The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 41

POV: Selene

The confirmation came two days later.

It wasn't a formal notice, but a tearful, whispered phone call from Maria at the diner.

The call came to the kitchen’s landline, the only phone I was permitted to answer.

“Selene, he’s gone,” she sobbed, her voice thick with a grief that mirrored my own.

“The clinic is closed. A sign on the door says he sold the practice and moved away to take care of a sick relative.”

A lie. A clean, neat, and tidy lie, bought and paid for by Volkov money.

“He left a letter for you,” Maria continued, her voice dropping. “He said… he said to tell you he wishes you and the boy all the happiness in the world.”

The line went dead, but I stood there, clutching the receiver, the world tilting under my feet.

He was gone.

The last thread connecting me to my five years of peace, of safety, had been severed with a cold, brutal efficiency.

A rage, hotter and purer than any I had ever felt, burned through the numb despair.

I didn't think. I just moved.

I stormed out of the kitchen, my nanny’s apron still tied around my waist, and marched through the silent, opulent halls of the manor.

The pack guards standing outside Zane’s study saw the look on my face and, for the first time, they hesitated to block my path.

I threw the heavy oak doors open without knocking.

Zane was standing by the window, staring out at the grounds, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

He turned, his expression unreadable, but a flicker of something in his eyes told me he knew why I was there.

“He’s gone,” I said, my voice shaking with a fury I didn't bother to conceal.

Zane took a slow, deliberate sip of his whiskey. He said nothing.

His silence, his utter lack of remorse, was gasoline on the fire.

“You did it,” I accused, my voice rising. “You destroyed a good man’s life, just because you could. Just because he was kind to me.”

“He was a complication,” Zane stated, his voice a low, cold rumble. “I removed him.”

The accusation died before it was ever spoken.

He couldn't accuse me of betrayal without confronting his own.

And he couldn't do it. His pride, his guilt, it was a wall he could not breach.

So he said nothing.

He just stood there, his jaw clenched, his fists tight at his sides, trapped in a silent, self-inflicted prison.

His silence was the most devastating answer of all.

It told me that there was no explanation, no reason.

There was only his will, his power, his control.

I looked at the man I had once loved, the man who was the father of my child, and I felt nothing but a cold, empty despair.

“I hate you,” I whispered, the words quiet but carrying the weight of all my shattered hopes.

The words hit him harder than any physical blow. I saw him flinch, a flicker of raw, unguarded pain in his eyes before the mask of cold fury slammed back into place.