TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 289

CHAPTER 218: WHERE IS GALE?

EMBER’S POV

“Absolutely not,” Knox says it casually. “Gale is an unrepentant, violent přece of shit who beat my woman for eight years and hasn’t shown a flicker of remorse. He’s not going anywhere except deeper into hell” His thumb traces my thigh. “But Logan doesn’t need to know that. Logan needs to believe the trade is real long enough to hand over the flash drive. Once have it, I take both of them. Logan joins Gale. They can spend the rest of their natural lives rotting together. Every true love story deserves a happy ending.”

“And if he doesn’t take the bait?” Nathaniel asks.

“Then we use brute force. Kill‘ him if we have to. But he is not walking away alive with that flash drive.”

I feel the logic of it settle into place. Smart. Clean. Gives Logan what he wants while neutralising the weapon.

“Where IS Gale?” I ask.

Knox’s hand tightens on my thigh.

“Ember.”

“Where is Gale, Knox?”

A pause.

“Your father’s house,” Knox says. “Maurice’s property. He’s been there the whole time. Guarded by a small team, watched by Maurice himself. I placed him there because it was the last place on earth anyone would think to look for the Lycan King’s prisoner.”

I stare at him.

“My father,” I say slowly. “The alcoholic. The man who sold me into marriage at seventeen for a lifetime

supply of wine. THAT Maurice. Has been babysitting my ex–husband. In the house where I grew up.”

“It seemed strategically sound at the time.”

“Knox!”

r

“In hindsight, I acknowledge there may be an emotional dimension I failed to consider.”

“You THINK?”

“In my defence, I was preoccupied with not going feral because of Rafael and falling in love with you. There was a limited number of cognitive resources available for prisoner logistics.”

I want to scream at him but he’s looking at me with those blue eyes and one corner of his mouth is twitching and I’m furious but I’m also sitting in his lap and he just learned his entire life was built on a lie. If I yell at him right now, I’ll have to get off his lap to do it properly, and I’m not willing to sacrifice the

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proximity

“Fine,” I say through my teeth. “Fine. So here’s what we’re going to do. You handle Logan. Make the exchange. Get that flash drive destroyed. We deal with the emotional bits later.” I turn to Nathaniel. “You go with him because, despite everything you’ve done, you’re the only one who can verify the flash drive is actually destroyed and not a copy. And because Knox needs someone watching his back who knows what the flash drive contains.”

Then I look at Queenie.

“You and I are going to my father’s house.”

Queenie blinks. “We are?”

“I need to see Maurice. Not about Gale, that’s Knox’s mess. I need to ask my father about Sapphire. About the suppressant and whatever Devika is hiding. Goddess knows where that woman is arryway” My hand goes to my chest, to the place where Sapphire lives. She has been quiet. “If I’m supposed to be some kind of ancient bloodline miracle cure, I need to understand what I am before we leave Alaska.”

Knox’s arms tighten around me.

“I don’t want us to split up.”

“I know.”

“I just got you back.”

“I know that too.”

“If something happens while we’re apart and I’m not there to-”

I put my hand on his jaw and turn his face to mine.

“I will be fine. Queenie will be with me. Your security team will be with me. And I will call you every thirty minutes so you can hear me breathing and count the breaths like the obsessive, overprotective, magnificent lunatic you are.”

His jaw works under my palm.

“Every twenty minutes.”

“Every twenty–five. Final offer.”

“You drive a hard bargain, my love.”

“I learned from the best.” I kiss him softly and briefly. “Now let’s move. Five hours. Clock’s ticking. And I’d very much like to get off this godforsaken continent before anything else goes catastrophically wrong.” Knox stands with me still in his arms, sets me on my feet, and looks at Nathaniel with an expression that contains multitudes, none of them forgiveness and all of them the complicated, painful recognition that the man who ruined his life is also the man who kept him alive long enough to find the woman in front of

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him

“If you ever lie to me again,” Knox says quietly, “about anything, including the weather forecast, I will not

give Ember the chance to talk me down. Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” Nathaniel says.

“Good. Get the car. We have a wolf to negotiate with.”

He turns to me, cups my face, and presses his forehead to mine.

“Come back to me in one piece, my love.”

“I always do.”

“You have literally never done that. Not once. Your track record is

“P

“Catastrophic, yes, you’ve mentioned. Go save your throne, Knox.”

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