Chapter 262

Chapter 262


Serena’s POV

He inhaled, the sound filled with something like confession. “Twelve years ago I was younger, reckless. There was an adult party, Aeson and I were there. I left drunk, drove… and I hit a girl. She was unconscious; I panicked. I had a trustee person, Nia arrange for someone to care for her so she wouldn’t be taken into the system. I didn’t know how to fix what I’d done. I only told Aeson because he was the one I thought I could trust. He promised not to tell.” Hades’ jaw worked. “Then my uncle found out. He wanted to bury the problem quietly so he made Nia poison Liam, the girl’s father. After that, Nia ran with the girl for her selfish reasons. For ten years I searched until I finally found them.”

He stared at me, flinching as if the words themselves hurt. “I never meant for any of that to happen. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“But Aeson said you ripped her heart out,” I said, the image burning behind my eyes like a brand.

Hades' hands flexed. “He made that up,” he said in a voice that tried not to snap. “He twisted the truth to make me into a monster. I told him about the accident in confidence. He turned my confession into something cruel so he could use it as leverage.”

Silence pooled around us like a second, sour scent. My head spun with the new architecture of facts. Aeson, the man who had smiled and held my hand, had orchestrated a lie, a dirty, surgical lie that had been planted in my parents’ hearts and grown into a spontaneous, poisonous truth.

I didn’t want to believe a man could be that calculating. Yet the proof sat on the table and in my mother’s hollowed expression.

Momentum took me like an animal; betrayal breeds physical movement. I stalked out of the house like a woman who’s learned she’s been led through fire and spit and wants a face to turn it on. The packhouse courtyard caught the morning sunlight and Aeson sat at a small stone table, coffee steaming in his hands, utterly ordinary as if the world hadn’t shifted under our feet.

He looked up, a grin already forming on his lips, as if he’d been waiting for a visitor. He didn’t notice the cold that rolled off me until I was there, sleeves bunched in my fists.

“I guess you finally came because you've understood my good intentions for us,” he said, almost pleased. “I knew you would.”

The first slap landed before reason could temper my limbs. It echoed across the courtyard. Heads turned. A dozen pairs of eyes fixed on us, a ripple of gasps; the sound of cloth rustling and a dog barking in the distance.

Aeson’s cheek flared red where my palm had struck. He touched it with the same hand that had been warm only seconds ago with coffee, and his laugh came out thin and false.

“How dare you threaten my family,” I spat, each word a throw. I could taste blood in my mouth—my own agitation. “Tell them those horrible lies. You’re twisted, Aeson. Shelly—Zoey—she’s not your pawn! You had my parents lie so your game could be smooth.”

Rage hardened his face into stone for a beat, then slid into something like arrogance as it seemed telling more lies to me would be useless. “He almost killed her,” he said, as if that settled anything.

“You’re horrible, Aeson,” I said. Heat lifted off my words like steam. “And I still love Hades. He’s not a deceitful person. You made false lies about him.”

“It wasn’t all lies,” he shot back, leaning forward, bitterness seeping into his tone. “He almost killed Zoey. He’s bad, Serena. If I’m awful, so is he.”

I could feel the crowd watching. My heart thudded against my ribs like a caged bird. “Don’t you dare compare Hades to your lowlife self, you piece of—” The epithet died on my tongue, replaced by a motion. I hauled my hand back and struck him with the side of my fist.

He staggered. Coffee sloshed from the cup, dark arcs staining stone.

He recovered with a snarl, lips pulling back. “Really?” he said, blood shining at the corner of his mouth where my palm had grazed him. “If he did kill her…you’d still accept him? You’d wear his darkness because of…what? Loyalty? Love? Fine. I only wanted to see if you meant it.”

That sneer was the last of my restraint. I reached for him, fingers closing around the collar of his shirt and bringing him down so our faces were an inch apart. The pack members around us shifted, whispering like dry paper.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” My voice was a blade. I pressed so close he could feel my breath. “I never want to see your bloody face again, Aeson Goldwyn.”