Ex Mate and Son Begged Me Back

"Aurelia hit someone with her car," Alpha Kane Radcliffe said coldly. "We've already compensated the victim. But the police need a driver's name for their records. You will tell them you were behind the wheel."

Cynthia stared at her husband, the words refusing to make sense in her mind.

This was supposed to be the night of their fifth wedding anniversary. She had spent the entire afternoon preparing his favorite dishes, lighting candles, even putting on the dress he had complimented once, years ago, when he still bothered to notice her. Instead, she had been yanked from her own dining room by a single phone call-Come to the station. Now.-and had driven here with her heart lodged in her throat.

She had imagined wreckage. Blood. Her husband and her twin sons lying broken on cold asphalt.

But no. They were standing here, alive and unharmed.

And the emergency was this: her husband wanted her to take the fall for her sister.

"I. why would I do that?" Cynthia stammered. Her chest tightened with a suffocating ache.

"Isn't the answer obvious?" Kane's jaw went hard-the familiar tell of a man whose patience was already ash. "Aurelia's dance career is at its peak. Next week, she has the most important performance of her life. If not for your shameful interference five years ago, she would have succeeded long ago. This is your chance to atone."

Cynthia felt as though lightning had struck her from a clear sky.

She had always known Kane resented this marriage. But she had never imagined he could be so cruel as to ask her for this.

"Her career?" Cynthia's voice cracked. Her hands trembled uncontrollably at her sides. "What about me? What about my career? My reputation? I'm your Luna!"

"Luna? You really dare to call yourself that." Kane let out a cold, sharp laugh. "Everyone already knows how you schemed your way into my bed. Don't stand there playing the victim. As for your career? I've been supporting the family all these years. What career do you have?"

Cynthia's nails dug deep into her palms.

She had heard these words before-from the very first day she married Kane. The whispers had never stopped. Everyone said she had stolen her sister's man. Called her a schemer, a homewrecker. But hearing those cruel accusations fall from her husband's own lips? That shattered her heart into a million pieces, each one cutting deeper than the last.

Aurelia, who had been watching from the sidelines with cool detachment, glided over and wrapped her arms around Kane's waist. She nestled against him as if they were the true mates-as if Cynthia were the interloper in her own marriage.

Aurelia's voice dripped with practiced fragility. "Never mind, Kane. After all. we all know Cynthia would never agree to help me-"

"She doesn't have a choice!" Kane cut in sharply. "She owes you so much. How could she live with herself if she-"

Cynthia snapped.

"Owes her what?" She shoved Kane hard in the chest, her voice rising with years of pent-up fury. "I gave her my only audition slot-and she still blew it. I stood by silently while you and everyone else poured every resource into her career, never once complaining. I let her parade around town with my husband draped on her arm, smiling for the cameras like she was the Luna. How many more of my bones must I break before you decide I've paid my debt?"

Her eyes burned, but she refused to let a single tear fall.

"You both claim that night five years ago was all my fault. So let me ask you, Alpha Kane-" her voice dripped with bitter irony as she used his title like a curse, "Did I get pregnant all by myself? Did I drag an Alpha like you to the courthouse and force you to marry me? You keep insisting I seduced you, but we both know the truth. You kissed me first. Are you really that forgetful, or just too much of a coward to-"

Before she could utter another word, Kane's hand struck her face.

The slap cracked through the air like a whip. All these years-through every cold silence, every public humiliation, every night he took her body like she was nothing-he had never once laid a hand on her like this. Cynthia's head snapped to the side, her cheek blazing with fire. And somewhere deep inside her chest, something else shattered-into pieces so small she wasn't sure she would ever find them all.

But before she could even draw a breath-

"Mom."

A small voice came from behind her.

She turned, her vision swimming with unshed tears. Her twin sons stood a few feet away. They had seen everything.

And yet, no small arms rushed to wrap around her legs. No cry of "Don't bully mom!" No outrage on her behalf.

Her elder son, Justin-who looked so much like Kane-glanced at his father, then back at her. The expression on his face was colder than the slap.

"Why do you always make Daddy so angry?" he asked quietly.

Her younger son, Harry, said nothing. He simply looked away and slipped behind his father, seeking shelter from her very presence as if she were something shameful to hide from.

Cynthia stood there, her hand slowly rising to her burning cheek. And in that moment, surrounded by her family, she had never felt more utterly, devastatingly alone.