Page 77 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“Why?” I asked softly.
Luca pursed his lips before turning to me. “Honestly…I don’t know. After she left without a word, I was angry. My father cleared out all her things, like she’d never existed. Victor gave up everything she’d ever given him— toys, gifts, letters. So did I. I let go of everything…except the locket. And at the time, I thought keeping it was pointless. But one day I thought I’d lost it, I went into full panic. Turns out, Victor had hidden it just to mess with me. I ransacked the whole house looking for it. When I finally found it in his room, I broke his nose.”
He chuckled quietly, then looked at me. “So no, Leila. I don’t think it’s ridiculous that you still want to keep the house. I understand. Completely.”
I smiled at him. It felt natural, this conversation. Effortless. Like the times we used to talk. Like when I could say whatever I was thinking and he wouldn’t judge me. It felt…safe.
If anyone understood what it meant to harbor resentment toward a parent, it was Luca. He didn’t talk about his mother often, but I knew she’d left when he was ten. I’d always seen the anger in his eyes when he spoke about her. And after my father died, I finally understood that anger. I knew what it felt like to want to scream at someone who wasn’t there to hear it. To hate them for leaving without giving you the chance to say everything that was burning inside you.
I wanted to scream at my father for being a coward. For killing himself and leaving me and his grandson in the aftermath. With nothing. No plan. No safety net. No way to claw our way out of the ruins he left behind. But I couldn’t scream.
Because he was gone.
And the dead don’t get to listen.
I broke the gaze, reaching for a chip and dipping it into the ketchup container. “How do you deal with it?”
“With what?” he asked.
“The anger. The hurt. The rage toward your mother.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t deal with it—I live with it. I let it fuel me. Drive me. Remind me that if my own mother could wake up one morning and leave, then anyone could.”
For the first time in five years, I understood.
I understood why Luca was so quick to believe the worst of me. Why he’d looked me dead in the eye and doubted everything we shared. Because deep down, he’d always believed I’d leave. And when the accusations came, they didn’t feel like betrayal. They felt like confirmation. Confirmation of a fear he’d lived with his whole life: that no one ever stays. Not even the ones who say they love you.
But understanding didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t soften the memory of him rejecting me. Understanding didn’t change the factthat I was the one left to pick up the pieces. That I’d raised our son alone. That I’d grieved him like I’d lost a part of myself.
And even if I wanted to forgive him—to fall back into the rhythm of what we used to be—there were too many reasons not to. I had a son to protect. Bills to pay. A business to run. I was a half blood his pack could never accept.
And he was still engaged to someone else.
It didn’t make the pain disappear. It didn’t erase the years. But it made something that had felt senseless…finally make sense.
“If you saw her now,” I asked quietly, “what would you say to her?”
Luca didn’t answer right away. His jaw ticced. One hand curled against the edge of the rooftop ledge. The silence stretched so long I thought he wouldn’t speak. Then he did.
“I’d ask her why.” His voice was low. “Why she didn’t think I was worth staying for. I’d ask if she ever missed me. Even once. I’d ask if leaving was worth it…if the freedom tasted better than being my mother.”
A bitter smile ghosted across his lips as his gaze found mine. “What about you? If you saw your father again, what would you say to him?”
What would I say to my father?
I’d never let myself think about it before.
“I’d scream at him,” I said. “Tell him he was selfish. A coward.” I swallowed. “But then maybe…I’d hug him. Maybe I’d cry and tell him I hate that I miss him. That I wish he’d stayed long enough to see his grandson grow.”
Luca didn’t say anything. He just nodded.
We sat in the silence that followed, slowly picking at the chips until there was only one left in the bag.
He smiled at me. “You can have it.”
“Of course I can have it. I paid for them.”
I scooped up a ridiculous amount of ketchup with the chip and shoved it in my mouth. Luca burst out laughing.
