Fated to the Alpha Who Killed Me (by Sherry) novel Chapter 235

The café Ruby had chosen was deliberately anonymous chain furniture beige valls, the kind of place designed to fade from empty. I arrived exactly on time and found her already seated at a corner table, fingers worrying an untouched coffee cup

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She looked smaller than I remembered. Silver threads wove through her dark hair, catching the overheat lights. Her eyes held that restless qualdy recognized from my own mirror–the kind that came from sleepless nights. When she spotted me, she rose so abruptly her chair scraped against the re

Goldcrest,” she said, her voice stripped of its usual warmth. “Thank you for coming.

id into the seat across from her and ordered a black coffee. When the server left, I met Ruby’s gaze directly and waited.

I need to speak with you about my daughter. She swallowed hard. “About Celeste. She’s young–she hasn’t even finished university yet. She doess understand how complicated adult relationships can be. If she’s done anything to offend you, I’m asking you to show some understanding.”

I lifted my coffee when it arrived, letting the bitter liquid anchor me against the absurdity of this conversation. Rufey sat there with a mother’s blind devotion, completely unaware that her daughter had orchestrated my unborn child’s death.

“What exactly did Celeste tell you happened?” I kept

Ruby’s fingers tightened around her cup. Daemon Blackwood shows interest, w your marriage. Even after your div

If Celeste had truly decide

I knew exactly

the inno

oice neutral.

. Blackwood pursued her first. Our family is ordinary, Miss Goldcrest. When someone like do? She came to you trying to be honest, to make clear she had no intention of breaking up

‘t be with him. She knows what people would say.”

mon even after our divorce, then why had she accepted all his arrangements?

e really wanted. But she’d hidden it from everyone so thoroughly that people like Ruby couldn’t see past derneath.

my cup down.

onse came without hesitation. “Celeste has been exceptional since childhood–kind, obedient, never caused us trouble. how sweet she is. This situation with you and Mr. Blackwood has destroyed her. She regrets it terribly.”

ng the genuine conviction there. In Ruby’s reality, Celeste was the gentle girl who’d brought home perfect grades. The monster ing my miscarriage as “cleaning up a mistake” simply didn’t exist in her mother’s understanding.

half–empty, I leaned forward. “Your daughter is more formidable than you realize, Ruby. She’s played everyone–including you.”

red across her features. “What do you mean?”

very beginning, Celeste pursued Daemon, not the other way around,” I spoke each word with deliberate precision. ‘She orchestrated situations

rself into his life, deliberately provoked me to cause my miscarriage, and she’s wanted to be with Daemon all along. Every single thing she’s told

lie. Am I being clear enough now?”

color drained from Ruby’s face. Her hand je

ed over with napkins, and we sat in t

were alone again, she

Howays, dark liquid spreading across the white tablecloth. The barista

ling so violently she had to grip the table edge.

My daughter still has to finish school, get married.

9:10 am PC

Chapter 232

can you take top for that?

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pg up

**can take responsibility for every single word I’ve just said. My tone hardened. The real question a whether Celeste can take responsi she’s done.

Ruby stared at me like I’d grown a second head. I pulled on my phone with defcherate slowness, navigating for the audio file. I’d cierpikat ez nadogr Celeste’s true voice. The ones where she described sabotaging my marriage with clinical detachment.

“Listen,” I said simply, and pressed play.

Celeste’s voice filled the space between us, crystal clear and utterly damning. Ruby’s face went through a cascade of expressions–denial, confusion, dawning horror–as she heard her daughter discuss destroying my pregnancy with casual cruelty. When i finally stopped the playback, the silence fair suffocating.

“That’s impossible,” Ruby whispered, but the conviction had bled from her voice. “She wouldn‘!–

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