Betrayed by My Ex, Marked by His Alpha Emperor Brother novel Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Chapter 27

Isolde’s POV

“Get your hands off me.”

I slapped Gareth’s fingers away before they could land on my shoulder. The carriage lurched over another pothole, and the whole frame groaned like it was begging to die.

Good. Let it collapse. Let the wheels snap off and the axle crack in half. Let this entire miserable excuse for a vehicle disintegrate on the road, just like my life had disintegrated the moment I married this useless man.

“Babe, come on.” Gareth’s voice was soft. Pleading. Pathetic. “You’re upset. I get it. But we can—”

“Don’t call me that.” I stared straight ahead through the cracked carriage window. The capital’s skyline loomed in the distance—spires and towers that belonged to people who mattered. People who weren’t me. “Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me. Can you manage that, Gareth? Can you do one single thing right today?”

He went quiet. His jaw worked. His hands retreated to his lap like kicked dogs.

Good boy.

The carriage hit another rut. Something rattled beneath us—probably a bolt shaking loose. This pathetic heap of rotting wood and rusted iron was the best a prince of the Nightfire bloodline could offer his wife. A prince. The word was a cruel joke. Gareth was the emperor’s bastard half-brother, and the empire never let either of us forget it.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and closed my eyes.

The memory clawed its way back uninvited.

Kaelen’s throne room. His dark gold eyes cutting through me like I was nothing—less than nothing. That voice, low and absolute, dismissing me from the palace as though I were a stray dog that had wandered inside and soiled the carpet. And beside him—

Her.

Elara.

That worthless, discarded orphan I’d grown up pitying, standing in the emperor’s inner circle like she belonged there. Like she’d always belonged there. Personal archivist to the most powerful man in the empire. While I—I who had been raised with breeding, with education, with pedigree—sat in a rattling death trap next to a man who couldn’t afford to fix the wheel.

My nails dug into my palms.

Years ago, Gareth had whispered promises into my ear like honey. Join the Nightfire name. You’ll live in luxury. You’ll never want for anything. I’d believed him. I’d chosen him over Elara’s pathetic little engagement, snatched him right out from under her nose, and felt triumphant doing it.

What a magnificent fool I’d been.

“Sol?” Gareth tried again. Quieter this time. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

We always do. As if “figuring something out” meant anything beyond his card games and cheap tavern food and that ridiculous collection of useless trinkets he hoarded like a crow with no taste. The man couldn’t hold a job. Couldn’t maintain a household. Couldn’t even produce an heir that might give me some leverage in court.

I said nothing.

The carriage wheezed to a stop outside our building. I use the word “building” generously. It was a crumbling stack of stained stone wedged between a tannery and a fishmonger. The stairwell smelled of mildew and boiled cabbage. Our apartment was a cramped space—a leaking ceiling, and a window that wouldn’t close properly no matter how many rags I stuffed into the gap.

I climbed the stairs without waiting for Gareth.

Inside, the apartment was exactly as terrible as I’d left it. Dishes crusted in the basin. Gareth’s playing cards fanned across the table beside crumpled food wrappers. A layer of grime on every surface that made my skin itch.

I couldn’t live like this. I couldn’t breathe like this.

I grabbed my communication stone and activated the Martinez Domestic Services sigil. A clerk’s voice crackled through.

“Martinez Domestic. How may we assist?”

“I need a cleaner. Immediately. I’ll pay double the standard rate.”

“We can dispatch someone shortly, ma’am.”

“Fine.”

I severed the connection and dropped onto the sagging sofa. The springs complained beneath me.

A short time later, a sharp knock sounded at the door. I opened it, expecting some stranger with a mop.

Instead, I found a face I hadn’t seen since the Academy.

“Seraphine?”

She stood in the corridor wearing the plain gray uniform of Martinez Domestic Services. A cleaning bucket in one hand, a canvas satchel slung over the other shoulder. Her dark hair was pulled back in a low, practical knot. No jewelry. No cosmetics. She looked nothing like the sharp, elegant girl who’d once commanded attention at every Academy social gathering. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

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