Chapter 56

Cora

The silence that filled my apartment felt like a heavy weight pressing against my chest. I had no idea how long I had been staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of me, my pen hovering in the air, as if it might betray me if I wrote the wrong words.

But I knew I had to do this.

First, I had to tell him the truth. Or, at least, I needed to come clean about what I had been suspecting for a while.

I didn’t even know where to begin. How do you tell the man you love—and who’s been nothing but kind and protective to you—that the child you’ve been keeping in your arms, the child you’ve fought so hard to protect, is likely his?

I had suspected it since the mango allergic reaction, perhaps even since I had learned that he had donated his sperm. When I discovered that the father was not Zach, it had left room for another donor to fill his shoes.

And I was almost certain I knew who.

If I was going to part ways with Kingston for good, I at least owed him this. He deserved to know about my suspicions.

I had spent so many years protecting Riley, so much time trying to protect Kingston from the consequences of this possibility, trying to protect myself from the inevitable fallout that would come from revealing it. But the Silverfang Pack had made their demands clear.

They had made me choose between my love for Kingston and my son’s safety. And I chose Riley. I would every time.

And with what I was planning to do, I needed to lay everything out on the table before I went through with it. Everything needed to be tied up before I did what I felt was necessary.

Kingston would suffer. And I would be the one who had to watch it happen.

With a shaky breath, I finally set the pen to paper.

Kingston,

I’ve spent so many sleepless nights wondering how to say this to you, how to tell you the one thing I should have told you from the first moment I suspected. The one thing I’ve kept from you, not because I didn’t trust you, but because I was afraid—afraid of what it would mean, for you, for me, for Riley, if it were true.

For a while, I have suspected that Riley is your son. I kept these mounting suspicions from you because I thought it was the only way to protect him, to protect you, from the dangerous political world we live in.

You don’t deserve the complications that come with being tied to someone like me, and I thought, perhaps naively, that if I kept this away from you, he would be safe. But after this recent threat from Silverfang, I can see that I was mistaken.

I never intended to hurt you, and I hope, in some small way, you can understand that.

I don’t know what will happen after you read this. The Silverfang Pack has made it clear that I can’t continue this—continue us—without risking everything. My son’s future, your political career, the pack’s power. But I needed you to know this suspicion. You have every right to it.

I’ve tried to protect you both in the only way I knew how. But I can’t do that anymore. I can’t live in a world where I keep this from you any longer.

Cora.

My hand trembled as I set the pen down, staring at the letter I had just written. Every word felt like a confession, a confession of guilt that had weighed on me for far too long. The truth was both a relief and a death sentence.

I knew Kingston would never forgive me for keeping this from him.

But it was out there now. There was no taking it back. The only thing I could do was leave it with him and hope, somehow, he would understand. Maybe he would come to realize that I did this out of love, not out of malice.

It wouldn’t matter. I wouldn’t be there to see it.

I stood up, my legs shaky beneath me as I made my way to Kingston’s office the next day. The thought of seeing him again filled me with a mixture of dread and longing. I hadn’t seen him since the night the Silverfang Pack had confronted me, demanding I leave him and I knew he would be out until later at the new lab that had been constructed.

I’d ignored his texts, his calls, telling myself that it was for the best. For both of us. But my heart didn’t believe that for one second. The truth was, I was terrified of losing him.

I reached his office and paused in front of the door. My hand hovered over the handle, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I couldn’t bring myself to face it all, knowing that once this letter was handed off to him, everything between us would change.

Even if he forgave me, even if he didn’t hate me for what I had done, it wouldn’t matter. The world we lived in wouldn’t allow it. It would be impossible for him to stay with me—especially with Riley’s likely connection to him as a bastard child now out in the open.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what was to come. With shaking hands, I opened the door and stepped inside. Kingston wasn’t there, as expected, so I quickly set the letter in the center of the surface, hoping he would find it as soon as he returned.

I lingered for a moment, letting my eyes rest on the empty chair across from me. The thought of him sitting there, reading the letter, made my heart ache.

But I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t wait for him to come back. I had already made the hardest decision of my life, and now all I could do was leave.

I walked out of the office, my heart pounding in my chest. The door clicked shut behind me, and I felt a rush of emotion that I couldn’t name. There was no turning back now.

Days passed, but there was no word from Kingston. No text, no call, no message asking for an explanation. Nothing.

At first, I told myself that maybe he needed time to process everything. After all, the truth was a heavy burden, and I knew it wasn’t something he could just accept overnight. But the silence stretched on.

Each passing day felt like an eternity, and my anxiety grew with every hour that ticked by.

What if he hated me? What if he couldn’t look at me the same way anymore? What if he was disgusted by the thought of Riley being his son?

The weight of the uncertainty was unbearable. I couldn’t focus at work. I couldn’t think straight. All I could do was wait. And it felt like I was waiting for something I would never get—a chance to fix what I had broken.

And then, a week later, closer to when my plan was about to come to fruition, I learned something that shattered everything I thought I knew.

I found out that Kingston never received the letter.

I was standing in the hallway outside my office when I overheard a conversation between two of Kingston’s assistants. They were talking about how a bunch of the contents of Kingston’s desk had been thrown out by the cleaning crew one night, leaving them empty-handed for an upcoming conference.

It had never reached him.

I stood there, frozen, as the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. My letter—the one I had spent so much time agonizing over, the one that held my suspicions about Riley’s paternity—had been lost. It never made it to him.

My stomach churned with a mixture of panic and dread. How could this have happened? The truth was still buried. And Kingston was still in the dark.

I couldn’t believe it. After everything, after making the choice to walk away from him to protect him, the truth still hadn’t been revealed.

And now, it was too late.

Because the rest of my plan was already in motion.