Chapter 396 Plans to mark

The silence on Sebastian’s end lasted only a second.

Then he closed whatever he had been reading and dropped it on a desk, the sound of it slamming coming through the phone so clearly it almost made her flinch. Was he angry at her or at Nick?

“That doesn’t change anything for me, my love,” he said. “What matters is that we know exactly who he is now. We know what kind of monster we’ve been dealing with.”

He took a slow breath. “And now we know he planned all of this long before yesterday, and it’s time we put him down.”

Viola heard his words, but she didn’t feel reassured enough that it truly didn’t matter. For a moment she wanted to insist that Nick hadn’t done what they thought he’d done, but then she dropped it completely, for now.

However, as though sensing her doubts and misgivings, Sebastian said again, “It doesn’t matter to me, I want you to always keep that in mind, but I will kill Nick with my own hands and put him to rest.”

Sebastian promised, and he meant every word of it. His late father’s promise to keep the family strong no longer held any weight where Nick was concerned. Nick had forfeited the right to that protection long ago. And until he had wiped Nick out of the picture entirely and put his mark on Viola’s neck, he knew she would continue to carry that quiet doubt, the fear that what had happened had changed something in him.

It hadn’t. And being apart from her right now was its own kind of slow torture, and all he wanted was to be in that bed beside her, holding her and kissing her and telling her in every way he knew how exactly how much she meant to him.

He could feel her doubt as though it belonged to him, because in a way, it did. But he was certain it wouldn’t last much longer. In a few days she would carry his mark, and once that bond was fully sealed, she would feel everything he felt without needing his words to confirm it.

And if everything came together the way he was working toward, Gilbert would have finished the antidote to awaken her wolf from its suppressant, her full potential would surface, and with it, her true identity.

Because every shade of wolf fur carried the signature of a bloodline, and once hers came through properly, they would finally know where she came from and which Alpha bloodline had birthed her, because Sebastian had no doubt in his mind that she carried an Alpha bloodline.

If she had a wolf and knew her family, she would stop feeling as though she only had a home because of him, and would completely feel at home in herself.

That was what he wanted most for her, to grow into her full strength and become completely fearless. To discover her people and her origins, to find out what had happened to her parents, and whether the one who carried werewolf blood was still alive somewhere.

He wanted her to choose to depend on him because she wanted to, not because she was afraid of what she would be without him. The anxiety and the constant fear of losing her home, he didn’t want that to be the foundation she stood on in this world. Even though Sebastian wanted her to depend on him wholly, he needed her to grow into her own strength too.

Sebastian had had so many plans for their future before Nick came and ruined the momentum of those plans, and now he had to be away from her to find Nick, who had somehow developed powers capable of concealing every trace of his crimes and wiping every piece of evidence clean before it could be found.

Sebastian would not stop. Not until Nick was gone from their lives permanently, along with every single one of the people working for him, all of whom he had now found out about.

Because in that sick diary were things, fantasies written out in detail about his wife, that made Sebastian’s blood boil every time his eyes passed over them, and the anger that came with it was the kind that didn’t cool easily.

“I need to go, amor. I have some pests to remove from our pack. Nick hasn’t been working alone and has some underdogs in the pack.”

Viola almost voiced out that she would come with him and help, but then swallowed down the words.

“Okay,” she said, “Be careful.”

“Hmm,” he hummed and then added, “Before I forget, I have assigned warriors to be your bodyguards just like Zoe has hers, you have your set of bodyguards. From here on they will escort you wherever you go. Your safety is the priority now.” He told her, for some reason expecting her to tell him she didn’t need bodyguard like she had once turned the idea down.

He was surprised when she simply said, “Okay.”

She then asked, “What about my swimming practice? Are we going to resume now that we’re back?”

She desperately wanted a normal routine. Something to return that was normal. The things she had just learned about Nick was still sitting uncomfortably in her chest.

“Yes, but not yet. We will resume once I have marked you. I believe sharing my strength with you through the mark will help, and your fear of water might ease after that.”

Viola felt more reassured the more the marking came up in conversation. “Are you coming home tonight?”

“We are still out following leads, sunshine. Go to bed without me. I love you, I need to go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The call ended before she could answer.

For a moment, Viola didn’t move.

The phone remained pressed against her ear even though the line had already gone silent.

“…Love you too,” she whispered instinctively.

Only then did she realize he was no longer there to hear it.

She slowly lowered the phone and looked at the dark screen. Her thumb hovered over his name for a brief second, almost pressing the call button again before she stopped herself.

“No,” she murmured, locking the screen instead. “He’s busy.”

She placed the phone on the bed beside her, but before she could even stand, her eyes drifted back to it.

A quiet comparison crept into the back of her mind before she could stop it.

Before they had gone to the Grim Pack, Sebastian would never have ended a call without waiting to hear her tell him she loved him too. Sometimes he even teased her into saying it more than once before he finally hung up.

She smiled faintly at the memory.

Then the smile slowly disappeared.

He was searching for Nick. She reminded herself of that over and over again. The situation was different now and he still made time to call her, but because of what had happened, her mind was searching for reassurance in everything he did or say or didn’t say.

He wasn’t pulling away. He couldn’t be. He was simply doing what he had to do. She drew in a slow breath and pushed herself to her feet.

“I am overthinking again,” she quietly scolded herself with a mental shake.

Nick.

The name alone made something harden inside her chest. Her gaze wandered toward the kitchen almost absentmindedly, and as she stepped inside, the row of protein powders sitting neatly on the counter immediately caught her attention.

For several seconds she simply stared at them.

The first day he had handed one to her flashed through her mind.

“You’ll need this after training.”

She had thanked him. Trusted him.

Even smiled at him but in the end, he had betrayed her.

A shiver crawled over her skin.

Without another thought, she picked up the first container, walked to the bin, and dropped it inside.

The dull thud echoed louder than it should have.

She reached for the second one.

Then the third.

Until every single thing he had ever given her was lying at the bottom of the bin.

Only then did the tightness in her chest ease slightly.

She rested both hands on the edge of the counter and closed her eyes for a brief moment.

“How did you become this person…?” she whispered into the empty kitchen.

The question, of course, received no answer.

He had ruined Sofia’s life…

And now he had come after hers.

The last she had heard, Sofia had been forced back to her family, where rumors said she had become even worse than before after losing Javier. Just because of Nick’s twisted desires, he had so easily destroyed another person’s life.

How had he even managed to do all of this and get away with it? Was there something else about him that hadn’t been uncovered yet? Last night, she could have sworn he had used something on her to lure her into that endless blankness…