen with a bag of dried herbs in her hand, watching us with wide eyes. She looked ready to bolt.

Something dark and quiet shifted in my chest.

Three weeks. That’s how long I’d been training with Flint and his team. Three weeks of being thrown to the mat. Three weeks of learning where the body was weakest—the soft hollow of the throat, the nerve cluster beneath the ear, the fragile architecture of the knee. Flint hadn’t taught me to fight like a knight. He’d taught me to fight like something that wanted to survive at any cost.

Flint’s team didn’t teach honor. They taught damage.

And right now, standing in this luminescent hellscape with Gary puffing his chest at me, I understood for the first time what that training had actually done.

It hadn’t just changed my body. It had changed the machinery behind my eyes. The calculation. The assessment. I looked at Gary and I didn’t see a manager anymore. I saw a collection of vulnerabilities. The exposed throat. The weak left knee he favored when he walked. The way he always stood with his weight on his heels. One sweep. That’s all it would take.

"Gary," I said softly. "Step back."

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