ALEXANDER'S POV I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white, the tension in my jaw so stiff it felt like my teeth might crack."Stupid," I muttered under my breath. "So stupid."Henry cast a quick, worried glance at me from the driver’s seat but wisely said nothing. The silence in the car was suffocating. Heavy. Like a third presence pressing into the space between us.I could still see Katherine's face in my mind. The confusion. The exhaustion. The pain she tried so hard to hide.And yet, what hurt more was the way she just stood there. She didn't call after me. She didn't stop me. She didn’t choose me.She let me walk away.I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my head back against the seat. For a few seconds, I tried to force the anger out of my body, to be rational, to be the calm, composed man I'd worked so hard to become.But I couldn't. Not tonight.Tonight, everything I had been holding back for weeks was breaking free, clawing at my insides li
KATHERINE'S POV My mind was blank as the car slowly pulled into the garage of my house. All the way here, I tried so hard not to think about anything but it was almost impossible to do so.I've always known that Elizabeth was wicked, she didn't bother hiding it, at least from me, but if what Victor said about her was actually true, then she wasn't just wicked. She was pure cruel.I don't know if I can deal with someone like that, especially at a point like this in my life.The thought of her harming my poor son, Franklin, was so scary that I found it hard to breathe.What if she actually does? What if....?"We're here, Katherine," Alex's warm voice broke into my thoughts and I stared at him, my emotions void.Sometimes I wondered if he was really trying to help me or if all of this was just another way of him getting into my head.But even as the thought occurred to me, I knew that it was just me being paranoid.Alex's eyes were filled with worry and concern.That's not something you
ALEXANDER'S POV For a moment, the room was silent, so still that I could hear Katherine’s breath hitch and Victor’s words echo in my mind like a broken record.“I had to do it. I had no choice.”There’s always a choice. Always. And when it came to pointing a gun at my son, he had one too.No matter how broken he was. No matter how tragic his past.I let go of Katherine’s hand slowly, not because I didn’t want to be there for her, but because I needed to distance myself from the storm rising inside me. The rage. The disgust. The disbelief. “Victor,” I said calmly, but every syllable I uttered was wrapped in steel, “you keep saying you were a puppet. That she had all the control. And maybe that’s true to an extent. Maybe. But you chose to aim that gun. You chose to obey her. You could have said something, you could have secretly met with Katherine, or me, but you chose not to.“I didn’t know, I wasn't thinking. All I could think about was my wife and...”“Don’t interrupt me,” I snappe
ALEXANDER'S POV I could feel the tension in Katherine's body as she froze at the sound of the name that haunts her.Elizabeth.I never once thought that she would be the one behind this but then again, I didn't know much about her to be able to judge.Her hatred for Katherine seemed more farfetched than I thought it was and the idea that someone like this, someone who was comfortable with threatening her life, was her family, stepmom, but still family either way, made me feel really annoyed."Elizabeth...?" Katherine asked in a half whisper.Victor nodded his head."Yes. She painted me that way. No, she did more than that. She made me her slave."I frowned.He could have gone to the police and reported her to them, he could have reported her to Katherine's father, he kept silent.There's something he's not saying."Her slave? Or a willing servant?" I asked angrily.It was Impossible for me to feel pity or even try to understand him, not when every single look I take at him, I see the
KATHERINE'S POV The ride was so slow and I felt uneasy.The closer we got to the cabin, the more my heart skipped faster."Are you okay? You should have stayed behind, you know?" Alex said, interrupting the thoughts that swirled around my head.I shook my head.There was no way in hell I'll let him handle Victor by himself. The man dared to mess with me and my son, I have to show him that he messed with the wrong person."I'm fine. How close are we?" I asked staring at Henry through the rearview mirror.He glanced at me and then at Alex as if waiting for permission.Alex nodded."Almost there. We'll be there within two minutes.""Won't he leave before then?"Henry smirked."No. I have eyes on him. The minute he steps out of that cabin, he'll be arrested. Did you think we came here without a plan?"I turned to glance at Alex. He didn't tell me anything about having backups."No... I, I thought we were going to handle it alone. What if the cops do something to him, what if they're not
KATHERINE'S POVThe sunlight was the first thing to touch my face, at least, that was what I thought. I could feel something warm around my cheeks and the streaks of light dancing around my eyes.It took me some seconds before I finally opened my eyes and I almost screamed, startled by the sight before me.A dog!!?What the...?I blinked and wiped the wet saliva away from my face before turning to stare at it again.What on earth..?We didn't see any dogs in this building last night. How on earth did it suddenly appear and from where?A soft sound called my attention to the door and I turned my head, immediately struck with shock as I saw Franklin standing at the door with blood on his shirt."Franklin!!" I yelled , my heartbeat racing as fast as a motorcycle as I ran towards him."What's going on, baby? What happened? Where...? No, who brought you here?"He smiled and hugged me.I closed my eyes, taking in the sweet smell of vanilla and cedar wood but my nose caught something else.T