Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 171

Chapter 171: Chapter 171

Aria’s POV

The knocking came again.

Soft. Tentative. Almost hesitant.

My heart kicked into overdrive. Every nerve in my body suddenly screaming danger.

I was on my feet before I could think. My eyes darted around the dim living room, searching for anything I could use to defend myself.

The flashlight.

Heavy. Metal. Sitting on the side table where I’d left it after the last power outage.

I grabbed it. The weight was reassuring in my palm. Not much of a weapon, but better than facing whatever was out there with bare hands.

The knocking came a third time.

Quieter now. Almost like whoever was out there was losing courage. Or hope.

I crept toward the door. Each step deliberate. Careful. The floorboards under my feet seemed impossibly loud in the silence.

My apartment had never felt so dark. So isolated. The soft glow from Lina’s nightlight down the hall only made the shadows in the living room seem deeper. More threatening. Like they were alive and watching.

I pressed myself against the wall beside the door. Held my breath. Listened.

Nothing.

No voices in the hallway. No footsteps shuffling outside. No sounds of multiple people waiting to rush in the moment I opened the door.

Just profound, unsettling silence.

Maybe they’d left? Maybe it had been a mistake? Someone at the wrong apartment?

But my instincts were still screaming. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

I leaned forward slowly. Carefully. Brought my eye to the peephole.

And my blood turned to ice.

A small figure stood in the hallway.

A child.

I could barely make out the details through the fish-eye distortion of the lens. Dark hair plastered wetly to a small head. Clothes that looked completely soaked through, clinging to a tiny frame. Thin shoulders hunched forward, trembling against what must be bone-deep cold.

My mind raced.

What the hell?

A child. Alone. In the middle of the night. Standing at MY door.

This didn’t make sense. Nothing about this made sense.

But I couldn’t just leave a kid out there. Not in the middle of the night. Not alone and clearly in distress.

My hand was on the doorknob before I could second-guess myself.

I yanked it open.

The figure’s head snapped up.

And my heart stopped.

"M-mommy?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify