Nico
Morning ca earlier than expected, but I hadn’t caught a single wink of sleep. I had spent the entire night tossing and turning from one side of the bed to the other, the heavy wooden framing of the cabin’s mattress creaking quietly in the dark.
My mind was a chaotic loop, desperately trying to figure out what I could possibly say to Alaric to make him understand. I didn’t see him as a sex toy.
I had never viewed him as such. Never. It was just a brutal miscommunication, combined with my own pathetic cowardice, that had twisted everything into this ugly shape.
But how could I tell him the truth? How could I tell him about my family, about the legacy of control, and the way they broke a person down until there was nothing left? How could I?
Alaric hadn’t even slept on the bed beside . Instead, he had taken a blanket and slept straight on the hard ground.
Throughout the grueling hours of the night, I couldn’t help but stare down at his silhouette in the shadows, wondering what was happening behind those cold eyes, wondering what was going through his mind all night long.
When morning finally arrived and it was ti to leave, the silence between us was deafening. We gathered our things and stepped onto the porch to bid Kazue goodbye. Before we could step down into the gravel, she stopped us, handing over a carefully wrapped farewell token—a traditional furoshiki cloth bundled around a handcrafted wooden box of high-grade Uji matcha and a small, carved stone talisman ant for safe travel.
"Kazue-san, arigato gozaimasu," I murmured, bowing my head respectfully as I accepted the heavy box.
"Arigato!" Sophia piped up from behind , her voice completely loud and unfazed by the tension as she laughed heartily, waving enthusiastically at the older woman.
Kazue didn’t offer a dramatic farewell in return. She simply gave a slow, asured nod—the kind that felt like she was looking straight through my skull and into the rot I was hiding and then she waved at us.
We finally reached the car. Alaric took the driver’s seat of my custom rcedes-Maybach GLS 600, his movents stiff.
The rest of us climbed inside, the expensive leather doing absolutely nothing to cushion the pressure suffocating the space. He started the high-performance engine the exact second the doors clicked shut, the powerful vehicle purring to life as he pulled us out onto the main road.
The mont the tires left the gravel driveway, the atmosphere inside the vehicle beca unbearable.
Alaric’s hands were clamped onto the steering wheel at a perfect ten-and-two, his knuckles stark white against the dark leather.
His profile was a stone carving. He was frowning so hard that he resembled a statue.
I stared out the passenger window, watching the wild, jagged treeline blur into an endless wall of dark green, my reflection in the glass looking pale and completely hollowed out.
From the backseat, a sudden, deliberate pop of chewing gum broke the quiet.
Sophia leaned forward, resting her elbows on the center console right between our shoulders, her eyes glittering with pure mischief.
"So," she purred, a sharp, teasing grin cutting across her face. "How was the cabin night, boys? Did we share the floor, or did soone finally break the ice? Because the walls out here are paper-thin, and I didn’t hear a single peep. Are we celebrating, or should I be looking for a shovel?"
Neither of us moved.
The car remained agonizingly quiet, the only sound being the low, muffled hum of the Maybach accelerating effortlessly onto the road.
Alaric didn’t even blink. His eyes stayed locked entirely on the winding road ahead as if she were a ghost speaking to an empty cabin.
I kept my face turned toward the glass, my fingers curling tightly into the fabric of my jeans.
Sophia let out a loud, dramatic groan, dropping her head back against the seat. "Oh, co on. You two are giving literal whiplash. What is happening?’’
A sharp click echoed from the back.
I glanced in the side mirror just in ti to see her holding up a sleek digital cara, lining up the shot through the center gap between our seats.
"Hey, Alaric. Nico. Look at the cara," she called out, her tone dropping into a demanding, irritating sing-song.
It was pure reflex.
When she called both of our nas together, sothing wired deep inside us made us move simultaneously. We both turned our heads toward the backseat at the exact sa ti and she took our pictures.
The white flash flickered aggressively against the tinted windows.
Sophia looked down at the digital display, letting out a dry, disbelieving whistle. "Wow. Look at this masterpiece. Why do you both look so completely unhappy? Seriously, it looks like we are driving straight to a federal execution instead of a family reunion."
None of us answered her.
I turned back to the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass, the heavy silence settling right back over the luxury SUV.
But beneath the numbness, a sharp, sickening wave of guilt began to twist in my gut. It felt like swallowing broken glass.
I stared at my own reflection, but all I could think about was the man sitting just inches away from , commanding my own car with a coldness that made the air feel like ice.
I wanted to tell Alaric. God, I wanted to turn to him, grab his shoulder, and force the words out of my throat. I wanted to tell him that I was an enigma pretending to be a Beta.
I wanted to open up the dark, rotting spaces in my mind and confess the absolute truth. I wanted to tell him that I had been abused, that the compliance, the sudden flinching, and the towering walls I built around myself weren’t an act.
But the words died before they could even hit my tongue. Because when it ca down to it, I was a coward. A pathetic, miserable coward who was still utterly terrified of being locked away in the dark.
I was a broken person, still afraid of sudden movents, still afraid of loud voices, still afraid of absolutely everything.
The thought of being Vulnerable around him scares
I risked a glance back at him. His posture hadn’t shifted an inch. I had tried to talk to him this morning, right before we walked out of Kazue’s door. I had stepped into his path in the narrow hallway desperate to say anything to clear the air but he completely frozen out.
He hadn’t given a single word, not even a glance, simply brushing past my shoulder to grab his coat as if I were made of air.
With no other choice, I could only remain silent for the rest of the grueling ride.
Sophia eventually gave up her prodding, crossing her arms over her chest and looking out her own window. "You’re both acting like literal children," she muttered under her breath, her voice laced with heavy irritation. ’’I seriously want you to get along and whatever is going on between you better be resolved before the race In few days.’’
She didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that the silence wasn’t a ga but much more than that and I didn’t need to tell her that.
Hours bled into one another as the rugged mountain roads slowly flattened out, transitioning into the immaculate, heavily guarded avenues of an incredibly wealthy residential district.
The shift in environnt was jarring.
The wild, honest chaos of the mountains vanished, replaced by soaring listone privacy walls, black wrought-iron gates, and sprawling estates hidden behind perfectly sculpted, uniform hedges. This was a world built on old, untouchable money.
The custom Maybach slowed to a crawl as we approached a massive, secure gatehouse
After a brief nod from the ard guard who recognized , the iron gates swung open smoothly, allowing the high-end SUV to roll down a long, winding cobblestone driveway lined with ancient weeping willows.
At the dead end of the path sat a breathtaking, multi-generational luxury estate—a seamless architectural blend of traditional East Asian sweeping tiled roofs and sleek, modern glass panels that overlooked a massive stone courtyard.
It was my grandmother’s ho that was built a year after her death and every year, the family all co together for morial but I stopped attending after my father died and this year, if not for my mother’s constant, I wouldn’t be there.
The mont the car ca to a hard stop in the center of the courtyard, the grand double doors of the main house flew open.
Before anyone could co out, a woman rushed down the stone steps. Her dark hair was pulled into a sophisticated, flawless updo, and her high-end silk blouse fluttered behind her as she practically ran toward us.
It was my mother Annie park.
The mont her eyes locked onto through the windshield, she scread out my korean na. ’’Seo Jun!’’
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