Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose. - Chapter 146

Chapter 146: Loss.
Caelum.

My guilt was eating deep into me. In fact, it was drilling holes into my soul as I watched Leilani’s lawyer deliver the blow that was nothing but the truth.

“…We are also suing for bullying which made my client here suffer from emotional, physical and psychological distress…” She had said, and those words, every damn one of them was nothing but the truth.

We had been mean to Leilani— more than mean to her and had treated her in the worst ways possible, especially me.

Whenever I remembered the things we— I— did to her, the way I hurt her time and time again because of Chalice, I couldn’t help but feel like a complete fool; like a shameless bastard… and I couldn’t even look her in the eyes because of it.

My heart lurched in my chest when Leilani’s lawyer walked up to the front where the judge sat, she handed him a large brown Manila envelope and said loudly; “These are the evidence of her abuse.”

I froze.

Like my entire body completely went stiff because I knew then and there that we would lose this case. I knew the extent to which we had hurt her… knew how inhumane our methods had been, and if she had kept those… all of it for a time like this, then this case was completely lost because no judge with a thread of conscience would not protect her from us.

No one would see the things we did to her and let us go freely.

Without thinking, I rose to my feet, ignoring the way my brothers watched me with eagle eyes and said; “I don’t think we need to go into that.”

The judge cocked his eyebrows at me but said nothing. Truthfully, we had the resources to overturn this case, but I’d rather hang from the Statue of Liberty than hurt Leilani one more time by doing something like that.

I said; “We plead guilty.”

Kael and Zevran froze. Even Leilani looked like she couldn’t quite believe her eyes— not like I could blame her.

“We did the things that she said we did and more. So let’s bring this to an—”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Our lawyer hissed from beside me, his tone sharp as he stared pointedly at me. If I was a lesser man, I knew that by now, he would be lecturing me about the cons of my actions, but now, he could only shake in his boots as he pointed to a paragraph in a document I had zero interest in looking at.

“She’s suing you for two hundred million, and if you agree… you’d need to pay that money ASAP. Do you understand that?”

I looked away. “I do.”

“Good. So let me do my job, Alpha, please. This isn’t worth losing that much amount of money for.”

His words and the condescending manner with which he seemed to talk about this issue with Leilani rubbed off on me in the wrong way; and in annoyance, I grabbed a fistful of his collar and spat;

“She is worth losing that much money for. And just so you know, we’re not really ‘losing’ it. We’re paying for the things we did to her. This is our karma.”

Truthfully, I had half expected Kael and Zevran to not agree with me so when they both rose to their feet, saying almost the same things I’d just said but with different words, I was momentarily stunned.

Leilani’s eyes widened as she turned to us, but after that initial shock, she showed no emotion afterwards.

She didn’t look happy or sad. Or angry or even frustrated.

She simply turned to her lawyer and whispered something to her.

Her lawyer nodded briefly and turned back to the judge, her voice cold as she spat; “The restraining order is necessary and should be signed too, because it is the only way my client feels she will be safe from them.”

I froze.

Safe from us.

How? Why?

What does she even mean by that?

“She claims that they usually stop by her home without informing her. They also drop by her workplace and manage to pop up in places that she least expects. So she expects all of these to stop in the near future because they make her feel unsafe.” She added, and if I was hurt before, then I definitely broke when I heard that.

I turned to look at Leilani, expecting to see pity in her eyes, or sadness.

But I got none of those.

All I saw was ice. A stone cold frown that sent chills running down my spine.

—

The hearing came to an end shortly afterwards with Leilani winning the sum of two hundred million; and while that should’ve hurt me, it didn’t.

What hurt now was our inability to communicate with her. We had lost all right to see her, to talk to her. Goddess, how do we even touch her when we cannot be close to her in any way?

My heart squeezed tight in my chest as I watched her leave the room without sparing another glance at my brothers and I; and gosh, I felt rooted in place. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak, but could only listen as my wolf continued to whine over and over in my head about the loss of our mate.

I turned to my brothers to find them stiff as statues as well, and fucking moon goddess, what could I say to them?

How could I tell them that it would be fine when the main reason we’ve lost Leilani is me?

How could I even tell them how sorry I was when they’d practically begged me to see reason in the past?

Whenever I looked at Leilani, I couldn’t help but think back to that day I’d had nurses drain an outrageous amount of blood from her… and I felt like shit.

A big fat one.

The drive home was quiet— too quiet, and by the time we finally arrived at the house, we found mother standing by the porch, her beautiful gray eyes swollen and red as she wrapped her arms around her body.

Her stance… her expression immediately put me on edge, and when she saw us approaching, she broke completely. I froze.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” It was Zevran who asked; And he sounded just like I felt… scared. Panicky. Cold.

My arms wrapped around my mother’s shoulder instinctively, and when she immediately buried her face into my chest and began to sob so loudly, it felt like she could barely breathe, I knew then and there that there was a problem.

Mother was the strongest woman I know.

She acted most times like a man, made decisions for the entire family and single-handedly trained us most times, whenever father was on trips outside the pack.

So for a woman like that to cry so much? So loud and so raw, there had to be a problem.

My chest felt heavy when she grabbed a fistful of my shirt and cried even harder when Kael tried to console her and to ask her what was happening.

I don’t know for how long we all stood there, consoling her, but after a while, she finally drew in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes.

Her now puffy eyes met mine for a brief second before they moved to my brothers’. She croaked out; “Something terrible happened with your father.”

I froze and goddess, my heartbeat increased so much, it was a miracle that I haven’t died from a stroke yet.

Kael was the first to recover from our momentary surprise, he stepped closer to mom, brushed his fingers against her cheeks and whispered; “What happened mom? You know you can always tell us… you can always talk to us.”

Mother lowered her eyes briefly and cried softly into her hands again. After a moment, she wiped her face clean and muttered; “Your father is dead.”

And as soon as I heard that, it felt as though my life had completely ended. Like my soul was completely crushed.

Tears slipped out of my eyes before I could stop them and I crumbled. I literally crumbled to the floor, gripping my chest as a loud raw cry tore out from the back of my throat.

No no, moon goddess, please.

Please, no!