Lycan King's Regret: Punished The Wrong Daughter novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123: 123- Victor’s Dreams

Arabella Toussaint:

He wanted to know why I was upset, and I needed to come up with some excuse. Telling him about Jasmine meant there would be more trouble between them because of me, and I didn’t want that.

I looked away from him. "I... I just saw Victor after three years. I guess I got a little emotional." I rubbed the back of my neck. "Seeing him brought back some old memories I’d rather not remember."

It wasn’t entirely a lie, and hopefully, it would get him off my back. Lucien straightened immediately. "Then you’re not meeting him again. I’ll have Bradley..." All the softness disappeared from his face.

"No." I stopped him before he could finish. "I want to do this myself, Your Highness."

His eyes narrowed. "There’s no need for you to put yourself through that." He reached for my hand as his thumb started brushing my knuckles. "I can take care of Victor and..."

"No, please." I was already shaking my head. "I’m not that eighteen-year-old girl anymore, my King. I’m not going to get scared and run away from everything that hurts." I paused, trying to find the right words. "I need to do this. Let me get it out of my system... please."

For a moment, he didn’t respond. His hand remained around mine as he studied my face, clearly not happy with my decision. But then his fingers loosened.

"Alright," he said reluctantly. "But you don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Arabella."

Some of the tension left my shoulders. "I know."

"So," he said, "why did you come here?"

Right.

Victor.

I moved closer and rested my hand on Lucien’s thigh without thinking, too distracted by everything running through my head to realize. "Did you ever consider that Victor might not be the man you’re looking for?"

Lucien’s gaze dropped briefly to my hand before returning to my face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you have footage of Victor taking Anika into that room, but that’s it. There’s nothing showing what actually happened once they were inside." I thought about the reports. "And then there’s that other girl. The one who helped Victor."

Lucien watched me carefully before giving a small nod. "We never found anything that directly showed Victor killing her. But what are you getting at?"

"I don’t know yet." I finally noticed where my hand was and quickly pulled it back. "I still need to do my homework. I need to go through everything again and talk to people who were there that night."

I hesitated before looking at him. "If we are going to start the investigation all over again, we need to rule Victor out first."

Lucien’s face twisted at my words. He pushed away from the desk and turned, walking back toward his chair without saying anything.

I got it. He didn’t like that idea one bit.

Lucien was already convinced Victor had been involved in Anika’s murder. In his mind, that part of the case was already settled. All he wanted now was to find the other girl and figure out where she fit into it.

But after talking to Victor today, I had this strange feeling that we might have gotten it wrong from the very beginning. Maybe Victor wasn’t the killer.

And even if he was, I wanted us to prove it properly this time. Not assume. Not fill in the blanks just because everything pointed in his direction.

I wanted solid proof.

Lucien lowered himself into his chair and looked at me across the table. "You spoke to him for what... ten minutes? And suddenly years of evidence mean nothing because your brother looked you in the eyes and made you doubt it?" Those words stung.

"You’re the one who asked me to help you," I reminded him. "You said we would start from the beginning, and you promised you would help me. That doesn’t work if I’m only allowed to reach the same conclusions you already have."

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