Chapter 35
Elodie’s POV~
After leaving the Pack-owned hotel, I took Cara home. She’d drunk too much last night, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave her alone. I stayed over, watching her sleep like some fragile thing that needed guarding.
When she finally stirred, her lashes fluttering open, she blinked at me in surprise before wrapping her arms tight around me.
“Thank you for last night,” she whispered, her voice still hoarse with sleep. “Let me take you out for a meal sometime. My treat p>
I smoothed her hair back and gave her a faint smile. “Go wash up. I made breakfast. It’s getting cold p>
She clung harder, pressing her cheek against my waist. “You’re too soft, Elodie. Too warm. I could stay like this forever p>
A bitter laugh rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. If she knew how hollow I felt inside, she’d never say that.
She eventually got up, and when she came out of the bathroom, she stared wide-eyed at the plates I’d set on the table. She ate like she hadn’t tasted food in weeks, her joy spilling over in the way her fork clicked against porcelain.
But then her face shifted. Her smile faded, replaced by something tight, uneasy. She froze mid-bite, staring at her phone.
“Elodie Her voice wavered. She looked at me like she wasn’t sure if she should say it. “Is Dante… back in the Pack p>
My chest tightened. My throat burned. “Yes,” I said simply.
She slid her phone across the table. My hand shook as I picked it up.
It was Levi’s post.
Photos. Too many photos. A birthday gathering at Sienna’s mansion.
And there was Dante. He was Standing next to Sienna. Too close. Smiling. Laughing. Holding the knife with her hand over his, cutting her cake as though it was their celebration. Not mine. Never mine.
My heart stopped when I realized, Liora wasn’t in a single photo. Our daughter. His blood. Erased, hidden, like she was a stain he didn’t want anyone to see.
Anyone who looked at those photos would think Dante and Sienna were the perfect Alpha pair.
And maybe that’s what he wanted them to think.
The screen blurred as my eyes filled with tears I refused to let fall. My mind flashed back, cruelly back to two weeks ago, which had been my birthday. The silence. No gift. No call. Not even a glance. He hadn’t come home. I’d sat alone with a cold cake, Liora asleep in her room, my chest aching with a loneliness words could never fix.
But for Sienna? For her, he moved mountains.
I pushed Cara’s phone back across the table, my hand trembling. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice thin, and broken. “Whatever he does with her… it has nothing to do with me anymore p>
“Elodie She looked horrified. “Don’t say that p>
I forced the words out, even as they sliced me open. “I asked him for a divorce p>
Cara’s fork clattered against her plate. “What? You… you brought up divorce p>
“Yes.” I managed to hold her gaze, though my vision blurred again.
She looked at me as if I’d ripped my own heart out in front of her. Maybe I had.
The truth was, Dante had stopped being mine a long time ago. I’d just been too blind, too desperate, to see it. His indifference killed me far slower than rejection ever could.
The photos burned into my mind, each smile of his cutting me deeper.
Cara had always admired Dante. I could see it in the way she used to look at him, like he was some untouchable Alpha from a storybook. And honestly… who hadn’t? Dante wasn’t just powerful because of his bloodline; he was brilliant in a way that scared people. He’d built empires before most wolves his age had even chosen a career. By the time he was twenty, he’d already taken over his father’s company and turned it into something the entire Pack in Italy boasted about.
He was the kind of Alpha other Alphas measured themselves against. Handsome, untouchable, sharp. A man people bowed their heads for without thinking.
So no, Cara wasn’t surprised I’d fallen for him. A Gamma like me, a girl who always stayed in the background, loving a man like Dante, it almost made sense. Genius to genius. Except my love had been real, raw, unpolished. His? I wasn’t sure it had ever existed.
Over the years, Cara had begged me more than once: Leave him, Elodie. You’re breaking yourself for a man who doesn’t even look at you. But I’d always smiled faintly, shaking my head. Because when you love someone like Dante, you don’t just walk away. You cling, even when your hands are bleeding.
But now? Now I’d said it. Divorce.
Cara nearly dropped her fork when I told her. “You… you asked Dante for a divorce p>
“Yes.” The word left my mouth like lead. Heavy. Final.
Her eyes widened, searching my face for cracks. I knew she didn’t believe me. She knew how much I’d loved him, still loved him, if I was honest with myself. But something in me had snapped. Maybe it wasn’t even one moment. Maybe it was years of silence, of birthdays spent alone, of cold looks and nights in an empty bed. Maybe it was the photos of him standing with Sienna, smiling like he used to smile with me. I didn’t know.
I only knew I was tired.
“It’s not really one big thing,” I said quietly, staring down at the breakfast I couldn’t bring myself to eat. “It’s… years. Disappointment piling on disappointment until suddenly you can’t breathe under it anymore. And I realized, I don’t want to live like this. Not even for him p>
Cara’s lips trembled. She pushed her plate aside and hugged me from the side, holding on like she could glue the pieces of me back together. “Then it’s for the best,” she whispered, though I could hear the fear in her voice. Fear for me.
I nodded, but my throat burned too much to speak.
After breakfast, I left her apartment. My legs carried me on autopilot, but inside I felt nothing. Or maybe too much. I wasn’t sure anymore.
The city streets buzzed with life.
I made my way toward the company, the Pack members and colleagues moving through the tall glass buildings Dante had built, the very empire that made him the Alpha everyone worshipped. And me? I was just the woman he’d once marked and then abandoned without ever truly leaving.
Even when we’d lived together, we never went to work at the same time. Dante always made sure of that. His schedule was a wall between us. It had been intentional and calculated. And now, even after moving out, fate was cruel enough to keep throwing him in my path. Twice in the last two days, I’d seen him. The same Dante. The same Alpha everyone adored. Except this time, I knew for certain, he wasn’t mine anymore.
Maybe he never had been.