Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74: Chapter 74

Kael’s POV

I sat in my car outside the Shadow Moon building again, engine off, staring up at that dark window on the third floor. This had become my nightly ritual now—driving here after midnight, parking in the same spot, watching the same empty window like somehow she might appear there. Like maybe if I wanted it badly enough, the universe would take pity on me and bring her back.

Pathetic. I was completely, utterly pathetic.

Fenrir stirred restlessly in my mind.

I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, and immediately her face was there—those silver eyes looking up at me with so much hope, so much fragile trust, even after everything I’d put her through. The way she’d reached for me when I kissed her cheek. The way her fingers had trembled against my skin.

And then my own voice, cold and cruel and calculated, shattering all of it.

*"We went on a few dates. I understand that might have created certain... expectations. But we’re not the same kind of people, Aria. We never were."*

My fist slammed against the steering wheel before I could stop it. The impact sent pain shooting up my arm, and I welcomed it. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel something other than this hollow, gnawing emptiness that had taken up permanent residence in my chest.

She was too good for me. That was the truth I’d been running from. She was too pure, too genuine, too real. And I was so terrified of what she made me feel that I’d burned everything to the ground rather than admit I was falling in love with her.

*"Stay away from me after this. We won’t have any relationship from now on."*

Those were my last words to her. My final words. I’d shoved money at her like she was some whore I was paying off, and I’d told her to disappear from my life.

And she had.

God help me, she’d actually done exactly what I asked.

I forced myself to start the car. There was no point sitting here all night again. She wasn’t coming back to this place. She wasn’t coming back to me. And sitting in the dark, marinating in my own regret, wasn’t going to change anything.

I needed to think. I needed a new plan. I needed to find some trace of her, some clue about where she might have gone.

But first, I needed to go home and face whatever fresh hell was waiting for me there.

---

The Blood Crown estate was never quiet, not really. Even in the dead of night, there was always staff moving through the halls, always the hum of security systems, always the distant sound of my father’s paranoia manifesting in patrols and checkpoints.

But tonight, the silence was different. Heavier. The kind of silence that comes after something terrible has happened.

I felt it the moment I stepped through the front door—that sick, familiar tension in the air. The sharp metallic tang that I’d learned to recognize before I was old enough to understand what it meant.

Blood.

My mother’s blood.

I was running before I consciously decided to move, taking the stairs two at a time, my heart slamming against my ribs with every step. The east wing. Their quarters. That’s where the scent was coming from, getting stronger with each breath I took.

I heard the crash before I reached the door—the unmistakable sound of furniture being destroyed, of glass shattering against walls. And then my mother’s voice, high and desperate and terrified.

"Magnus, please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!"

I slammed through the double doors so hard they nearly came off their hinges.

The room was destroyed. The antique coffee table had been flipped, its glass top shattered across the floor like a field of diamonds. Paintings hung crooked on the walls. A lamp lay broken in the corner, still sparking feebly.

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