MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS-Chapter 32: MANIPULATION

ROWAN

I have a dark side nobody knows about.

I work hard to keep it buried and hidden but standing in Ryker’s room with my fists curled at my sides I could feel it pressing up through the cracks.

"You are lying," I said, my eyes cutting to Ryker.

The picture of Amaris with my father flashed in my mind .

Amaris kept cutting through my thoughts at the worst possible moments and I resented it, resented that my brother had just told me my fiancée had slept with my best friend and the first face that rose in my chest was not Lila’s.

Ryker did not flinch, did not shift, just looked back at me with those dark eyes that had never once carried guilt, "Why would I lie about this, Rowan."

"Because you have never liked her." I stepped forward, jaw tight. "Because you would say anything."

Ryker tilted his head and cut his gaze across the room, "Cole." His voice was stale and void of emotions. "Tell him. Go ahead and tell Rowan how you and his fiancee use to fuck,"

I turned to Cole.

He stood with his shoulders dropped and his eyes nailed to the floor, every line of his body folded inward, and I waited.

Because nothing nothing about this made sense. Cole used to collective tease me about Lila just like Ryker.

I had never even seen him look at her. And when I had introduced them they had acted like completely strangers. There is no way they had fooled me. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"That is not true," I said, my voice coming out harder than I planned, "tell him Cole, tell him it is not true."

Cole said nothing and the silence was its own answer.

"Cole." My voice dropped to something dangerous, "Look at me."

He lifted his head and his eyes met mine and they were tired and resigned and carrying something that had been sitting there a long time, "I knew her before you," he said, his voice scraping low, "we used to sleep together."

Ryker chuckled, "You see."

The laugh was the thing that nearly broke me, and I turned to look at my brother because I had always been told that I was the one who understood humans more, Ryker was irrational and very volatile while I was level headed and that made me see through people.

Now that sounded like a lie because how was it that I couldn’t even see through my fiancee.

"Stay out of this," I said quietly, my mind struggling to comprehend all that Cole was saying.

I turned back to Cole, "Why didn’t you tell me?"

Cole’s jaw worked, "When, Rowan, when exactly was I supposed to tell you."

"Any time in the past two years," I said, "any dinner, any morning, any day you looked at me and decided to say nothing."

"What difference would it have made." Cole held my gaze, his voice rough and direct. "You were already in love with her, you had already decided, anything I said would have looked like jealousy and you know that is true."

The words landed and I hated that they were not entirely wrong.

"Why now then?" I pressed, my voice dropping, "why let Ryker say it in a room."

It was a stupid question because I already knew the answer.

Cole looked at the floor and then back at me, "Because he gave me no choice."

Ryker leaned against the wall behind him with his arms crossed looking thoroughly unbothered and I looked at him for one long moment and then I walked out.

No slammed door, no broken furniture, just my feet carrying me down the corridor with my hands loose and my jaw locked, because the dark thing pressing up through the cracks was very close to the surface now and I was not going to give either of them the satisfaction of watching it break through.

I pulled out my phone and called Lila.

She picked up on the third ring, her voice warm and easy, "Rowan, hey, I was just thinking about you."

"Where are you."

She paused a bit right before answering "The event halls, checking a few things for the wedding, why, is everything okay."

"Stay there," I said, "I am coming."

I wasn’t going to let myself think so much about it, not because I didn’t want to but because somewhere I thought about it, and the picture of Amaris was all that appeared.

I found her at the entrance of the main hall with a clipboard and a small frown directed at the far wall, and she turned at the sound of my footsteps and the frown dissolved into a smile that fell apart the moment her eyes reached my face, her fingers locking around the clipboard before she could stop them.

I stopped in front of her, "Is it true?"

She looked at me confused and I realized that I needed to give more words and context.

"Is it true Lila that you and Cole used to fuck?"

The clipboard drifted to her side, she remained silent for a moment as if she was calculating either to be honest or keep up with the lie.

"Who told you?" She finally asked.

"Answer me, Lila."

Her throat worked and her eyes filled fast, tears pressing forward with a force that had been dammed up a long time, and she pressed her lips together hard and nodded, her chin trembling, "Yes," she choked out, "Cole was the only other person before you, just him, I swear it."

I exhaled through my nose and said nothing.

"I wanted to tell you," she pushed on, her voice fracturing as the tears tracked hot down her cheeks, "I wanted to so many times but I was terrified, I didn’t want you to look at me like I was disposable, like a woman who just moved from one man to the next and felt nothing, and I knew exactly how it would look."

"Lila."

"You think that now." She shook her head, fresh tears falling, "I can see it on your face."

"I don’t," I said, rougher than I meant to.

"That is not true." Her voice cracked sharp and raw, "You are standing right in front of me and I can see it and it is exactly what I spent all this time trying to avoid."

I crossed to her and pulled her in, her forehead dropping hard against my chest, both fists gripping my shirt, and I held her while she shook, keeping my face neutral and my arms steady, because she needed me present and I needed the moment to breathe through the dense specific anger sitting in my gut without it reaching my face.

The anger was not at what she had done.

It was at every morning after, every dinner, every quiet night she had looked me in the eye and chosen silence, building something between us on ground she knew was uneven and smoothing it so carefully I never felt the fault lines.

Her breathing slowed and she pulled back and looked up at me, eyes swollen and red, mascara dragged thin and dark down her cheeks, stripped of every layer of composure she normally kept wrapped around herself, "I would have just preferred to know," I said, keeping my voice level, "that is all, from you, not like this."

She swallowed hard, "I know," she breathed, "I am sorry, Rowan, genuinely."

I pulled her back in and we stood in that empty hall with pale afternoon light falling through the high windows and the muffled sounds of the pack outside, and I thought about Cole’s eyes on the floor, and Ryker’s laugh, and every conversation Lila and I had shared where she had looked straight at me and made her choice.

She pulled back and wiped her face with her wrist, exhaling long and unsteady, and her shoulders climbed back up the way they always did, chin lifting, eyes clearing.

She looked up at me, jaw set, carrying a different alertness now, "I think we should move the wedding up," she said.

I studied her face, "Why?"

She shifted her grip on the clipboard, "I was at the regional gathering last week," her voice dropped its softness entirely, "and I saw Victor, at least I think I did, the room was crowded and by the time I pushed through the crowd to reach him he was gone." She pressed her lips together.

"That could have been anyone," I said carefully, "your mind placing him there because of everything surrounding this wedding."

"Maybe," she said, her free hand came up and pressed flat against my chest, warm through my shirt.

"But standing in that crowd I realized I was done wasting time being afraid." Her fingers curled into my shirt.

"I don’t want to spend another day not tied to you, whatever comes I want to face it as your wife." She held my gaze, steady and certain. "Move it forward, Rowan."

I looked down at her hand and then at her face, "How soon."

Her chin lifted, "As soon as it can be arranged."