I Loved You Through Seven Losses Chapter 05

I Loved You Through Seven Losses Chapter 05

The headline across the top of that flyer was set in huge black type.

[MY BEST FRIEND IS PREGNANT WITH MY MATE’S PUP, AND THEY WANT ME TO RAISE IT!]

One line was enough to grab every ounce of curiosity in the crowd.

Everyone read down, and the next few lines locked their eyes to the page.

[I was supposed to be the bride today. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. My mate, Asher, got my closest

friend, Sienna, pregnant. My own brother, Garrett, helped them cover it up.]

The whispering turned into open, furious talk.

Then a QR code caught their attention.

Phones came up all over the clearing, and cameras started scanning.

Video files began downloading, gigabytes of evidence.

Asher’s frown cut deeper.

Only Roxie, a woman trained in mechanical engineering, could have put something like this

together.

He had been sure that holding the pup over her head would keep her in line.

He had assumed this was nothing more than a dramatic tantrum.

He pulled out his phone and typed fast.

Asher: [Roxie, that’s enough. You’ve made your point. Come out here and tell everyone this was a

prank, and we’ll talk it through back at the pack house.]

The message was sent, but instead of the usual delivery indicator, a notification appeared: [You

can’t send messages to this contact because they’ve blocked you.]

Asher pulled in a breath, and he honestly believed his patience was gone

for good.

He gritted his teeth and called Roxie’s number, ready to have it out with her.

The call wouldn’t connect.

A restlessness he couldn’t name began eating away at his reason.

His wolf paced and snarled at him. “I can’t feel her!”

A cold fear spread underneath his anger, and it ran deeper than the anger did. Something that

mattered was leaving him.

The roar of an engine cut through the noise of the crowd, and he looked up.

A private jet was drawing a white line across the sky.

He shook his head.

No.

Roxie loved him too much to ever walk away.

This was the same as every other time he had made her mad, a little temper that would blow oyer on

its own.

It was just worse this time than it had ever been before.

“Asher, can you get through to Roxie?”

Garrett came running over with his phone in his fist, and clearly, his calls weren’t going through

either.

Asher started to shake his head, and then dozens of phones went off at the same time.

The gigabytes of video behind that QR code had finished downloading.

All of them started playing at once.

The first thing that reached Asher’s ears was his own voice.

“Don’t worry. A bet’s a bet, and she’ll never carry my heir.”

His heart skipped.

That wasn’t possible.

He remembered clearly that Roxie hadn’t been anywhere near him when he said it.

There was no way she could know what they had talked about.

He grabbed the phone from a guest’s hand despite her protests.

His eyes locked onto the screen.

It was security footage from the pack house.

He had forgotten about the cameras.

Then Sienna’s triumphant face filled the frame.

Everything that happened that day played out on the screen, one frame at a time.

Asher’s hand shook around the phone.

The wire he had been holding taut inside himself snapped clean.

She knew.

She knew all of it.

The video kept running, and the next piece was a recorded call.

“The night your parents died? Asher and Garrett were drunk. Asher took me three times.”

“Less than a mile from where your parents were bleeding out, Asher had his mouth on my neck, moaning baby into my skin.”

“And Garrett? He sat on the other side of the wall and listened to us, drowning his guilt in whiskey…”

The phone slipped out of Asher’s hand and shattered on the ground.

His world narrowed down to a tunnel. The shouting and the cursing around him blurred into noise.

Only Roxie’s voice came through, like thunder.

It went straight through his eardrum.

“Asher, you don’t have to scheme anymore to make me lose this pup for Sienna’s sake.”

“I already had the abortion.”

“Congratulations to you and Sienna. I hope the two of you get every single thing you deserve.”