Page 76 of The Alpha's Broken Oath

“You are upset. I get it, and I'll explain everything, Jake. I’m coming inside, and you, Deacon, and I can talk. Okay?”

“Seven years, Winter. It’s been seven fucking years, and you are still the same naive little girl eating out of Deacon’s palm. What did he tell you? That he loves you? That he didn’t do it? Did he kiss you and promise to give you the entire world? How much did it take for you to stab a knife in my back, Winter?”

“Jake—”

“He killed Mom and Dad. You are siding with the man who took everything away from us! You’ve always been weak, Winter. Weak, naïve, and… not my sister. My sister wouldn’t do this to me.”

My feet are already moving past the pebbled driveway to the lawn in my front yard.

Hot tears are already stinging my eyes as my voice cracks, and I beg Jacob, “I’m coming inside so we can talk. I’ll explain. Jake, I…I’m still your sister. I love you. I’ll explain everything and—”

“You think I would let my nephews stay there while you betrayed us? You think I would let them meet their monster of a father and be corrupted by him?”

The tap tap inside my chest gets fiercer and louder in my ears. I stop short of the door, my hand trembling against my phone.

“W-What? Jake…”

“If you loved us, you would have come home to us last night, kid. You would have come home to me. Goodbye, Winter.”

The call gets disconnected.

“Everything okay?” Suddenly, Deacon is there, but I can’t see him through the well of tears in my eyes.

I don’t even bother answering his question as I walk past him, open the door and get inside my home.

The familiar walls of my own home are tinted with a darkness I can only recognize as fear. The air is thick and so palpable that the sense of dread envelopes me like fog clogging my lungs and cutting off my breathing.

“Addie?”

The living room is empty, and I shake my head, refusing to admit the obvious.

“Ash? Mommy’s home.”

Silence greets me. The worst kind, the one that tells you shit has hit the fan, but you are too timid and stubborn to admit it.

“Isabel!”

I drop my purse in my living room.

Deacon’s footsteps are right behind me. I can hear him, but I can also see the flickering lights coming from my kitchen.

My feet lead me to the kitchen, and slowly and tortuously, like I’m watching one of those horror films that Adrian and Asher are scared of, the reality that lies in front of me when I reach there almost scares me to death.

Isabel lies crumpled on the floor amidst shattered glass scattered carelessly across the kitchen’s tiled floor. Blood trickles slowly down her cheek from a gash above her left brow that’s slowly healing. The gash is a sign that she struggled with her assailant before she went down.

Time trickles so fast before my eyes.

Adrenaline surges in my veins, and ironically, instead of moving, I remain paralyzed.

“Isabel,” my voice comes out as a choked sob.

“Winter?” Isabel lifts her head to meet mine, and I don't have to be told what happened here.

I can see it in the devastation in her eyes.

I can see it in the way tears cascade down her cheeks and mix with her blood.

Adrian and Asher…my boys? Where are my boys?

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