To ruin an Omega novel Chapter 331

Chapter 331: Push

FIA

I pushed my chair back before I could stop myself. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The scrape of wood against stone was louder than I meant it to be, but no one called after me. Cian had already slipped out of the dining room, easy and unhurried, like he had not just told a table full of people that a woman vanished from the estate before dawn.

Not that anyone aside from Aldric seemed genuinely disturbed about it.

I caught sight of his back as he turned down the corridor, and I followed.

He was halfway through the second turn when I reached him.

"Wait."

He stopped without looking annoyed, which somehow unsettled me more. When he turned, the warmth from breakfast was still on his face, that soft almost amused expression he wore when he wanted people to feel at ease. It looked arranged now, like something he had put on carefully before stepping back into the house.

"You could have told me," I said, lowering my voice so it would not carry back through the doors. "You did not have to let me find out like that."

His mouth tilted at one corner. Not quite a smile. Not quite an apology. "I know."

That was it. No explanation.

I glanced back down the hallway. I could sense the doors were shut, and the voices I could make out were muffled into a dull hum. No footsteps seemed to have followed us. No one was watching. Only then did I let out a breath and faced him again.

"So did she really leave?" I asked. "Or did you do something?"

The question felt dangerous the second it left my mouth, but I could not swallow it back.

"Do not worry about it."

It was too quick and far too smooth. It slid over the surface of the truth without touching it. He did not deny it. He did not confirm it either. He just left me standing there with the weight of it.

He studied me for a moment, head tilted slightly as if I were something he was trying to understand. "Did you see how frightened Aldric looked?"

There was something in his voice. Satisfaction. A quiet kind of pleasure.

"He is going to start making mistakes now," Cian went on. "Push the wrong people. If I have played this right, Valentine will be next."

Valentine. That man?

The name hit me so hard I felt it in my throat. My chest tightened before I could stop it, fear rising sharp and fast, and I knew he saw it. I was not shielding. I had not expected to need to. The panic spilled out of me anyway, raw and unfiltered.

"Valentine?" I heard how thin my voice sounded and hated it. "Why would he be involved in this?"

I almost said more. Almost asked what he planned to do. I stopped myself because I could feel my face betraying me, I could feel the way my eyes must have widened. I hated that too. Hated that he could read me so easily when I had spent so long since recent revealations learning how not to be read at all.

He stepped closer.

His fingers brushed my jaw, light and almost careful, like he was soothing something fragile. The gentleness did not match the sharpness in his eyes.

"What is wrong?" he asked quietly. "Why are you afraid?"

I forced myself to breathe through it. To think of something reasonable, something that did not sound like I cared too much.

"I know what your uncle is like," I said. The words came uneven, but I kept going. "I know how he reacts when he feels cornered. If another witch gets dragged into this, what do you think will happen?"

"I want Valentine dragged into it."

He did not hesitate.

I stared at him.

"He either stands with me," Cian said, each word measured, steady, "or his daughter dies."

The corridor felt smaller after that. The walls closer. The air thicker.

"Do you mean that?" I asked.

There was a part of me that needed him to laugh. To say he was exaggerating. To tell me it was strategy, not intent.

I did want someone dead. But I wasn’t sure why. In whatever reality I could imagine, I couldn’t see him killing Madeline.

Aldric on the other hand was a ’need’.

"I hope it does not come to that," he replied. "But there is no line I would not cross to protect my family. You."

He let his hand fall away from my face as if that settled the matter.

There you go, his expression seemed to say.

I swallowed, trying to slow the rush of thoughts tumbling over one another. Protect my family. The words sounded noble on the surface. They always did. But protection could look like anything if you stretched it far enough.

"Where is she?" I asked, because I needed to focus on something solid. "Is she still on the grounds, or did you move her?"

His smile came slowly this time, curling at the edges in a way that made my stomach tighten.

"I will tell you," he said. "If you tell me something first."

I already knew I would not like whatever came next.

"I think I have been generous," he continued lightly. "and you on the other hand, you have been very quiet about yourself. About what you are hiding."

My pulse thudded in my ears. He was not guessing. He was circling.

"What secrets?" I asked, trying to sound confused instead of cornered.

He just looked at me, patient.

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