Rejected and Pregnant I Fled The Pack novel Chapter 37

Chapter 37

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Chapter 37

Damon pov

I’d stepped out to grab coffee from the machine down the hall, needing a few minutes to clear my head after the sleepless stretch since arriving, when I came back to find Evelyn’s door slightly ajar, her voice carrying softly from inside.

“…Take care of your daughter. Whatever else is falling apart around you, she didn’t ask for any of it.”

I paused outside the door, not wanting to interrupt, catching just the tail end before Evelyn said a quiet goodbye and the call ended. I waited a moment longer before stepping inside, coffee in hand, finding her sitting up in bed, phone resting on the blanket beside her, an unreadable expression on her face.

“That was Marissa,” I said. Not quite a question.

“You heard.” Evelyn glanced up at me, exhaustion still etched into her features despite the shower she’d clearly taken, hair damp and pulled back loosely. “She’s staying with your mother. Called to yell at me for ruining her life, mostly. Somewhere in the middle of it I heard her baby crying.”

I sat down slowly in the chair beside the bed, processing that, feeling old, complicated frustration settle back into my chest. “My father’s been calling my mother constantly. Enforcers showed up at the cabin yesterday. I think he’s decided if he pressures everyone hard enough, individually, he can force us all back into line before he has to actually answer for any of it publicly.”

“That’s what it sounded like,” Evelyn said quietly. “Marissa mentioned him threatening to have her declared unfit. Publicly humiliated for the pregnancy, apparently, since it’s not mine to explain.”

I dragged a hand down my face, exhaustion and old, familiar frustration mixing together. “I know exactly what he’s doing. I grew up watching him do it, honestly-isolate the people who might resist him, make each of them feel like fighting back is pointless, like everyone else has already caved. He’s done it my entire life with pack politics. I just never had to watch him do it to people I actually cared about before.”

“Does it usually work?” Evelyn asked, watching me carefully.

“It used to.” I met her eyes, something heavy and honest sitting behind the words. “He’s built thirty years of control on people believing resistance costs more than it’s worth. My mother believed that for three decades. I believed some version of it too, honestly, right up until the moment I watched you drive away and understood exactly what obedience to that kind of thinking actually costs.”

Evelyn was quiet for a moment, her hand drifting instinctively to rest against Willow’s bassinet, some protective reflex that had become second nature to her over the last eight months, I imagined.

“What happens when he doesn’t get what he wants,” she asked, “You said he gave you a week.”

“I don’t know exactly,” I admitted, because false confidence felt like exactly the wrong thing to offer her right now. “He’s never actually lost control of something this publicly before. Not like this-my mother gone, Marissa’s pregnancy not being his grandchild, me refusing to bring you and Willow home on his timeline. It’s not just pack optics for him anymore. It’s the first real crack in thirty years of him being able to dictate every outcome around him.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Evelyn said carefully.

“It is.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the floor for a moment before forcing myself to meet her eyes again. “I know my father, Evelyn. Underneath all the talk about pack stability and succession, what actually terrifies him is losing control. Not the pack’s reputation, not really-his own grip on everyone and everything

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Chapter 37

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around him slipping for the first time in his life. And people like that don’t usually respond well when they feel that grip failing.”

“What does that mean for us.” Her voice was quiet, careful, some of the earlier exhaustion giving way to something sharper, more alert.

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