Chapter 94

Chapter 94
Ethan's POV:

The glass shattered against the wall with a violence that matched the storm raging inside me. Whiskey dripped down the dark paneling of my study, amber drops falling like tears I refused to shed.

"Say that again," I demanded, my voice barely above a whisper. The kind of quiet that made my assistant Noah take a step back.

"The victim's name was Melissa Moss, Alpha." Noah's throat worked as he swallowed hard. "Bella's biological mother."

My wolf howled inside me, a sound of pure anguish that threatened to tear through my human form. I gripped the edge of my desk until the wood creaked under my fingers. Brianna. My baby sister. The girl I'd protected, indulged, defended against everyone including my own mate—had killed the one person Bella had been desperately searching for.

"The investigation?" I forced the words out through clenched teeth.

"A man named Tyler took the fall. Thirty grand to sit in prison for three years." Noah hesitated, his scent shifting to something wary. "But the surveillance gaps don't add up, Alpha. The evidence chain has holes."

Of course it did. Because my family had money, connections, and absolutely no conscience when it came to protecting their own. The same resources I'd used countless times to shield Brianna from the consequences of her recklessness were now covering up something unforgivable.

I was already moving toward the door before Noah finished his report. My sister's room was on the third floor, and I took the stairs two at a time, my Alpha authority rolling off me in waves that sent servants scrambling out of my path.

The sound of feminine laughter stopped me cold outside Brianna's door. Through the crack, I could see her lounging on her bed, phone in hand, giggling at something Faye was saying. No remorse. No fear. Just the same spoiled princess who'd never faced real consequences in her entire privileged life.

I didn't knock. The door slammed open hard enough to crack the frame.

"Ethan!" Faye shrieked, scrambling to her feet. "You can't just—"

The slap echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Brianna's head snapped to the side, her golden curls flying. She touched her reddening cheek with trembling fingers, eyes wide with shock. In twenty years, I had never raised a hand to my sister. Never.

"Do you know who you killed?" My Alpha command pressed down on both women until Faye's knees buckled and Brianna gasped for air. "Do you have any fucking idea?"

"I didn't mean to!" Brianna's voice cracked, tears spilling down her face. "I was upset about Victor, and I'd been drinking, and the car just—it was an accident! I didn't even know I hit someone until Tyler told me!"

"An accident." I laughed, the sound hollow and bitter. "You drove drunk on a suspended license after I explicitly forbade you from going near that car. And then you let someone else take the blame while you sat here laughing like nothing happened."

"I didn't mean to!" Brianna sobbed, her voice cracking. "I was so upset, and I'd been drinking to forget, and the car was just sitting there in the garage. I thought driving would clear my head!"

"Shut up." The command hit her like a physical blow. "The woman you killed was Bella's mother. The mother she's been searching for. The only family she had left who actually gave a damn about her."

The color drained from Brianna's face. Even Faye looked shaken, though she recovered quickly with her usual calculating expression.

"Ethan, please." Faye stepped between us, her hand reaching for my arm. I jerked away from her touch like she'd burned me. "It was a terrible accident, but Brianna didn't know. You can't blame her for—"

"Get out of my sight before I do something I'll regret."

Faye fled. Smart woman. My sister tried to follow, but I blocked her path.

"You're going to Mossglen," I told her flatly. "I've already arranged your enrollment. You leave this week, and you don't come back for at least three years."

"No!" Brianna's hysteria ratcheted up several notches. "You can't send me away! Victor is here! If I leave now, I'll never—"

"Victor Hunt wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole even if you were the last woman on Earth." The cruel words were necessary. She needed to understand. "You're a spoiled child who just committed vehicular manslaughter. The only reason you're not in a cell right now is because of the family name you've spent your entire life disgracing."

"This is your fault!" she screamed, her face contorting with rage. "You're the one who kept telling me to stay away from Victor! You made me so depressed I started drinking! If you'd just let me be happy, none of this would have happened!"

The twisted logic of her accusation left me momentarily speechless. She'd killed someone, and somehow in her deluded mind, it was my fault for not letting her obsess over a man who'd never shown her the slightest interest.

"If you fight me on this," I said quietly, "I will personally drag you onto that plane in handcuffs. And if you even think about telling Bella what you did, I will make sure every comfort you've ever enjoyed disappears permanently. Do you understand me?"

The door to the study burst open. Grandmother Iris, leaning heavily on her cane, with Faye hovering anxiously behind her.

"What is the meaning of this?" Iris demanded, her voice sharp despite her age. "Faye tells me you struck Brianna!"

"I struck a murderer who was laughing about her crime," I corrected coldly.

Faye rushed to Brianna's side, making a show of examining the angry red mark on her face. "He's completely lost control, Grandmother. You should have heard the things he said."

"Brianna killed someone." I enunciated each word carefully. "She drove drunk, hit a pedestrian, and paid thirty thousand dollars to make someone else take the fall. That's felony hit-and-run and obstruction of justice."

Iris waved a dismissive hand. "Human life can always be priced, Ethan. The boy took the money willingly. Three years in a comfortable facility is a small price for financial security. Brianna made a smart business decision."

The casual cruelty of her words hit me like a physical blow. This was my family. These were the people I'd defended, obeyed, tried to please my entire life. And they saw murder as a "business decision."

"The victim wasn't just anyone." My voice came out flat, emotionless. "It was Melissa Moss. Bella's biological mother."

For the first time in my memory, Iris looked genuinely surprised. Her grip on the cane tightened, knuckles going white.

"Bella has a mother?" Faye's carefully cultivated sympathy vanished, replaced by calculation. "She never mentioned—"

"Of course she didn't," Iris recovered quickly, her expression hardening into contempt. "That girl brings nothing but bad luck. First she loses her adoptive family's favor, now her real mother dies in a tragic accident. Some people are simply cursed."

The casual cruelty in her tone—the way she dismissed Bella's loss as cosmic bad luck rather than my sister's criminal negligence—made something inside me crack. I'd spent three years trying to balance my family's expectations with my duties as Bella's mate, and I'd failed at both. But hearing my grandmother blame Bella for being the victim of my family's violence finally showed me the truth I'd been avoiding.

They would destroy anyone who threatened their power. Including me. Including the woman I'd married.

"Brianna needs to leave the country immediately," Faye interjected smoothly, sensing the dangerous shift in my mood. "I know people in Mossglen who can keep her safe and out of sight until this blows over."

"Excellent thinking." Iris nodded approvingly. "Ethan, arrange the transfer. And make sure that detective doesn't dig too deeply into the surveillance gaps."

"I'm not going!" Brianna's voice rose to a shriek. "You can't make me leave! I'll tell Bella everything! I'll tell her it was me, that you all knew, that you covered it up! Then she'll hate all of you as much as I do right now!"

My hand moved before I could think. Faye threw herself in front of Brianna, and my palm connected with the back of her head instead of my sister's face. The impact wasn't hard, but Faye went down with a theatrical cry that would have won awards.

"You've gone mad!" Iris's cane struck the floor with sharp cracks. "Striking women, threatening your own sister—I should strip you of your Alpha status right now!"

I looked at the three of them—my sobbing sister, my manipulative former sister-in-law, my ruthless grandmother—and felt nothing but disgust. These were the people I'd chosen over Bella. These were the relationships I'd prioritized over my mate bond.

Without a word, I turned and walked out. The front door slammed behind me hard enough to rattle the windows. My hands shook as I gripped the steering wheel of my car, my breath coming in harsh gasps that fogged the glass.

All I could see was Bella's face when she found out the truth. The devastation. The betrayal. The final, irrevocable break between us.

My phone buzzed with a call from Noah. I answered on speaker, not trusting my hands to hold anything steady.

"Alpha, we've got a development on the ARIA system." Noah's voice was cautious, like he could sense my volatile state through the phone. "Tech team traced the designer's digital signature. The creator's handle is 'Blade.'"

The name hit me like a punch to the gut. Blade. The legendary hacker I'd tried to recruit for years. The genius who'd turned down every offer, every negotiation, every attempt at contact. The one person who could have saved Grave Industries from our current tailspin.

And they'd sold their system to Victor Hunt instead.

"Keep digging," I ordered. "I want to know everything. Who they are, why they chose Hunt, what their connection is to Victor."

I ended the call and found myself driving on autopilot. The streets blurred past until I realized where I was going. Moonhunt Estate. Bella's sanctuary. The place I'd given her in a moment of guilt, never imagining she'd actually use it to build a life without me.

The lights were on inside. I sat in my car outside the gates, staring at the warm glow spilling from the windows. How many times had I reached for my phone to call her? How many times had I started to knock on that door, only to lose my nerve?

I knew what was behind that door. Pain. Grief. The kind of loss that would shatter her carefully constructed walls. And I was the reason. My family. My sister. My choice to protect them over her.

My hand was on the door handle when headlights swept across my rearview mirror. I ducked lower in my seat instinctively, watching a car pull into the neighboring driveway. Not here for Bella. Just a neighbor coming home late.

I sat there for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, my hand hovering over the door handle, my wolf pacing restlessly inside me. Every instinct screamed at me to go to her, to hold her, to somehow make this right.

But how could I? My sister had killed her mother. My family was covering it up. And I was sitting in this car, paralyzed between the loyalty I owed my blood and the mate bond I'd already broken too many times.

The lights in Moonhunt Estate glowed warm against the darkness. I could picture Bella inside, probably unable to sleep, drowning in grief while I sat out here like a coward.

I pressed the doorbell. Just once. Knowing I shouldn't. Knowing I had no right.

The door opened, and Bella stood there in comfortable clothes, her face showing the exhaustion of grief. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and when she saw me, something shuttered behind her gaze.

"What do you want, Ethan?"

I opened my mouth, a dozen lies ready on my tongue. Apologies. Excuses. Anything to delay the inevitable.

"I heard about your mother," I said instead. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Are you?" Her voice was flat, emotionless. "Or are you here because Brianna told you she witnessed the accident?"

My blood froze. "She mentioned she was in the area that night. Saw the aftermath. She was pretty shaken up about it."

The lie tasted like ash on my tongue, but I couldn't—wouldn't—throw my sister to the wolves. Not yet. Not until I understood what was happening.

Bella's laugh was soft and bitter. "Of course she was. How traumatic it must have been for her to witness such a terrible accident."

"Bella, I—"

"I should thank you, actually." Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "For coming all this way to express your condolences. It's very thoughtful of you, considering how busy you must be with the company crisis and your family obligations."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm apologizing," she said simply, her calm more terrifying than any rage. "For what's about to happen to your family."