Chapter 265
Chapter 265:
I stood in the rain for a moment, working to steady my breathing. I smoothed the lapels of my soaked suit jacket and pushed the wet hair back from my forehead. I needed to be calm. I needed to be her sanctuary.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness where she waited.
Adella
The sound of wood splintering was louder than the thunder overhead. It echoed through the damp, hollow space of the studio, vibrating in my very bones.
I scrambled backward, my heels catching on the drop cloth, until my back met the cold rough stone of the far wall. My heart battered frantically against my ribs. I grabbed the nearest object I could reach—a heavy iron palette knife—and held it out with trembling hands.
The Shark. It had to be him. Silas had finally done it; my own cousin had sold me to the Rogue butcher.
The door groaned and swung open, slamming against the interior wall. A silhouette filled the frame, backlit by a jagged flash of lightning. Rain dripped from broad shoulders, and the scent of ozone and expensive musk flooded the room, overpowering the smell of turpentine and dust.
𝖲𝗵𝗮𝗿𝖾 𝘺o𝗎𝗋 𝘵h𝘰𝘶𝗀𝘩𝘵s o𝗻 𝗴𝘢lո𝗼𝗏𝘦𝘭𝘀.с𝗈𝗺
It wasn’t the stench of blood and rot I had expected. It was familiar. Cloyingly so.
“Adella p>
The voice was deep, breathless, and laced with a terrifying kind of relief. The figure stepped into the pale moonlight filtering through the boarded window.
“Braydon?” I lowered the knife slightly, confusion warring with the adrenaline still coursing through me. “What are you doing here p>
He didn’t answer immediately. He strode toward me, his eyes wild, scanning my face as though checking for damage. He looked like a man possessed—hair plastered to his forehead, chest heaving, his expensive suit soaked through to the skin.
“You’re safe,” he breathed, reaching out as if to cup my face.
I stepped aside instinctively. “Safe? I’ve been locked in here waiting for a Rogue Alpha! How is that safe p>
“Because I took care of it,” Braydon said, his hand dropping to his side, fingers twitching. A dark, twisted smile spread across his lips—the look of a predator playing with a mouse that believed it had escaped. “Volkov is gone. I sent him away p>
I stared at him, trying to process the words. “You fought him p>
“Better,” Braydon scoffed, stepping closer again, shrinking the space between us. The heat radiating off him was suffocating. “I paid him off. And Silas. I cleared the entire debt, Adella. Every cent your cousin owed. I bought it all p>
The air left my lungs. “You what p>
“I bought you back,” he said, his voice dropping to a possessive growl. He looked at me with an expectancy that turned my stomach—as though he were waiting for me to fall to my knees in gratitude. “You don’t understand, Adella. I did it for you. I couldn’t let that animal touch you. You’re too precious. Too fragile p>
“Fragile?” I whispered, the word tasting like bile.