Page 147 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“Oh,” she clutched her chest, looking back at Ollie as if she was seeing a miracle. “Can I…may I go to him?” she asked with desperate hope.
“I’ll introduce you.”
We moved toward Ollie and sat on either side of him.
“Ollie, baby, there’s someone special you should meet,” I said gently, threading my fingers through his dark curls. “This is Isabelle, your father’s mother. Your grandmother.”
Ollie looked up at Isabelle with wide, curious eyes, his tears momentarily forgotten. “My grandmother?” he whispered, the word foreign on his tongue.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Isabelle said softly, her voice thick with emotion as she reached for him.
“You look like Daddy,” Ollie observed, tilting his head as he studied her features.
A broken laugh escaped Isabelle’s lips. “Do I? Well, you look exactly like him when he was your age.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “May I sit closer to you?”
Ollie nodded solemnly and scooted over on the chair, making room for her. When she sat beside him, he immediately leaned against her side, seeking the comfort that only family could provide.
I felt my heart swell inside my chest. Just last month, I was Ollie’s only family. But now, he had his grandmother. And his father. The feeling was immediately replaced by the sinking reality of the situation we were in.
It had been two hours.Two dreadful hours of suffocating silence. Two hours of trying to cling to optimism. As seconds bled into minutes and minutes into hours, despair began its insidious creep. Surgery wasn’t supposed to take this long, was it? The longer it took, the worse the sign, right? It became harder and harder to keep hope alive.
“Leila, you’re wearing a hole in the floor,” Isabelle murmured, placing a hand over my thigh. Only now did I realize that I’d been frantically tapping my feet against the floor.
I forced myself to stand, needing to move before my nerves unraveled completely.
I headed down the hall to the dispenser to get some water for my dry throat. Through the window, I could see that the crowd outside had swelled. Pack members gathered, holding placards and candles, praying for their Alpha’s recovery. The news had spread like wildfire throughout the pack, keeping everyone awake despite the late hour. Pack media outlets spoke of Luca’s bravery, how he’d sacrificed himself for his family, saying he was exactly the kind of leader the Manhattan pack needed.
A smile ghosted across my lips. I wished Luca could see this outpouring of love from his pack. But the smile quickly turned bitter as a darker thought intruded—what if he never would? What if he never got to know how deeply his people loved and respected him? Just days ago, the narrative had painted him as incompetent, possibly corrupt. Now, they saw him as he truly was: a hero.
I hadn’t realized I was crying until a tear slipped from my chin to the floor. I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth, trying to stem the flood of emotion. But the truth was, I was terrified. Terrified in a way I’d never experienced before, not even when I’d fled five years ago.
The past week with Luca had been emotionally daunting, but also the happiest I’ve been in a while. And I’d never told him how happy he made me. The realization hit: I hadn’t admitted to Luca that I loved him. That I’d never stopped loving him. That my heart had never stopped beating for him.
I sucked in a ragged breath, my legs threatening to give out. God, I couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not when my life was finally making senseagain. Not when I felt whole for the first time in five years. Not when our son had just found his father.
My knees nearly buckled, but I caught myself against the wall, steadying myself as I whispered desperate prayers. For Luca. For one more chance to love him the way my father had begged me to in his letters—to forgive, to let go, to choose happiness before it was too late.
The waiting room door banged open, and my head snapped up to see Luca’s father racing in, agitatedly questioning a passing nurse. When his eyes found Isabelle, my stomach plummeted. I started toward them, but Isabelle was already standing, walking up to him with purposeful strides.
The sharp crack of her palm across his face echoed through the room like a gunshot.
“You!” she hissed, tears streaming down her face. “Look what your ambition has done to this family! Look what you’ve done to my boys! My first son is rotting in a cell, and the other,” her voice shattered, choking on fury, “the other is fighting for his life because of you! Is this what you wanted? Is this the almighty Vaughn legacy you drove me away for? To pit our sons against each other? To make them want to destroy themselves? What kind of man are you? What kind of father?”
“Don’t you dare question me when you’re the one who cheated on this family,” he snarled back.
“No,” Isabelle said through gritted teeth, her eyes blazing. “I cheated on you! With someone who is twice the man you’ll ever be!”
Luca’s father flinched as if she’d struck him again, his mouth opening to retaliate, but before he could speak, the OR doors burst open. A doctor emerged, surgical cap in hand, exhaustion and sweat marking his features.
Every nerve in my body went rigid. My breath caught and held.
I rushed toward him, praying to every deity I could name that his next words wouldn’t destroy me forever.
His eyes scanned the three of us before settling on Luca’s father. “It’s good news—Alpha Luca is stable. The silver bullet suppressed his natural healing abilities, and being so close to his heart made itextremely risky,” the doctor added, his voice professional but kind. “If he hadn’t been brought in when he was, he wouldn’t have survived. But the Alpha is remarkably strong—he pulled through.”
Relief crashed over me like a tsunami, so overwhelming I nearly collapsed. I let out a breath that seemed to come from my very soul, clutching my chest as tears of gratitude poured down my face.
And maybe—just maybe—I should have trusted the Mate bond. That faint thread between us had tugged inside me, whispering he was still there. I’d felt it—reaching out to him, pulling him back toward me—even when despair threatened to consume me. But I hadn’t believed it. Fear had drowned it out, made me think I was imagining things. Now…now I knew it had been real. The bond had held, unyielding, even when my world felt like it was collapsing.
