Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 27

POV: Seraphina

The next day, Damian escalated. He was searching for a crack in my new armor, a vulnerability he could exploit to force a reaction. He found the perfect one.

My mother had a small, private study adjoining her old suite of rooms. It was more of a sanctuary than an office, filled with her books on botany, her pressed flower collection, and her personal journals. Since her death, I had kept it exactly as she'd left it, a sacred space I visited only when I needed to feel close to her. The door was always locked. It was the one corner of this house that was unequivocally, untouchably mine.

I came up the stairs to find the door wide open.

A cold, sick dread washed over me. I walked forward, my steps silent on the thick carpet, and looked inside. Sylvie was sitting at my mother's small, delicate writing desk. She had a cup of tea at her elbow and one of my mother's leather-bound journals open in front of her, her perfectly manicured finger tracing the lines of my mother's elegant, faded handwriting. She was reading my mother's most private thoughts as if they were a piece of light afternoon fiction.

The violation was so profound it stole the air from my lungs. This was not about redecorating or usurping my duties. This was a desecration. She was invading my memories, tainting my last remaining sanctuary with her presence.

Before I could speak, Damian appeared in the doorway behind me. He leaned against the frame, his arms crossed, his expression one of bored authority.

I looked from Damian's cold, dismissive face to Sylvie, who was watching me over the top of the journal with an expression of mild, pitying curiosity. There was nothing left to say. There was nothing left to fight for in this house.

Slowly, deliberately, I reached out. My hand didn't tremble. I took the edge of the heavy oak door. I didn't slam it. I simply swung it shut with a soft, final click, closing the room off.

I locked my mother, my memories, and the last of my love away in that room, and turned my back on it for good.