#Chapter 156 – The Ashes of his Life

Victor flies down the highway in silence, his knuckles white as he grips the steering wheel.

He can’t even engage with his emotions right now – he just feels so desperate and betrayed. So instead, he just drives. And drives.

The mile markers fly by before Victor even really realizes where he’s going. When he arrives, he supposes it’s as good a place as any.

The gates slowly part before the black hummer, the Beta guards at either side saluting him. He doesn’t respond, just drives slowly through his Beta camp.

Victor pulls into his spot by his little office cabin, not really knowing what else to do. When he turns off the car, he rests his head back onto his seat, staring up at the ceiling of the car.

What the f**k.

His emotions start to creep back in on him then, and he grits his teeth against them. But, realizing that he can’t avoid these thoughts forever, Victor exhales, hanging his head, and gives in.

God damnit, how could she have done this to him?

Evelyn. His Evelyn. This woman who he had trusted so completely, who had never, ever been anything but a help to him – even when he had been so horrible to her when he had found her and the boys again, she had always been fair.

She’d let him into her life, helped him, been so beautiful and funny and charming –

And so f*****g sexy, on the night of the Hunt, and every night they had spent together after, curled up in her soft sheets –

And all the while, she had been betraying him. Talking to him while he was at his most vulnerable, collecting his secrets like a little magpie, subtly influencing all of his choices.

God damnit.

Part of the problem was that he couldn’t remember which precise choices he had made according to that advice he’d gotten from his “therapist.” What had he done that was his idea? What had been hers?

Victor pulls the release handle on the door, climbing out and slamming the door shut behind him. Then, he walks around his office and sinks into the camping chair waiting for him there by the fire pit.

The maintenance Betas had set up a fire, stacked the wood in a neat cone over a pile of kindling. And he bet – yes. When Victor reaches into the pocket at the side of the chair, there’s a box of matches waiting to go.

throwing into the pit, and slowly the fire starts to burn. Victor’s glad of it, passively – it’s still cold out, though the snow has melted as the world turned

for a fire, but

so helpful, so clear-headed. Was it all just an act, or

he didn’t know. Couldn’t parse it. How much of it,

of his pack, the centrality of Evelyn herself to his regaining

her nudging the pieces in the

at that thought – wait. Who even had been the voice on the other

down in the chair and covering his face with his hand. In his focus on his extreme emotional betrayal, he had forgotten some of the

was the

– both to his house to burn it and to his personal life? Who would have known that he was in therapy. Then, who would have been clever enough

answer to the

“Sir?”

soft and tentative, but Victor still jumps in his chair

head snaps in the direction of the word and the growl

who

“I don’t know what it is, precisely, that you’re

his chair as Edgar takes

I sit down?” Edgar asks

the chairs folded up against the wall. Edgar takes one, unfolds it, and sits across the fire from Victor, folding his hands

asks,

what has happened, fully,” Edgar says quietly. “But I am aware that the house burned down last night.

you even doing here, Edgar? You’re not one of my Betas anymore. Your presence here – as well as

swear to you – it’s completely by chance. I was here visiting some old friends,” he nods again to

a mental note to do just that. He’s not really running high on trust at the moment. “And you came to see

information that I think you’d want.” Edgar says

with Amelia,” Victor says, watching his former Beta

he had thought

me

suppose that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage,” he murmurs. “It would have been easier to deliver this information if you weren’t already suspicious that I was

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