Chapter 394
Chapter 394:
I didn’t spare Jase another glance. I turned my back on the wreckage of my past and walked toward the VIP elevators, ready to watch Kira Parrish face her judgment.
Adelina POV
The wood-paneled walls of the Manhattan Supreme Court courtroom felt sterile and hollow beneath the harsh fluorescent lights. The air was a suffocating mix of human anxiety and the bitter, acrid scent of herbal incense used to suppress wolf instincts. But I felt none of it. Kain’s massive hand rested on the small of my back, his intoxicating ancient cedar scent wrapping around me like an impenetrable shield as we took our seats in the front row of the gallery.
At the defense table sat Kira Parrish. The bright orange jumpsuit swallowed her frame, stripping away the glamorous, vicious socialite I had feared my entire life. She turned her head. Her toxic gaze locked onto me, then drifted to the man at my side—the Lycan King. Finally, her eyes dropped to my left hand, where the fifteen-carat pink diamond caught the harsh overhead light, flashing with blinding, lethal brilliance.
Kira’s face twitched violently. Her lips pulled back, exposing her teeth in a silent, feral snarl of pure, unadulterated jealousy. Even over the murmur of the courtroom, I could sense her Inner Wolf howling in impotent, agonizing rage. She was looking at everything she had ever wanted, resting effortlessly on the finger of the wolfless Omega she had tortured.
𝖭𝖾𝘸 𝗐𝗲𝘦k𝗹у ch𝗮𝗽𝗍𝗲𝗿𝘀 oո ѕ.𝘤о𝗆
“All rise,” the bailiff barked, shattering her silent tantrum as Judge Thorne entered.
The proceedings were swift and merciless. The prosecutor laid out an airtight chain of evidence, culminating in the horrifying testimony of my childhood—the days I had spent locked in the freezing silver-lined vault. At the defense table, Kira’s sleazy lawyer leaned in, whispering frantically into her ear. Even from the gallery, I could smell her cloying jasmine scent curdle into absolute despair. He was telling her the truth: Bryan Parrish was bankrupt. There was no money left to buy her freedom.
“How do you plead?” Judge Thorne demanded, his voice echoing off the polished wood floor.
Kira didn’t look at the judge. She slowly turned her head, her hollow, desperate eyes seeking mine across the room. She was looking for a reaction—anger, pity, anything to prove she still had power over me.
I gave her nothing. Instead, my dormant White Wolf rose to the surface. I offered her a slow, freezing smile of absolute, emotionless contempt. It was the look of a Queen evaluating a dead insect.
That smile was the final blow. The last shred of Kira’s sanity shattered. She slumped forward, her voice a pathetic, broken whisper. “Guilty p>
In that single breath, the heavy, rusted chains of my childhood trauma completely disintegrated. I was free.
“Court is adjourned,” Judge Thorne declared, striking his gavel.
Two heavy-set bailiffs grabbed Kira by the arms to escort her toward the holding cells. As they dragged her past the wooden railing separating the gallery from the aisle, the reality of her permanent cage finally set in.
Kira snapped.