Billionaire Alpha's 99 Deadly Games

Chapter 17

Turning back, she found Michael-Lucas's beta-staring at her with shock etched across his face, his

dropped briefcase scattered across the hospital floor.

“L... Luna?” he stammered, face draining of color. "Is that really you?"

Escape, it seemed, wouldn't be so simple. Michael recovered quickly, positioning himself between

Aria and the exit with newfound determination.

"Please," he implored, lowering his voice. "You can't just disappear again. You have no idea what Alpha has been through since the fire. He hasn't slept through a single night in a year. Even if you want nothing to do with him now, at least stay until he's out of surgery. He literally just took a car impact for you."

Aria regarded him coolly, her expression betraying nothing of the calculations happening behind it.

"First," she stated with clinical precision, "I am not your Luna. That person died in a fire last year-a fact your Alpha publicly confirmed."

"Second, I'll stay until he's stable, but I'm leaving immediately. My company has a performance

tomorrow."

"Third, I have zero interest in rekindling any connection with your Alpha. Our relationship ended the moment he orchestrated my death."

With each statement, Michael's professional facade cracked further, revealing genuine distress, but he eventually nodded in reluctant agreement to her terms.

They settled into the antiseptic waiting room chairs, silence stretching between them as surgery continued behind closed doors.

for the twenty-first time-nearly three

unfocused gaze

"Aria!"

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Alpha's 99

Chapter 17

reached for her the moment the medical staff departed, his trembling

intensity.

telling them to make sure you were here when I woke up, but they thought it was the concussion talking. You're

if expecting her to evaporate at

still within his grasp, her voice devoid of emotion:

Confusion clouded

his grip,

thing that ever happened to me, Lucas, was when everyone believed I died." Her tone was conversational, as if discussing the weather. "It gave me the freedom to build

continued. "Not many people could experience ninety-eight calculated humiliations from the person they trusted most and still remain standing in the same

surgical precision. Lucas's face drained of color

she had known

struggled upright, nearly tearing out

reaching for her. "It wasn't-it started that way, but things changed-I

performance tomorrow that requires my complete focus.

grabbing her wrist. "I can't lose

of me." Her voice

head frantically, his grip tightening. "Please, just listen

16:40

Billionairo ALIN.