Chapter 361
Chapter 361:
Carmella POV
The morning light filtering through the heavy velvet drapes did nothing to ease the violent pounding in my skull. I woke in the massive guest suite, the remnants of last night’s panic attack still clinging to my skin like cold sweat. The flashes of blinding hospital lights and the agonizing screams of a newborn continued to echo in my ears. I needed to find Grant. I needed to demand answers about why Jaxon had called me “Mom” — and then I needed to get out of this suffocating Lycan fortress.
I stepped into the hallway. Long and imposing, it was lined with portraits of past Alpha Kings, their painted eyes seeming to track my every move. The air was thick with the scent of lemon polish, but beneath it, I caught the unmistakable sour tang of human fear.
Mrs. Higgins, the elderly housekeeper, was dusting a gilded frame near the staircase.
“Excuse me,” I said softly, approaching her.
She flinched as though I had struck her. Her eyes darted to my face for a fraction of a second before she rigidly fixed her gaze on the marble floor. The devastating sorrow and terror I had glimpsed in her expression the night before were now buried beneath a stiff, robotic professionalism.
“Where is Senator Blackwell?” I asked, my voice trembling slightly.
B𝖾 𝘵𝗁𝗲 𝖿𝘪𝘳st t𝘰 𝗿𝗲𝘢𝖽 о𝘯
“Senator Blackwell is in a closed-door video conference with Lord Almon,” Mrs. Higgins replied, her tone entirely devoid of emotion. She gripped her dusting cloth so tightly her knuckles turned white. “He left strict instructions that you are not to be disturbed, Ms. Golden. You are to rest p>
The message was clear. This wasn’t protection — it was isolation. I was trapped in his den.
Refusing to return to my gilded cage, I wandered down the corridor until I found a set of heavy oak doors left slightly ajar. I slipped inside the grand library. Pale light streamed through towering windows, illuminating dust motes drifting lazily through the air. The room smelled of ancient paper and leather, layered beneath the lingering, aggressive scent of Grant’s rosemary and rain.
On a mahogany reading table, a heavy leather family album sat open, as though it had only recently been leafed through.
Drawn by a morbid curiosity, I approached it. As I turned a thick page, a slightly yellowed Polaroid slipped free and fluttered to the floor. I picked it up, my breath catching in my throat.
It was a photograph of a young Grant and his brother, Kain, in university rowing uniforms. They were in their early twenties, their faces lit with genuine, carefree smiles I had never once seen on the Lycan Senator. But it wasn’t their faces that made my blood run cold.
Resting intimately against Grant’s chest was a woman’s hand. Around her slender wrist was a braided red string bracelet featuring a tiny moonstone charm.
My thumb instinctively brushed the faint, jagged scar on my own right wrist. Eleanor’s voice surfaced from a forgotten argument years ago: You never took off that cheap red string before the crash. It was a miracle the medics cut it off in time.
My hands shook violently as I flipped the Polaroid over. Written in faded black ink were the words: G & C.G. — followed by the exact year of my university graduation.
C.G. Carmella Golden.