My Alpha Didn’t Want Me… Until I Disappeared Chapter 06

My Alpha Didn’t Want Me… Until I Disappeared Chapter 06

At that moment, the biting wind that had been slashing at my face seemed to stop.

After handling my father’s funeral like a walking corpse, I finally found the time to check my phone.

Before jumping into the river, my father had transferred exactly one thousand two hundred and thirty-one dollars and sixty-eight cents to my account.

It was every single penny he had left.

In his final message, he wrote: “This illness is too hard to cure, the bills are getting too expensive, and my body is giving out. Juniper, take this thousand dollars and the settlement money from the construction site to start a brand new life. Your brother definitely won’t hold a grudge against you. Everyone back home knows he loved his little sister more than anything.”

I sat on the narrow balcony, staring blankly up at the moon in the absolute silence of the night.

I picked up a razor blade I had prepared beforehand and pressed it hard against my wrist.

I felt like I could see my own destiny.

A quiet, unnoticed death.

But I hated it. Or rather, I refused to accept it.

I desperately forced myself to hold on just a little longer.

I still hadn’t uncovered the real truth behind my brother’s death.

I was the last person left in the world who had the right to find the truth for him.

So, I fought with everything I had to crawl up from the freezing floor, stopping the bleeding and bandaging the wound in one continuous motion.

I bought a bus ticket back to Kentucky.

My father always said that when people die, they should return to their roots.

I wanted to bury the two people who loved me most in this life on the hillside behind our old family home.

Julian’s entire body went completely rigid from head to toe.

After a long silence, he lowered his gaze and whispered an apology. “I’m sorry. I had no idea…”

“It’s fine. There’s no reason for you to know anything about my life.”

My response was entirely flat.

The warm, yellow lighting of the boutique cast deep, uneven shadows over his figure.

I suddenly recognized the emotion in his eyes, realizing why it felt so familiar.

It was the exact look he used to give Nicola back in college.

Gentle and deeply infatuated.

“Tomorrow is my birthday. Will you… will you come?”

When he asked the question with such hesitation, I suddenly changed my mind.

“Of course. See you tomorrow.”

When I showed up at Julian’s birthday gala, the entire venue fell dead silent for a few seconds, followed by a wave of intense whispering.

“Who is she? I’ve never seen her before.”

“Me neither. Is she an heiress from some family?”

“An heiress? She doesn’t have the aura, and she didn’t even bring a gift. Did she wander into the wrong place? Security, check her ID…”

“There’s no need for that. I invited her myself. She doesn’t need an invitation.”

Julian’s commanding voice echoed clearly in everyone’s ears.

He pushed his way through the crowd.

Dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit, the soft lighting hit his figure, making him look incredibly noble yet approachable.

He extended his hand like a perfect gentleman, and I took it smoothly.

To generate more media buzz and online engagement during this birthday gala, I deliberately faked a stumble.

Julian pulled my hand slightly toward him, causing me to crash directly into his embrace.

The overwhelming warmth of physical contact spread rapidly, making even Julian’s fingertips burn hot.

The camera flashes around us went wild.

The crowd erupted instantly, and several people even pulled out their phones to record videos.

Someone nearby immediately stopped the person recording.

“Don’t shoot! Nicola will be pissed!”

I let out a cold smirk in my mind.

Looking up at Julian, his genuine concern manifested far quicker than my fake apology.

“Are you alright?”

The words of apology caught in my throat, and I smiled, shaking my head. “I’m fine. I just accidentally twisted my ankle.”