Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 26

POV: Seraphina

After the party for Sylvie, a strange, dead calm settled over me. The raging inferno of pain and humiliation had burned itself out, leaving behind nothing but cold, hard ash. I stopped reacting. When Sylvie gave orders to the staff that contradicted my own, I simply nodded. When Damian made a passive-aggressive comment at dinner about Lunas who understood their place, I continued eating as if he were discussing the weather. I performed my basic duties with a placid efficiency that was more unnerving than any of my previous tears or outbursts. I was a perfectly crafted porcelain doll, smiling, serene, and utterly hollow.

My silence was a new kind of weapon, and it was driving Damian insane. I could feel his frustration mounting with each passing day. He was a creature of power and control, accustomed to predictable reactions. He knew how to handle my anger, my sadness, my defiance. But my placid indifference? It was a locked room he didn't have the key for. I would see him watching me from across the room, a deep frown creasing his brow, his jaw tight with an unreadable irritation. He was trying to solve the puzzle of my behavior, and it was infuriating him. He needed me to break, to scream, to cry—to give him something to control. He saw my calm as the ultimate act of defiance, a quiet rebellion he couldn't crush with force. And I knew, with a chilling certainty, that he was reaching his breaking point. He would need to provoke a bigger reaction, to teach me a lesson so profound it would shatter my composure for good.

I was counting on it.

On the third night after the party, with only three days left until my escape, I locked myself in the library one last time. My burner phone felt cool and solid in my hand, a link to a future that was almost within my grasp. I dialed the encrypted number.

"Jax," I said, my voice a low, steady whisper. There was no tremor, no hint of the broken woman I had been just a week ago.

"I'll be there, little sister," he promised. "No matter what."

I ended the call and methodically deleted the log, then powered the phone down for the last time.