Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Luca’s POV
“Where is he?” I demanded as I stormed into my father's house, my steps pounding against the marble floor.
Mrs. Chen appeared halfway down the hall, intercepting me. Her face was puzzled. “Luca, what is going on? Your father asked not to be interrupted.”
“I don’t care what he asked you,” I said, stomping toward the stairs.
Then I stopped short, the heat in my chest tightening.
And then it hit me—Mrs. Chen and my mother had always been close.
I could remember seeing them in the kitchen years ago, laughing over breakfast as though the world outside didn’t exist. If there was anyone my mother would have trusted with the truth, it was her.
I turned to look at her. “You knew, didn’t you?” My voice was sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care.
For a moment, her brows knit in confusion, then the look shifted. Not confusion. Recognition. And beneath it…guilt.
I gave a humorless scoff. “Of course you knew.”
“I couldn’t tell you, Luca,” she said softly, remorse dripping from every word. “She swore me to secrecy.”
I shook my head, jaw tight. I couldn’t deal with this. Everyone in my life had lied to me—my mother, my father, fucking Victor…and now Mrs. Chen.
Without another word, I turned and walked up the stairs, my footsteps echoing like a countdown. When I reached my father’s study, I shoved the door open hard enough to rattle it on its hinges.
He jerked upright behind his desk, anger flashing across his face. “Have you lost your damn mind, boy?”
“We need to talk.” My voice was cold, deliberate.
“That gives you no reason to barge into my office like a psychopath,” he snapped. “I’ll take your disrespect anywhere else, but not here. Not in my own house.”
“Oh, spare me your self-righteous bullshit,” I shot back. “Cat’s out of the bag, Father. You can drop the holier-than-thou act.”
He eyed me warily before leaning back in his chair and sliding the glasses off the bridge of his nose.
“This is about your mother’s dramatic reappearance, isn’t it?” he asked. “She’s come back to feed you all sorts of nonsense, and now you’ve forgotten who it was that raised you all these years after she abandoned you and your brother.”
“She didn’t abandon us—you drove her away!” I stepped forward, so sick of his constant lies. He’d take me for a fool all these years, lying over and over again. And here he was, doing the exact same thing again.
I wasn’t the type to channel my anger through physical outbursts. I preferred strategy, precision. But finding out you’ve been lied to your entire life? That cracks something in you. That shatters control. That demands an eruption.
Shock flickered across his face. No—anguish. But only for a heartbeat. Then it twisted into something uglier: the mask of a guilty man with zero remorse. No denial. Just the cold calculation of someone deciding how much damage control he needed.
“So, she told you,” he drawled lazily. “I wondered how long it would take her to poison you against me.”
My hands curled into fists. “Poison me? You’re the real poison here. You murdered an innocent man—her Mate—in cold blood. And you threatened to frame her for it if she didn’t leave the pack.”
“I protected this family,” his voice sharpened, cutting through the air like steel.
“She was going to destroy everything I built with her infidelity. What do you think other pack Alphas would see me as if they found out my Luna had been unfaithful? They’d think I was weak.
That I wasn’t man enough to keep her. That I didn’t have the balls—the cock—to satisfy my woman. ”
“That’s what you were worried about? Your fucking cock?”
His eyes flared. “As insignificant as that sounds to you, it’s everything in my world. No Alpha, no businessman, will associate with a man they perceive as weak. And weakness,” he clicked his tongue, “there’s no room for that word in my vocabulary.”
I shook my head in utter disbelief. Between my father and Victor, I didn’t know who was sicker. My father’s sense of what strength meant was definitely sick. Sicker than Victor obsessing over my Mate? That, too, was something sick.
“I eliminated a threat,” he continued, like he was trying to make me see his reason, to reason with him. “Something you clearly don’t understand, given the mess you’ve created lately.”
I stepped forward until I was standing right in front of me, staring him down so he could see the disgust in my eyes, the shame I felt for having to call someone like him my father.
“You spent my entire life calling me incompetent, demanding perfection, holding me to standards so fucking high I thought you were a god. I always knew you were a devil. It didn’t surprise me to learn you forced yourself on my mother.
Or that you killed her Mate. But it is shocking how well you played the script of the abandoned husband for twenty-one fucking years.
” I clicked my tongue. “I think you might even trump the devil at this point.”
“Watch your tone, boy.” His voice was low, lethal.
“No.” The word came out like a growl. “I’m done pretending you’re some pillar of strength when you’re the most broken, twisted man I know.
You destroyed my mother’s life. You made me hate her for abandoning me—when you’re the one who forced her out of our lives.
You made damn sure I grew up believing she didn’t love us enough to stay.
Have you ever stopped to think that the reason she cheated was because you’re not half the man her Mate was?
That she knew she deserved better—and went for it? ”
His gaze darkened, and he stood slowly, his towering figure a clear threat. But I didn’t flinch.
“There’s no better man than me. Certainly not that rogue she claims was her Fated Mate. That’s the thing with you and your mother. You believe in all that Fated Mate nonsense, when all it really has ever been is a mask for weakness.”
“You’re wrong,” I said firmly. “And you’d never know what it feels like to have a Fated Mate because the Moon Goddess could never pair you with anyone because you’re the most unworthy person I know.”
He laughed. There was no remorse in his eyes. He had ripped his own family apart, poisoned everyone he touched beyond repair—and all I saw in his expression was irritation. Like this was just another problem he needed to manage.
“While you’re standing here spewing some delusional shit about Fated Mates and throwing a tantrum over ancient history,” he said, “you should be thinking about salvaging the mess you’ve actually made. The wedding you destroyed. The illegal dealings plastered across every news outlet—”
“Those weren’t illegal dealings, and you know it.”
“Oh, yes,” he laughed, mocking. “That’s just the result of your stupidity and the delusion that was apparently passed down to you by your mother.
But here’s the thing, Luca—no one in the pack knows that.
All they saw was their Alpha heir photographed with a rogue leader.
They don’t care about the what or the why or the how. ”
Disgust twisted in my stomach. “Then tell me—what will the pack think when they find out their Alpha murdered an innocent man and threatened to frame his wife for it if she didn’t leave her sons?”
His voice dropped, dangerously low. “Are you threatening me? You ungrateful bastard!” I didn’t see it coming.
His hand shot out, grabbed the mug on his desk, and hurled it at me.
I dodged, but not fast enough—it scraped my cheek before shattering against the wall.
“I just spent hours convincing the council to give you a second chance instead of stripping you of the Alpha heir title entirely, and this is how you repay me?” he roared.
“I raised you into a man. I made sure you wouldn’t be foolish like your mother.
Weak like her. I made you strong enough to lead. ”
“No!” I shot back. “You wanted to turn me into you. A man who kills without conscience and calls it strength.”
“And that is what has kept me in power,” he snarled. “You may think me vile, but that is what this legacy is built on. You’re thriving because of that. That…is strength.”
“This isn’t strength,” I slammed my palm against his desk. “This is cowardice. This is you being so terrified of losing control that you’d destroy anyone who threatens your perfect little image. If this is what it takes to be Alpha—if this is the legacy you expect me to carry—then I don’t want it.”
He recoiled. “You don’t mean that. You’re being emotional. Dramatic. Just like your mother. Less than forty-eight hours back in your life, and she has planted her roots in you, undoing all the core values I taught you over the years.”
I shook my head, clarity cutting through the rage. I finally knew who I should have hated all along. Who the real villain was.
“You and me. This conversation. This family. We’re done.”
Without waiting for his response, I yanked open the door and stormed out. I couldn’t stomach another word from the man who’d spent twenty-one years lying to my face, who’d made me an unwitting accomplice by keeping me ignorant.
Mrs. Chen stood in the foyer, her eyes pleading with me to stop, to think, but I didn’t so much as glance at her. I walked out, every step fueled by the kind of rage that leaves no room for air.
By the time I slid into my car, my hands were shaking. I pulled out my phone and dialed the one person who could anchor me back to sanity.
“Luca?” Leila’s voice came soft through the receiver, warm and concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” I said, unflinching in the truth. “Nothing’s okay. Where are you?”
“I just dropped Ollie off at school for his spring break excursion. I’m heading home now.”
“Good. I’m coming over.”
Leila was already waiting for me when I stepped out of the car.
“I came out when I heard you pull up in the driveway,” she said, her gaze searching mine. “What’s going on, Luca? You sounded…distraught over the phone.”