Chapter 141
Chapter 141:
It wasn’t justice. It wasn’t revenge.
It was something better. It was love.
The cabin came into view through the misty dawn light, nestled among the pines like a secret waiting to be kept. My hands were still trembling on the steering wheel — half from exhaustion, half from the weight of the box on the passenger seat.
I killed the engine and sat there for a moment, just breathing. The air through the cracked window smelled of pine and damp earth — nothing like the stale rot of Hyde Manor. I was free. I was out. I had made it.
The cabin door burst open before I could even reach for the handle.
Dallas filled the frame, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the warm light spilling from inside. He wasn’t wearing his usual suit — just a dark sweater and jeans, his hair disheveled, dark circles carved beneath his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
𝖡𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝖿𝗶𝘳ѕt 𝘵𝗈 𝘳𝘦a𝗱 оn.с𝗈𝗺
He crossed the distance in seconds, yanking my door open before I could move. His hands were on me immediately — cupping my face, running down my arms, checking for injuries with a frantic, desperate energy.
“You’re late,” he growled, but his voice cracked on the words. “Thirty-six hours late, Adella. Do you have any idea p>
“I know.” I caught his wrists, stilling him. “I know. I’m sorry. I had to go back p>
He pulled me out of the car and crushed me against his chest. His scent — cedar, rain, that wild storm — wrapped around me, and for the first time in days I felt like I could breathe.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispered into my hair. “When the tracker went dark, when you stopped answering — I thought he’d killed you p>
“He almost did.” I pulled back just enough to look at him. “But I’m okay. And I found something p>
I led him back to the car and retrieved the cedar box. His eyes narrowed when he saw it — old, worn, clearly significant.
“What is that p>
“My mother’s letters.” I carried it inside and set it on the rough-hewn table in the cabin’s main room. The fire in the hearth crackled softly, the only sound in the heavy silence. “Victoria kept them all these years. Hidden in the attic p>
Dallas moved closer, his presence a solid wall at my back. “What do they say p>
I opened the box and pulled out the first letter — the one dated for my eighteenth birthday — and handed it to him without a word.
He read it in silence. I watched his face as the words settled over him: a mother’s love, a mother’s fear, a mother’s hope for a future she never got to see.
When he looked up, his eyes were softer than I had ever seen them.
“She loved you very much,” he said quietly.