I go to turn off my phone when a call comes in from my mother. I silence it immediately, but the damn thing keepsbuzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I finally throw it across the room with a frustrated scream.
“God, what the fuck does the bitch want now?!”
Suddenly, my door opens and there’s my mother, standing in the doorway with one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised, looking like she just stepped off a magazine cover in her Chanel suit and pearls.
“To tell you I’m here,” she says coolly, her gaze sweeping over my disheveled appearance with obvious disapproval. “Charming greeting, darling. As eloquent as ever.”
I freeze, mortified and pissed off in equal measure. “How did you get into my building?”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes and walks inside uninvited, closing the door behind her. “As if a student dormitory could keep me out. The security guard was quite accommodating when I explained I was your mother.”
“What do you want?” I demand, not bothering to get up from my bed. Let her see me like this—unwashed, angry, and completely uninterested in playing her games.
Her eyes drift to the pile of discarded uniforms on my floor, then to the new ones hanging in my closet with their telltale red accents.
“I see Devereux is already doing his thing,” my mother sighs, running her manicured fingers over one of the red-accented uniforms.
“Yeah, and what the fuck am I supposed to do?” I snap, sitting up straight on the bed. “You caused this mess.”
She whirls around, her perfect bob swinging with the movement. “Oh no, don’t blame this on me. I told you not to go to that summons. I told you to pack and go hide. You chose this.”
I laugh, the sound harsh even to my own ears. “Maybe if you hadn’t fucked Vincent Devereux this wouldn’t be an actual problem. That’s what I meant, Mother. Don’t lay any blame onme. I didn’t ask for any of this, especially not to be born from your affair.”
Her nostrils flare slightly—the only crack in her perfect composure. “Well, you’re an adult now, Seraphina. Take some accountability.”
“Accountability for what?” I push off the bed, stalking toward her. “You won’t even take accountability for your shit and you want to preach to me. Please get off your high horse. I literally don’t know why Dad stays with you after all of this.”
My mother’s eye twitches, a micro-expression that speaks volumes. The realization hits me like a freight train, sucking the air from my lungs.
“Dad doesn’t know, does he?” I whisper, watching her face carefully. “He has no fucking idea I’m not his.”
Her silence is all the confirmation I need. Twenty-one years of lies suddenly make perfect sense—the way she shields me from him, the way she’s always been so controlling about our interactions.
“Oh, that’s even better,” I laugh bitterly, the sound scraping my throat raw. “Now I’m an adult when you take every opportunity to remind me I’m a child, and the whole time you’ve been lying to your husband for twenty-one years. Outstanding job, Mariella.”
“Don’t you dare judge me,” she hisses, stepping closer with venom in her eyes. “You have no idea what sacrifices I’ve made?—“
“Sacrifices?” I cut her off, incredulous. “You fucked another woman’s husband and then lied to your own for two decades! Those aren’t sacrifices, those are consequences of your own shitty choices!”
“Watch your mouth,” she snaps, her perfectly manicured finger jabbing toward my face. “Everything I did, I did for this family.”
“Bullshit,” I snarl. “You did it for yourself. And now I’m the one paying for it.”
Her face hardens into that cold mask I know so well. “What’s done is done. You need to accept your situation and make the best of it.”
“Make the best of it?” I echo, my voice rising dangerously. “In case you haven’t noticed, my brother just chose me and nothing was fucking done. Vincent was there, he saw it all and did nothing to stop it.”
“Half-brother,” she corrects primly, like that makes it all better. “And Vincent has already informed me that he is handling this situation discreetly.”
I snort because yeah, I don’t believe that. They don’t call Lucien, Lucifer or The Devil behind his back and to his face for nothing. He does not give one single shit about what his father says. He operates only by the Society and not even Vincent Devereux can go against that.
“I’m done with discretion,” I say, a calm certainty settling over me. “I’m telling Dad everything. About Vincent, about the affair, about me. He deserves to know.”
Her face drains of color so fast I think she might faint. “You will do no such thing.”
“Watch me.” I grab my phone from where it landed on the floor. “I’ll call him right now.”
She lunges for the phone, but I dodge her grasp. “Seraphina Elise, I forbid you!”
