Chapter 34
Elodie’s POV~
That day, I forced myself not to think about Dante and Sienna. Pretending not to care had become a survival skill, though my chest still felt like it carried a weight I couldn’t set down. I stayed buried in work until almost nine, staring at spreadsheets long after the words blurred.
When my phone buzzed, I almost didn’t answer. It was Cara, my best friend. Her voice was slurred, words tumbling over one another. She was drunk. She needed me.
I shoved the files into a neat pile, grabbed my keys, and drove. The city lights blurred past the windshield, mocking me with how alive everything seemed while I felt half-dead inside.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the restaurant’s lot. Just as I was heading toward the entrance, I saw her.
A little girl, small frame, dark hair catching the glow of the lights. My steps faltered. My lungs forgot how to work.
“Liora?” My voice cracked in my throat, though the word never left my lips.
My daughter. My little girl.
She was supposed to be in the European Pack, finishing her term at the academy. Dante had said the project there would keep him for months. I thought I had time, time before I had to face him again, time before I had to face her.
But she was here. Skipping through the parking lot with her braid bouncing, humming a tune only children know. And she hadn’t called me. Not once.
My hands tightened around my bag until the leather bit into my palm. I followed quietly, my heart a frantic mess inside my chest.
At the corner of the lobby, voices drifted toward me. And then her. Same Sienna. Surrounded by Dante’s friends, glowing like she owned the whole damned world.
Liora’s face lit up the second she saw her. “Auntie Sienna p>
I froze. My daughter ran, not to me, but into her arms.
Sienna laughed softly, graceful even in something as small as a hug. “Liora, you’re back too p>
“Because you came back,” Liora said brightly, “Daddy finished work early so we wouldn’t miss your birthday! We even made you a necklace together… see? Isn’t it pretty p>
The Entire world tilted.
I slipped into the nearest chair, tucking myself behind a potted plant like a coward. My chest cracked open as I listened to my little girl gush about how much she missed her. How Dante had worked late into the night, not for me, not for us, but to handcraft something for her.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. Instead, I sat there, nails digging crescent moons into my skin, listening to the sound of my daughter’s laughter as she kissed Sienna’s cheek.
“It’s been a week since I saw you, Auntie Sienna. I missed you so much,” Liora whispered.
And Sienna, without hesitation, returned it: “I missed you too, little wolf p>
My throat burned. My eyes stung. But the worst hadn’t even come yet.
I heard him before I saw him.
Dante. His footsteps. I could pick them out anywhere. Years of waiting up for him, listening to those same steady strides echo in the halls long after midnight, had burned them into me.
Unhurried. Composed. Like the whole world bent around him. Nothing ever rattled Dante. Nothing ever cracked his ice.
Except her.
I didn’t need to lift my head to know the way his gaze would soften when he saw Sienna. I didn’t need to look to know his lips would curve into the faint smile he never once gave me.
And as my daughter clung to the woman who had everything I didn’t, I realized the truth I had been running from, that Dante had already built his family. And I wasn’t part of it.
I should have left the moment I saw them. I should have turned around, walked out, and spared myself the agony. But my body betrayed me, rooting me in place like a coward hiding behind shadows. A coward who could no longer speak or move.
“Daddy!” Liora’s small voice rang out, bright and sweet, like bells I hadn’t heard in weeks. My little girl.
And then him. Dante. My husband. No no, ex husband. He walked in with that same steady stride, flanked by his men. His friends greeted him like he was the center of the universe, and he acknowledged them with that cool, indifferent nod I knew too well. My heart clenched, stupidly still tied to every flick of his eyes, every movement of his body.
He looked at Sienna next. “Happy birthday.” Just that. Short, effortless. But the way his gaze lingered on her, the faint curve in his lips… it felt like someone reached inside my chest and crushed my heart with their bare hands.
“Thanks,” Sienna answered, her smile soft, familiar… too… too familiar.
“Daddy, didn’t you prepare another birthday gift for Auntie Sienna? Quick, give it to her!” Liora’s innocent excitement sliced deeper than any blade. My daughter’s laughter belonged to someone else now. Not me. Not her mother. But Sienna.
Silence fell. I held my breath.
Then one of Dante’s friends laughed, crouching to pinch Liora’s cheek. “That’s a private gift your daddy prepared. He’ll give it to her later, just the two of them p>
The others chuckled. Filthy, knowing laughter.
Dante’s voice followed, calm and unbothered. “I’ve already given it to her p>
The ground tilted beneath me. My nails dug into my palms.
“When?” Liora pouted. “Daddy, you saw Auntie Sienna without me again? That’s not fair p>
Their laughter echoed off the walls.
And me? I just sat there, hidden, breaking. Because I remembered Sienna walking into his office this morning. I thought it was business. Goddess, I wanted to believe it was business. But no, he had already given her the gift. Behind my back.
Sienna, ever so graceful, touched the necklace at her throat and said with a shy smile, “Let’s not stay here. Let’s go upstairs p>
And like that, they walked away together. My husband. My daughter. My replacement. Their footsteps faded, and I was left with the silence, my heart pierced with a thousand tiny blades.
I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at nothing. Long enough that the ache in my chest turned numb, long enough that I had to remind myself to breathe.
Finally, I forced myself to move. I had come here for Cara. She needed me. So I pressed the pain down where no one could see it and dragged my body toward the elevators.
The private rooms were on the same floor. Fate has a cruel sense of humor. As I guided Cara’s drunken body into the elevator, the door slid open, and for a moment, I felt eyes on me. One of Dante’s friends, Levi. His steps faltered.
“What’s wrong?” someone asked him.
“I thought I saw someone I knew,” he muttered.
They all knew about me once. Knew how pathetically I’d loved Dante. How I was the quiet one in the background, the wife who never fit his world. Beautiful, maybe, but forgettable. Disposable.
Levi’s eyes flicked over me again, uncertain. Then he shrugged. “Never mind p>
And just like that, I was erased. As though I was a ghost. Someone they couldn’t even recognize anymore.
The doors slid shut between us. My heart cracked.