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Home / Werewolf / Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha / Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

Lahat ng Kabanata ng Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha : Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

212 Kabanata

161

IRIS’S POVThe Summer House didn't need high-tech sensors to feel dangerous. It had the weight of a century of misery pressed into its floorboards. As the front door hung off its hinges, the rain began to lash into the foyer, turning the fine layer of dust into a muddy slurry. The man in the gold mask didn't move like a soldier; he moved like a debt collector who had finally lost his patience.Darius stepped in front of me, his body a solid, warm wall of charcoal wool and muscle. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a fierce, protective energy that was far more grounding than any corporate bond. He didn't reach for a weapon. He didn't need to. He just stood there, his hands loose at his sides, looking at the intruders with a bored, lethal contempt that made my heart hammer a frantic rhythm against my ribs."Sterling really has a flare for the dramatic, doesn't he?" I said, my voice cutting through the sound of the rain with a sharp, biting sarcasm. I tucked the leather ledger unde

162

DARIUS’S POVThe darkness wasn't just an absence of light; it was a physical weight, thick with the scent of old dust and the ozone of the storm outside. I didn't need my eyes to find Iris. I could feel her. The heat radiating off her skin, the sharp, jagged rhythm of her breath, and the way her silk dress hissed against the floorboards as she moved closer to me.My hand found the small of her back, my fingers digging into the emerald fabric. I pulled her flush against my side, my body acting as a shield between her and the looming shadow of the woman at the base of the stairs. The proximity was a visceral, grounding force. In the middle of this nightmare, the only thing that felt real was the friction of her hip against mine and the way she didn't even flinch when the first of the men in the masks lunged forward."Stay close," I growled, the words vibration against the crown of her head."I’m practically inside your suit, Darius. Any closer and I’ll be on the payroll," she whispered

163

IRIS’S POVThe scream died in my throat before it could even form.Darius was a blur of charcoal grey and raw instinct. He didn't think; he lunged. His boots skidded on the rain-slicked floorboards as he threw himself toward the balcony, his hand catching the back of Ethan’s collar just as my brother’s heels cleared the stone ledge. The sound of the fabric straining was a sharp, jagged snap against the roar of the wind.Ethan dangled over the abyss, his face pale and unreadable, while Darius strained, his muscles cording under the silk of his sleeves. The rain lashed at them both, turning the scene into a chaotic mess of shadows and salt spray.I didn't run to the ledge. I couldn't. My feet were rooted to the spot, my gaze locked on the woman in the black veil. She stood perfectly still, her hands folded over the silver key, watching the struggle with an indifference that was more terrifying than the fall itself."Mom?" I whispered again, the word feeling like a piece of glass in my m

164

IRIS’S POVThe wood groaned beneath us, a deep, structural scream that vibrated through the soles of my ruined heels. Water was already bubbling up through the floorboards of the landing, dark and freezing, carrying the scent of dead salt and rotted foundation. Darius was five steps ahead, his hand out, his face a mask of jagged desperation as he waited for me to bridge the gap.But I wasn't moving.Ethan’s hand was a vice around my upper arm. His fingers, usually so careful and thin, dug into my skin with a strength that felt entirely wrong. He wasn't looking at the escape route or the crumbling turret. He was looking at me, his eyes wide and hollowed out, stripped of every ounce of the brotherly warmth I’d spent my life protecting."Ethan, let go!" I shouted over the roar of the surf crashing against the cliffs outside. "The house is falling apart. We have to move!""You don't get it, Iris," he said. His voice was flat, echoing with a chilling clarity that cut right through the

165

Iris The interior of the black sedan smelled of expensive leather and the cold, ozone scent of the storm I’d left behind on the cliffside, and it was a smell I was starting to associate with betrayal. I didn’t look back at the silhouette of the man standing in the rain. I didn't need to. I could still feel the phantom heat of Darius’s hands on my face, a sensation that felt less like a caress now and more like a brand used to mark a piece of property before an auction. Natural. He’d wanted it to feel natural. Because apparently, in the world of the ultra-wealthy, a heart-shattering confession is just a standard part of a hostile takeover. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, watching the dark, jagged trees of the Hamptons blur into a smear of grey. My emerald dress was a wet, ruined weight against my legs—a four-thousand-dollar mockery of the woman who had walked into that gala thinking she was the one holding the cards. Now, I just looked like a very expensive, v

166

~ DariusThe storage unit was just a cold concrete box that smelled strongly of wet dust and old engine oil, but right now it felt like a trap closing in on me. She stood right in the center of the small room, the cheap overhead light catching the bright green of her ruined dress, making her look like a priceless gemstone someone had carelessly dropped into a dirty gutter.I stayed in the doorway for a second to catch my breath, my lungs burning from running blocks through the city rain after my car got stuck in traffic, and when I finally looked at her, I saw a total stranger instead of the woman I had spent months trying to figure out. The biting, dry humor she always wore like armor was still there, but the soft warmth I had spent so long trying to pull out of her was completely gone, entirely replaced by a cold and terrifying stillness that made her look like a judge about to read my death sentence."You knew about all of this from the very beginning, didn't you?" she asked, her v

167

IRIS’S POVThe silence in the storage unit was a jagged, suffocating thing. I stared at the man standing in the doorway, Miller, the guard who had been a silent fixture in the Wolfe security detail for as long as I’d been their auditor. His face was a map of split skin and purple bruising, his breathing heavy and uneven. He didn't look like a threat. He looked more like a man who had already seen the end of the world and was just waiting for the rest of us to catch up."Liquidation," I repeated, the word tasting like copper on my tongue. "My father used that word for bad investments. Your mother uses it for people."Darius didn't move. He stood between me and Miller, his shoulders broad, his presence a dark, immovable wall of charcoal wool. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a fierce, protective energy that I wanted to push away even as I found myself leaning into it. The revelation of the contract was still a raw, bleeding wound in my mind. I was a payment. A line item. A b

168

irisThe penthouse had officially transitioned from a symbol of ultimate, untouchable power into a cluttered, high-end graveyard of dead ambitions, and frankly, the décor was starting to reflect the internal body count. It wasn't just a room anymore; it was a crime scene of the soul where the primary weapon was a fountain pen and a lack of empathy. I stood in the dead center of the mahogany-clad space, feeling the ruined silk of my emerald dress—a garment that had originally been intended to project "unfuckwithable CEO" but now mostly suggested "survivor of a mid-tier explosion"—clinging to my skin like a damp, bruised second layer of failure. The fabric was torn at the shoulder, a jagged reminder of the undignified scramble through the lower floors where the elevators had decided to give up on capitalism at the same time I had, and the cold air hit my skin with the precision of a scalpel. I felt like a total intruder in a life I had spent every waking hour trying to audit and own, as

169

"He’s high on the legacy, Iris, so don't waste your breath trying to find a human being in there," Darius muttered directly into my ear, his breath hot and steady, a sensory jolt that tried to ground me even as the floor felt like it was tilting into a void. "Sterling has been feeding him the same toxic lies that Silas fed me for years. He actually thinks he’s a god because they told him he’s the only one who can survive the 'resonance' of the family name without losing his mind. It’s a cult, Ace, and he’s already signed up for the membership." "I don't care about the resonance or the family name or any of this gothic corporate nonsense, Darius," I snapped back, my sarcasm returning like a familiar, dented shield that I desperately needed. "I care about the fact that my brother is currently siding with a woman who looks exactly like my twin and sounds like she’s about to give me a performance review before she has me liquidated." Sterling stepped forward with a slow, agonizing delib

170

IRIS’S POVThe silence that followed the departure of the helicopter was louder than the gunfire had been. It was a thick, suffocating pressure that settled over the ruined penthouse, flavored by the scent of ozone and the expensive cologne Darius wore. I stood on the edge of the balcony, the wind whipping the tattered silk of my emerald dress around my legs, staring into the empty space where my family had just vanished. My mother was alive. My brother was a stranger. And I was standing in the wreckage of a kingdom I now technically owned.I felt Darius move behind me. He didn't touch me, but I could feel the heat of his presence like a physical weight. He was a shadow in the red strobe of the emergency lights, a predator whose cage had finally been dismantled. I turned slowly, my heels crunching on the glass of the shattered balcony doors.You knew she was alive, I said. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation delivered with the precision of a scalpel.Darius let out a long, j

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