Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 235

Chapter 235: Chapter 235

Gareth’s POV

The fireplace was broken again.

I stared at the dead hearth from my narrow cot, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of mildew and old sweat. The landlord had promised to fix it ages ago. Repeatedly before that, too. But nobody rushed to serve the Emperor’s disgraced brother.

Not anymore.

A draft slipped through the crack beneath the door. The single room was barely large enough for the cot, a chair, and a writing desk whose leg had been shimmed with folded paper. Water stains bloomed across the ceiling like bruises. The whole place reeked of damp plaster and rotting wood.

Home sweet home.

I unfolded Seraphine’s latest letter. She’d sent it by enchanted messenger—a wisp of silver light that dissolved after delivering its cargo. Smart woman. No paper trail that could be traced by the palace’s intelligence network.

He grabbed my throat today.

I read that line twice. Three times. Then I started laughing.

Not a polite laugh. Not a restrained chuckle. A full, body-shaking, stomach-cramping howl of laughter that echoed off the stained walls and rattled the loose windowpane.

The great Kaelen Nightfire. The composed Emperor. The flawless Alpha who never lost control, never raised his voice, never showed weakness—had wrapped his hand around a woman’s throat.

Over a pregnancy he couldn’t even remember causing.

I pressed the letter to my chest and kept laughing until my ribs ached.

He offered millions in gold, Seraphine continued. He demanded that I terminate the pregnancy. He’s desperate. Completely unraveling.

I wiped tears from my eyes and read on.

Elara has moved out of the palace. Separate residence. The staff whisper that he paces his study endlessly. He is cracking, Gareth. The plan is working.

The plan was working.

I folded the letter with careful fingers and tucked it beneath my mattress, where a stack of similar letters had accumulated recently. Each one a small report. Each one a little victory.

The woman was brilliant. Ruthless. Driven by the same poisonous fuel that drove me—rejection from the one person who was supposed to see our worth.

I pulled a blank sheet from my desk and dipped a quill in cheap ink.

Keep pressing. Don’t let him breathe. If he offers more money, refuse. If he threatens again, cry. He’s a wolf who can’t stand the sound of a woman weeping. It reminds him of his dead mother.

I signed it with the cipher we’d agreed upon and summoned my own enchanted wisp. The silver light swallowed the message and darted out through the gap in the window.

Then I lay back on the cot and stared at the water-stained ceiling.

This was the happiest I’d felt in years.

---

Pathetic, wasn’t it? That destroying someone else’s life could feel like sunlight after endless rain.

But Kaelen had never understood what it meant to live in shadow. Born first. Born Alpha. Born to the crown. Everything handed to him on a golden platter while I scrambled for scraps.

Our father’s bastard—that’s what they called me behind closed doors. The accident. The inconvenience. The lesser brother who shared a bloodline but none of the glory.

And what had Kaelen done with all that unearned fortune? He’d taken more. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He’d taken Isolde first. Not that I’d wanted her—not really—but she’d been mine. My wife. My match. And the entire time we were married, all she could talk about was him.

"Kaelen would never wear that."

"Kaelen controls a room just by entering it."

"You’re so... dull, Gareth. So utterly without presence."

Dull. She’d actually said that to me.

I’d endured her comparisons for years before she finally left, and even then—even then—the court had blamed me. Poor Gareth, they whispered. Couldn’t even hold a woman’s interest.

Then came Elara.

My jaw tightened at the thought of her. Silver hair. Ice-blue eyes. A body that had trembled beneath mine long before she ever knew what an Alpha was. Before Kaelen. Before any of it.

She’d been mine first.

Not officially. Not publicly. But we’d had something once—a closeness, a warmth—and then Kaelen had swept in with his crown and his dark gold eyes and his damned mate bond, and suddenly I didn’t exist anymore.

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