The Alpha Who Never Loved Me (Serena and Kieran) novel Chapter 142

Chapter 142

Serena

Andrew shows up and I pull him straight to the study. I open Kieran’s laptop and position it toward him, and he drops into the chair like he owns it.

“Hurry up.” I set the USB drive on the desk. “Find the files. I need to copy them before he gets back.”

What I need is the soft copy of the marriage agreement I signed, if Kieran has it anywhere on this laptop, I’m deleting it tonight.

Andrew’s fingers settle over the keys and then he looks up at me with that grin. “And if Kieran walks in on us?”

“Then I’ll tell him you broke in.”

He laughs. “Then I’ll tell him you seduced me. That I’m your little boy toy.”

I stare at him, and then a laugh claws out of me before I can stop it, not because it’s funny but because it’s so absurdly wrong.

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“Just open the laptop.”

He does, his knuckles already moving.

I lean over his shoulder and scroll through the files. myself. The marriage agreement isn’t in documents. It isn’t in downloads. It isn’t in any subfolder I can name. I go through everything visible and come up empty.

Perhaps he did not back it up?

My eyes stumbled upon a section of the drive sitting apart from the rest, the folder locked and encrypted.

“This.” I point.

Andrew opens the section and goes still for a beat, fingers lifting from the keys. “Everything inside is individually encrypted. I have to crack them one at a time.” He gestures at the screen. “Look at the names. Tell me what

you want.”

I lean in and read through the titles. Most of them mean nothing. And then one stops me cold,I read it twice:

Sophie Hadley..

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I showed him the document. “Open it.”

Andrew cracks it in under a minute.

It isn’t love letters. It’s a thorough investigation covering six years of Sophie’s life since she left, every address, every job, every documented fracture. Kieran went digging, and what he found wasn’t pretty. Sophie suffered in a specific, documented way that left marks.

I copy the file to the USB, listening to the faint tick of the drive writing. I move on to the business records: trades, imports, exports. I go through them deliberately, scanning for anything that carries the fingerprints of a deal that wouldn’t survive daylight.

For his company to be what it is, there has to be a dirty corner somewhere. If I find it, I have real leverage.

But the files are clean, legal materials, documented shipments, legitimate contracts. I go through three more and come up empty.

“Shut it-” I start.

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There’s one file tucked at the edge, not quite in line with the others. I almost scroll past it. The name on it makes me forget what I was about to say: Benjamin Thawthorne.

I know that name. I pull my hand back from the screen. I stumbled across it years ago in a conversation I wasn’t meant to hear. Benjamin was Kieran’s older, illegitimate half-brother, the son of an affair so buried that most of their world had never heard his name.

If he’d been recognized, Benjamin would’ve been first in line, the alpha, the heir, the one sitting exactly where Kieran is sitting now.

“Open this one,” I say.

Andrew leans in. “This one’s different.” His jaw shifts as he studies the screen. “Whoever set this up wanted it to stay shut. It’s encrypted at a different level than the rest.”

“Can you get in?”

He cuts me a look that answers the question without words and rolls his shoulders toward the screen.

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It takes longer. I watch the time with one hand braced on the back of his chair, my nerves pulling tighter with every minute that passes.

Then the file opens.

Benjamin was dead. He died at a ski resort an accident,

on record.

Nothing in the file names Kieran as responsible. But nothing rules it out either. Kieran was in a position to gain everything from Benjamin’s death, and he keeps this file locked deeper than anything else on this drive.

People don’t protect records they’re clean about.

I close the document. I straighten slowly, pressing the USB against my palm.

Benjamin was older. Benjamin was in the way. And now Benjamin is gone, and Kieran has everything Benjamin would’ve had.

I pull the USB out of the port and close the laptop. I’m not letting go of it.

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Kieran

Ethan finally goes still against the pillow, his face drained slack, the food poisoning wrung out of him after an hour of misery. I stand near the door with my hands in my pockets.

Sophie exhales and turns to face me.

“Thank you. I didn’t know what I would’ve done tonight.”

I look at her. Her voice carries no performance in it. That’s almost the problem.

“You should go,” she says. “I can manage.”

“Was it your idea?” I ask. “Having Serena take Ethan as her godson.”

She blinks. “What?”

“Answer the question.”

She goes still, her eyes dropping to Ethan and then back to me. “No. I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

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“That’s hard to believe. Serena had a specific

misunderstanding about us. She wouldn’t have done this

without a reason.”

“She threatened me.” Her voice drops, and the tears fall before she can stop them. “She told me that if I didn’t agree, she’d make sure your grandfather had me removed. Thrown out of the country.” She wipes her face with the back of her hand, her mouth pressing flat. “Ethan was there. I didn’t have a choice.”

I look at her for a long moment, jaw tight.

I don’t fully believe her. The story is too convenient. But her hands haven’t stopped gripping the bedrail since she started talking, and I’m too tired tonight to separate what I can verify from what I can’t.

“This arrangement isn’t working,” I say. “Take the money I offered. Leave the city. That’s the best option for you and Ethan.”

“No.” She crosses her arms and lifts her chin. “I’m not leaving.”

“Sophie-”

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“I’ve built something here.” She stands straighter. “I have work. I have an income that’s mine. I’ve made a connection that matters in this city, and you want me to walk away because it’s inconvenient for you.”

I reach into my jacket, pull out a card, and set it flat on the bedside table between us. “The balance on that will outlast anything you can build here. Take it.”

She looks at it and doesn’t touch it. “I’m not a gold digger.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Then stop treating me like a problem you can pay to disappear.”

I keep my face neutral. The words land anyway.

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