To ruin an Omega novel Chapter 450

Chapter 450: Blood is thinner 4

CIAN

But the word felt thin now. Useless even.

Fia stared at Dimitri with an expression I could not fully read. There was recognition there. Old and buried, something she had maybe hoped to never face again. And beneath that, something that looked dangerously close to fear.

"Answer me," Dimitri said quietly.

His eyes never left her face.

Fia’s lips parted, closed, and parted again, like she was testing words she did not want to speak.

The silence stretched.

I stood there between them, my mind racing, trying to piece together what the fuck was happening. Dimitri claimed Fia was his granddaughter, and while I had connected that to her stepmother, Isabel, it had become increasingly clear that was not the case. Fia clearly recognized him from somewhere, and the way he sounded made it seem like it had been a short and one-time thing. Recently enough, too, if his presence here meant something specific, something that made her afraid.

And I had no idea what any of it meant.

"Fia," I said her name more softly this time. A question more than a command.

She finally looked at me. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see the storm behind her eyes, the way she was holding herself together through sheer force of will.

Then she looked back at Dimitri.

"I know exactly who she was," Fia said.

Her voice came out steady. Cold. Nothing like the warmth I was used to hearing from her.

"Good," Dimitri said. He straightened his shirt where I had wrinkled it, smoothed down the fabric with deliberate movements. "Then you understand why I am here."

"No," Fia said. "I do not."

Dimitri’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "No?"

"You had nothing good to do with her." Each word came out sharp and precise, like she was carving them into the air between them. "You were simply a rapey Alpha who played a hand in fucking up her life. So I am curious as to why I should understand why you are here?"

The use of that insulting title sent a visible ripple through him. His shoulders tensed. His jaw worked.

"I did not know what Pauline was doing. What she had done. I swear to you, I did not know."

Fia laughed. The sound came out broken and bitter, nothing resembling humor in it.

"You did not know," she repeated flatly. "Your wife sold my grandmother and your daughter to a warlock for the most vile experimentation to get rid of them, and you had no idea. Is that what you are telling me?"

"Yes."

"Convenient."

Dimitri flinched. Actually flinched as though she had struck him.

"I am not asking you to forgive me," he said. His voice had gone quieter now, rougher around the edges. "I am not asking you to understand. I know what I am. I know my sins. The things I did. The things I allowed to happen under my roof, under my watch."

He took a breath.

"But I want to make it right. Please. Let me try to make this right."

He moved forward. Just a step. His hand lifted like he meant to reach for her, to touch her shoulder or pull her into an embrace.

"Stay back."

Fia’s voice cracked on the command. I watched tears form at the corners of her eyes, watched them gather and cling to her lashes without falling.

"Please," she whispered. "Just stay back."

Dimitri froze. His hand hung suspended in the air between them, useless and unwanted.

"You are just as bad as your wife," Fia continued. Her voice shook now, trembling with the effort of keeping herself together. "You let her do those things. You were the reason she did those things, even. You practically turned a blind eye while pretending your hands were clean."

"I know," Dimitri said.

The admission came out raw and painful.

"I know," he said again. "You are right. I am complicit in everything she did. I know my sins. But I took care of her. The monster is dead. I made sure of it. To protect you."

The words landed wrong. I saw it in the way Fia’s entire body went rigid, in the way her breathing changed, became shallow and quick.

"To protect me?" she asked.

Her voice had gone dangerously soft.

"You think killing your wife protects me? You think that makes any of this better?"

Dimitri opened his mouth and then closed it as he seemed to realize there was no good answer to that question.

"Athena is dead," Fia said.

Each word fell like a stone into still water.

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