My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 361

Chapter 361: Chapter 361 IGNORANCE IS BLISS

SERAPHINA’S POV

Ignorance is bliss.

I’ve always thought that was a cowardly way of thinking. Maybe it’s because I spent most of my life with a big question mark over my head, and I believed I’d find happiness only if every question was answered.

Why didn’t I have a wolf?

Why didn’t my parents or siblings love me?

Why didn’t Kieran see me?

What really happened eleven years ago?

Ignorance is fucking bliss.

After putting Daniel to sleep—holding him close and whispering, again and again, that he was not an accident, that he was fiercely, immeasurably loved—I retreated to the guest room.

I should have been exhausted; it had been such a long, arduous day.

Maybe I felt restless because Lucian’s bracelet was gone. All I could do was lie in bed, staring at the ceiling as my thoughts churned and churned and churned.

I should have forced myself to sleep.

I should have watched a movie or read a book.

I should have fucking waited for Kieran.

Better yet, I should have set Astrid’s damn USB on fire and pretended it never existed.

Instead, deciding I needed to do something before I went crazy, I retrieved the small device.

It looked innocuous. Unremarkable. A simple piece of hardware.

I slid it into my laptop.

The files populated slowly.

My chest tightened, but I forced my breathing steady and clicked the first one.

The surveillance footage loaded in grainy black and white, the fixed ceiling angle flattening everything into shadows and sharp contrasts.

I recognized the grand lounge of the Elysian Hotel immediately.

I drew my knees up to my chest as the footage played.

Celeste appeared first, stunning and elegant as always. I watched as she sauntered across the room, aware that several heads turned as she passed.

Then she stopped at the bar, in front of a Beta from an allied pack I vaguely remembered. He liked to hang around Celeste at joint parties and banquets, a drop in the pool of males who were obsessed with her.

Gods, what was his name? Jack? James?

My memory faltered even as, for the first time in eleven years, it surfaced.

I remembered another presence that night. A man too close. Feeling trapped. A voice in my ear. The choking smell of cologne layered over alcohol.

But I had never held onto his face clearly. I had filed him away as background noise in a night already spiraling out of control.

On-screen, though, he wasn’t background.

They stood close enough that their shoulders nearly aligned. She angled slightly toward him; he leaned in just enough to suggest familiarity.

Without color and sound, everything became sharper in its own way.

Body language replaced dialogue. Proximity replaced tone. They sure as hell weren’t talking about the weather.

I opened another file, and a different angle of a familiar hallway appeared on screen. I recognized the patterned carpet and the gilded sconces lining the walls. At the far end, the elevator doors slid open, revealing Celeste and...ugh, Jonathan?

I watched with bated breath as they stepped out and walked together to the room door at the end of the corridor.

Room 108.

The one I would later wake up in to find my life in splinters around me.

They entered it together.

The timestamp ticked forward.

Minutes passed.

The door opened again, and Celeste emerged alone, head ducked, fingers rapidly flying over her phone.

I knew what she was typing: the text that placed me precisely where I shouldn’t have been.

A numbing chill began to pulse through me—not the sting of shock, not even the rawness of fresh pain, but a cold, empty quiet that flooded my veins.

My fingers felt like icicles as I clicked on a new file. It was the same hallway. The elevator doors once again opened at the far end of the corridor.

But this time, it was poor, drunk Seraphina Lockwood who stepped into view, no idea that her life was about to change forever.

My fingers dug into my skin as I watched myself move with the distracted haste of someone who believed she was responding to an emergency.

My posture was tense, my expression drawn. Even through the distortion, I could see confusion flicker across my face as I tried to get my bearings and searched for the room number in the frantic message.

And then the room door opened, and J-something stepped out.

Memory shifted uneasily inside me, fragments scraping against one another. I remembered the disorientation. The sense that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

My breath hitched as I watched him trap me against the wall and lean in. Even though there was no audio, I heard what he’d whispered loud and clear in my mind.

‘Oh, come on. At least your sister has a reason to play hard to get. You should be grateful I’m giving you any attention.’

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