Chapter 197 Leave me out of your problems
On the other end of the line, a long, unbothered yawn came through before Humphrey’s voice followed, thick with irritation and sleep.
“Ravyn… can’t you just let me rest for once?” he muttered, clearly unimpressed. “Leave me out of your problems.”
Ravyn’s grip on the phone tightened slightly, his jaw clenching as he forced himself to stay composed, even though the urgency clawing at his chest was getting harder to contain with every passing second.
“Dad, there’s been a chemical explosion in the pack,” he said quickly, his voice steady but edged with pressure. “I just need you to talk to Sera. She has the cure, and I need her to help us. Pack members are getting paralyzed, and if we don’t figure this out soon, we don’t know when the next explosion will happen, or how many more people will—”
He stopped abruptly, interrupted by another yawn. Ravyn’s expression hardened, frustration flashing through his eyes before his father’s voice cut in again, sharper this time.
“Ravyn,” Humphrey said, the irritation now fully awake in his tone, “Seraphine was bedridden because of that same chemical, and you didn’t care.”
The words hit heavier than Ravyn expected, but Humphrey didn’t pause.
“And now,” he continued, his voice turning colder, “you want her to leave the city and come running to fix your pack?”
Ravyn exhaled slowly, steadying himself before answering, forcing logic into a situation that was quickly becoming personal.
“She doesn’t have to come here,” he said, more measured now. “I can arrange everything from this side. She can prepare the cure, and I’ll pick it up myself. I’ll pay for it—whatever it costs.”
There was a pause on the other end, followed by a quiet sigh that carried more weight than words.
“Willing to pay…” Humphrey repeated, almost to himself, the disappointment clear beneath the surface. “I thought you regretted your actions.”
Ravyn inhaled deeply, the air feeling heavier than it should.
“I’m grateful to her,” he admitted, though the words didn’t come easily. “She treated Bryan. I won’t forget that.”
But then his tone hardened. “Still… let’s not ignore the truth. If it wasn’t for Daisy, we wouldn’t even have an heir. She’s the one who gave you a grandchild.”
The silence that followed was brief but strident. “No,” Humphrey said flatly, his voice cutting clean through Ravyn’s justification. “Sera gave me a grandchild.”
The words didn’t stop there. “And you killed her.”
For a split second, everything inside Ravyn stilled. “Ravyn,” Humphrey continued, his tone quieter now but no less piercing, “if you really believe you’re innocent in all of this… then why don’t you talk to her yourself?”
“I did,” Ravyn cut in quickly, the response immediate, almost defensive.
He paused, his brows drawing together slightly as he searched for the right way to say it, though there really wasn’t one.
“She insulted me,” he admitted, his voice dropping just a little. “Then she blocked me.”
There was a faint, humorless exhale before he added, more quietly, “And yeah… I deserved it.”
That truth sat there between them, heavy but undeniable. “But if you don’t want the pack destroyed,” Ravyn continued, his tone tightening again with urgency, “then please, Dad… do something.”
Silence stretched across the line, long enough to feel intentional. Then finally, Humphrey spoke from the other side of the line.
“You said you’re willing to pay,” he replied, his voice laced with calculation. “In that case, get the money ready.”
Ravyn straightened slightly, tension coiling in his shoulders.
“I’ll see what I can do to convince her,” Humphrey went on, “but you need to understand something. Her value isn’t the same anymore.”
“I know,” Ravyn said quickly, almost impatiently. “But doctors—pack doctors, city doctors—it doesn’t matter. They all follow the same ethics. You don’t abandon patients because of personal sentiments.
A quiet chuckle came through the line, low and knowing. “I don’t know much about medicine,” Humphrey admitted, “but I know this. Sera isn’t just a doctor.”
His voice carried a note of unmistakable pride now. “She’s a gifted child. A medicinal chemist. What she does goes beyond healing.”
There was a pause. “You should just admit it, Ravyn… you lost something valuable.”
Ravyn’s teeth clenched together, his jaw tightening as irritation flared, shrill and immediate.
It wasn’t just medicine. Seraphine had built real, powerful things, powerful things, far beyond what he had expected, or what he had ever given her credit for.
Even MindNest…
The very thought of it stirred something bitter in his chest. It was the kind of empire people envied, the kind he himself had wanted to be part of, but she hadn’t even entertained his investment.
What a stubborn, infuriating woman. “Dad,” Ravyn said finally, his voice firm again, grounding himself in what mattered most to him, “my only treasure is Bryan.”
He didn’t hesitate. “And Daisy gave me that.”
There was no room for argument in his tone this time, only certainty.
“Now,” he added, pressing the point, “can you talk to her?”
“I will,” Humphrey replied, though his voice carried a quiet warning now. “But you need to be ready for whatever conditions she sets.”
That made Ravyn frown slightly, unease flickering through him despite his confidence.
Seraphine’s conditions were never simple nor predictable, always something that forced you to give up more than you expected.
“I’ll do anything,” he said anyway, without hesitation, and the line died shortly after.
Ravyn lowered the phone slowly, his gaze locked on Damon, a faint, almost smug certainty settling into his expression despite everything that had just been said.
“I told you,” he muttered, “she won’t refuse my father.”
Damon didn’t look entirely convinced. “Has she agreed?” he asked carefully, his doubt slipping through despite his neutral tone.
“Not yet,” Ravyn admitted, though there was no hesitation in his confidence. “But she will.”
And this time, he was right. About thirty minutes later, his phone rang again.
Humphrey.
Ravyn answered immediately, his posture straightening as tension coiled tight in his chest.
“Listen carefully,” Humphrey said, his voice serious now, stripped of earlier irritation. “It wasn’t easy convincing her, but these are her conditions—”