All Chapters of Dying Was Easier Than Loving Him: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Amelia’s POVThe door opened with a quiet creak. Lucas walked back into the room holding a clean glass of water. He stopped short when he saw me sitting bolt upright on the edge of the operating table, the IV line already yanked from my arm and trailing across the sterile sheet.“You should be resting,” Lucas said, setting the glass on the stainless counter.“Carrier,” I said.His expression did not change, but his posture went stiff. He reached for the discarded IV tape on the rolling tray. “You were supposed to be sleeping, Amelia.”“Carrier of what, Lucas?” I demanded, sliding my legs over the metal edge until my feet touched the cold floor. “I heard you on the phone. You talked about exposure, trials and Victor’s lab records. I am not a medical mystery for you to solve in secret while I play the helpless patient.”Lucas let out a long breath and pulled a rolling stool over to face me. He sat down and rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the floorboards between his boots befo

Damien’s POVI slammed the study doors shut behind me and crossed the room before my father could look up from his paperwork. Elena sat near the fireplace with a glass of wine, but I ignored her presence entirely. The revelation from the sublevel archives still burned in my chest. The anger pushed me past any sense of protocol or respect.“You expect me to accept your silence as an answer,” I said. “You let me treat the woman who saved my life like collateral damage. You watched me elevate a liar to the position of future Luna. I want to know exactly what else you orchestrated behind my back.”Victor sighed and adjusted his cuffs. “I managed the variables that you were too young or too blind to manage yourself. A pack survives on stability, Damien, not on romantic ideals about truth.”“He did not fix a problem,” I argued, turning my attention to my mother. “He created a fraud. He let me build my entire rule on a fabricated story.”Elena crossed her legs and took a slow sip of her wine

Gabriella’s POVMy hands shook so hard I nearly dropped the phone against the leather interior of my car. I stared at the photo of myself walking up the steps of Ronan’s lodge, eyes burning as I reread the text message beneath it.'Does Damien know what his golden girl is really doing?'My first instinct was to blame Amelia. The quiet, pathetic human must have hired someone to follow me out of spite before she ran away. But as I checked the timestamp in the file details, the air left my lungs in a cold gasp. The photo was taken three weeks ago, long before Amelia ever stepped foot near Lucas’s pub or handed Damien those divorce papers. Someone else had been watching me, tracking my movements and building a case against me for almost a month.I tapped Ronan’s number and pressed the phone to my ear, waiting through the ringing as my heart hammered against my ribs. It went straight to a dead automated voicemail.“Answer the phone, you idiot,” I muttered, slamming my palm against the ste

Lucas's POVI stared into the yawning black hole in the middle of the grove, my thumb tracing the rough grip of my gun as cold air drifted up from the stone steps. The place matched vague rumors I had picked up years ago from aging enforcers over cheap whiskey... whispers about a subterranean lab that Victor claimed to have demolished before I was even born.“Is this where your father buried the evidence?” Amelia asked, peering over my shoulder into the dark.“He told the council it was caved in and sealed with concrete thirty years ago,” I said, sweeping my flashlight beam down the stairs until the light died in the gloom. “He lied.”“Are we actually going down there?” she asked, her voice tight as she nudged a loose stone over the edge with her boot.“I need to know what compound they were cultivating,” I told her, stepping onto the top stone ledge. “If the white fern is growing on top of this facility, the soil is feeding on whatever leaked out down below. I need answers if I am g

Amelia's POVI was ready to break my zero-star rating and drop this whole forest trip down to negative numbers. Standing in a pitch-black subterranean horror lab while a terrifying, wet rasping noise bounced off the walls was officially where I drew the line.“Lucas,” I whispered, keeping my hand planted firmly on his belt loop so he could not accidentally leave me behind. “If whatever is making that noise has tentacles or extra heads, I am officially giving you permission to carry me.”“Keep moving backward,” Lucas replied, his voice a low vibration against my knuckles. He kept his sidearm raised, his body acting as a human shield between me and the dark tunnel ahead.The scraping sound slowed down, turning into a dragged, uneven shuffle. It was not the fast, aggressive sprint of a rogue wolf, nor was it the crisp step of a trained pack guard. It was too deliberate, too wrong.Lucas flicked his flashlight beam higher, cutting through the swirling dust.A figure emerged from the shado