Novel Full Chapter 147: Her Side Of The Story
Chapter 147: Her Side Of The Story
Kaden’s POV
She let out a bitter scoff, tears instantly gathering in her wide eyes. She looked at me with so much hurt it felt like a physical blow to my chest.
"After everything you did to me... now you want to hear my voice?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Why did you ask me? Why now, Kaden?"
I didn’t know what to say. The words dried up in my throat. I just sat there, looking at her, feeling completely lost.
Rebecca nodded slowly, wiping a tear from her cheek. She pulled the torn pieces of her dress tighter around herself. "You want to hear my side of the story? Well, this is it. On the night of the mating ceremony, I wasn’t at the party. I was in the library, waiting for Brandon. He was my mate."
My eyes widened in pure shock. Brandon.
The name hit me like a brick. My mind instantly raced back to the findings Beta Logan had brought to my desk just last week—how a maid claimed she normally saw Brandon and Rebecca together.
"If you were observant, you would know I was never even at the festival," Rebecca continued, her voice breaking into a sob. "I didn’t even know what your wife looked like. I didn’t know you at all."
My heart began to race against my ribs. A cold, heavy weight dropped into the bottom of my stomach. Something deep inside me—my wolf, my instinct, my entire soul—was screaming at me. It told me I had made a terrible mistake.
No. Please, I thought to myself, a sudden panic locking my throat. She can’t be innocent. She can’t be. I can’t hear this. If she is innocent, it means I am the real monster.
"While I was waiting in the library, I heard moans," Rebecca said, staring blankly ahead as if she were remembering that night. "I walked further inside and caught Brandon and my half-sister, Monica, making out. I confronted them. I asked him how he could do this to his mate. And do you know what Brandon said? He said he wanted my sister. He said he could never be with me because I am just an illegitimate child."
She hadn’t even finished talking, but my mind was already spinning out of control. The panic in my chest turned into total terror. Her story... it matched up perfectly. Every single piece of evidence, every little clue Logan and I had been fighting to understand for weeks, it all fit into place like a puzzle.
No... no... Moon Goddess, please. She can’t be innocent, I cried out in my own mind, my hands starting to shake.
"Brandon rejected me right there," Rebecca whispered, a fresh wave of tears spilling over her eyelashes. "And I accepted his rejection. I didn’t want him anymore. But just as I turned around to leave, they wouldn’t let me go. Monica... she went crazy. She demanded that Brandon kill me. She said if I left that room, I would tell the Pack what they did. And that was when Brandon lunged at me. He hit me. Hard."
A blinding roar of pure, feral rage exploded in my veins. I wanted to find Brandon and rip his spine out through his throat. I wanted to tear Monica to pieces. But right beneath that anger was a crippling, suffocating fear—fear of what I had done to the woman sitting in front of me.
"I fell to the ground," Rebecca said, her voice dropping to a tiny whisper. "I was bleeding, and I was so tired. Just as I was passing out from the hit and the exhaustion, the library doors opened. I saw your late wife, Helen. It seemed like she had just walked into the library to find something. But before I could say anything, my eyes closed. I went completely unconscious. I didn’t know anything else... until I woke up with you screaming at me, accusing me of killing her."
She finally looked up, her tear-stained face lifting to lock eyes with me.
"Alpha Kaden, I didn’t kill Helen," she said, her voice completely steady despite the tears. "I was framed. The people who killed your wife were Brandon and Monica. I don’t know why they did it, but it was them. If you don’t believe me, check the CCTV footage! There is a camera right outside the library doors, and there is one hidden inside!"
I sat there in total, dead silence. My heart was hammering so hard it felt like it would break my ribs.
The CCTV footage.
Of course. The footage from that specific hallway and the library had gone missing the exact night of the murder. Her father was still looking for it.
I looked at Rebecca. I searched her face, her eyes, her scent. I am the Alpha King. I am trained to spot a liar from a mile away. I can smell the slight change in scent when someone hesitates. I can hear the tiny skip in a heartbeat when a loophole is made up.
But there was nothing. No stutter. No shift in her scent. No loopholes. Her story was completely, terrifyingly flawless.
She was telling the truth.
No... no... no...
The realization hit me like a physical crush. Everything felt like it was spinning. She didn’t do it. She never touched Helen. She was an innocent victim who had been beaten, rejected by her mate, and then thrown into my dark dungeons. And I... I had chained her. I had starved her. I had let my guards hurt her. I had treated an innocent woman like a murderous animal.
The horror of what I had done choked me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t look at her anymore without seeing my own monstrous actions staring back at me. I couldn’t stay close to her.
Forcing my face to become a cold, blank mask to hide the absolute terror tearing my soul apart, I grabbed my shirt from the seat. I shoved it into her hands.
"Put this on," I said, my voice sounding completely hollow and dead to my own ears. "The one hour is over. We’re going back."