My Alpha Mate Stole Our Daughter’s Heart for His Mistress’s Son Chapter 08

My Alpha Mate Stole Our Daughter’s Heart for His Mistress’s Son Chapter 08

Claire had already dialed 911 the second she broke out of the private hunting grounds.

Before stepping onto the international flight, she had updated the Lycan law enforcement registry

with the fully encrypted files and copies of every shred of evidence from the wooden box.

Following the digital trail back to the secluded hunting cabin and the restricted surgical wing of the

pack hospital, human and Lycan authorities swarmed the estate.

Julia had fully expected to draw her last breath under Andrew’s claws, but the sudden, violent

arrival of the police saved her miserable life.

Trembling in the wake of her near-death experience, her eyes remained glassy and unfocused as

she stared ahead, watching the very man who had been whispering sweet nothings into her ear

just hours prior get violently slammed into the blood-stained marble by a team of officers.

“Get your hands off me! Let me go!” Andrew roared thrashing maniacally as his claws tore into the

polished floor, trying to break free and finish ripping Julia apart.

“I need to kill this subhuman piece of garbage! If it wasn’t for her, my daughter wouldn’t be dead!

My mate would never have abandoned me!!”

“My baby girl was so small… she just turned seven today! Today was supposed to be her seventh

birthday!!”

He bucked wildly, desperate to tear through the line of officers to sink his teeth into Julia’s throat,

but the heavy iron cuffs and suppressors locked around his wrists held him entirely immobile.

The lead female detective on the scene looked down at him with an expression of pure,

unadulterated disgust, her voice cutting through his manic screams like a jagged blade.

“That’s enough! Keep moving, or you’ll be charged with felony obstruction on top of capital

murder!”

“We’ve already reviewed the entire case file provided by Miss Green.”

“You sit there crying about how Julia ruined your life and stole your family, but every single horrific act in this file was executed by your own hands.”

“You are the one who authorized the slaughter of your own biological daughter. You are the one who refused to give your mate a single shred of trust.”

“You personally signed the waiver, ordered the harvest, and monitored the back-alley mutilation of

your own child. You are the one who stood by and enabled Julia to physically abuse your mate…”

The detective leaned down, her eyes piercing straight into his fractured soul. “Julia didn’t pull the trigger, Alpha. You are the principal executioner.”

Every single word landed like a jagged silver blade, tearing into Andrew’s chest and shredding

whatever was left of his heart.

The blinding fury in his eyes slowly decayed into a hollow, bottomless despair. His muscles went completely slack; he stopped fighting the restraints, letting his head drop to the floor as the cold

steel of the handcuffs clicked tightly around his wrists.

By the time the news reached me that Andrew and Julia had both been sentenced to life in maximum-security prison without the possibility of parole, and that Dylan had been discarded and shipped back to his deadbeat biological father, I was already a lifetime away in Barcelona.

I bought a small, historic two-story bookstore tucked away in the heart of the Old Town. The shop was modest, but it had a charming layout, the ground floor housed the narrow, towering shelves of

books, while the second floor served as my quiet living space.

The moment I stepped out of my front door, the breathtaking spires of the Barcelona Cathedral

filled my horizon.

This had been Mia’s dream. Ever since her preschool days, she had been absolutely obsessed with

getting lost in bookstores.

She had clutched my hand on more than one occasion, looking up at me with wide, shining eyes

and promising, “When I grow up, Mama, I’m going to open a giant bookstore all by myself.”

I placed her tiny, lightweight wooden urn right on the sill of the large second-story window.

Now, every single morning, she could feel the warm golden light of the Mediterranean sun as it

rose over the rooftops, and she could listen to the deep, resonant chime of the cathedral bells

echoing through the valley.

The local neighbors took incredible care of me. Slowly, the paralyzing dread that used to anchor

my movements began to dissolve.

I forced myself to heal, practicing until I could speak fluent, elegant Spanish, and my kind landlord even taught me how to bake traditional local pastries in her stone oven.

But whenever I caught sight of groups of vibrant, laughing children playing tag in the cobblestone plazas, the tears would still slip silently down my cheeks in the dark.

Aside from running the shop, I poured the liquid agony of my experiences onto paper, weaving our tragic story into a memoir.

The moment it hit the shelves, the raw, heartbreaking narrative exploded into a global bestseller.

Millions of readers wept for my little girl, and a steady stream of international journalists began traveling to Barcelona just to interview me, turning my quiet sanctuary into a famous literary

landmark.

Five years melted away in a blur of ink and solitude. If my sweet girl were still alive, she would be starting middle school right now, navigating the awkward, beautiful transition into a young

teenager.

For five whole years, I had completely severed myself from the pack world, refusing to read a single headline or hear a single update regarding the fates of Andrew Walsh and Julia Mitchell.

Until I was explicitly requested to participate in a high-profile, live-streamed broadcast event.

The second the massive studio monitor flickered to life and displayed Andrew’s face. a visage that

felt terrifyingly familiar yet entirely foreign-my body reacted before my brain could think.

I took a sharp, frantic step backward, spinning on my heel to walk off the set.

“Claire… please,” Andrew’s broken voice cracked through the studio speakers, static-laced and

desperate. “I’m never getting out of this hellhole. Just… just let me look at you one last time. I am

begging you.”

My boots froze against the studio floorboards. Slowly, I turned back around to face the screen.

It wasn’t out of a sudden surge of mercy or lingering affection; I simply wanted to see what kind of

pathetic, desperate lies a monster who had butchered his own child would try to spin on a global

stage.

Andrew was completely unrecognizable.

The heavy, dark gray prison jumpsuit hung loosely off his skeletal, emaciated frame. His skin was

heavily jaundiced, a sickening shade of yellow, and deep, pitch-black hollows caked the skin

beneath his eyes.

According to the correctional officers on duty, his sanity had completely fractured over the past few years. He existed in a permanent state of psychological decay, drifting erratically between brief moments of lucidity and absolute madness.

Every single night, he would wake up screaming in his cell, throwing his body onto the concrete floor beneath the barred window, weeping hysterically as he clawed at his own chest, chanting “Mia” like a broken mantra.

His suicidal ideation was so severe and violent that the prison staff had been forced to isolate him;

not a single inmate in the facility was willing to share a cell with a man so deeply haunted by his

own demons.

“What I did to you… it’s unforgivable,” Andrew whispered, his current state of lucidity allowing the

crushing weight of reality to press down on his throat.

He dropped to his knees on the cold concrete of the visitation room, frantically banging his

forehead against the floor in front of the camera lens, over and over again.

“I swear to you, Claire… I didn’t know you were the one who pulled me out of the dirt all those years ago. I didn’t know you gave up half your Moon-Heart to keep me breathing… I truly didn’t know…”

“They gave me a life sentence, but it’s too easy. It’s a joke compared to what I deserve. Every

waking second of my life, I want to snap my own neck to end this nightmare. Please, Claire…

before I die in this cage, can I just hear you say it? Can I just have your forgiveness?”

I stared at the screen, looking at the creature I had once loved with every fiber of my being-the

creature who had stolen my daughter’s heartbeat. My gaze remained perfectly level, rock-solid,

and completely devoid of emotion.

“You can spend the rest of your miserable life repenting, Andrew. But it’s up to God to decide

whether your soul is worth saving.”

“Tell me, Alpha-if the girl you had run into in college had just been an ordinary woman, someone

who hadn’t taken blows for you in the dirt when you were six, would that have made your cruelty

any more justified? Would you have felt even more entitled to destroy her?”

“You aren’t a tragic hero, Andrew. You’re just a pathetic piece of human garbage. I will never forgive you. Not in this lifetime, and not in the next,

I let the cold weight of my declaration hang in the silence of the studio for a long, agonizing

moment before I spoke one last time.

“The small parcel I mailed to your facility-our daughter’s diary. You should have received it by

now. Open it. Read it.”

Andrew blinked stupidly through his tears as a guard stepped forward from the shadows of the

room, coldly dropping a small, worn notebook onto the metal table.

The cover was adorned with a faded illustration of Snow White.

With trembling, ruined fingers, Andrew peeled back the cover. Inside lay the neat, childish handwriting of the daughter he had butchered.

The studio camera slowly zoomed in, bringing the ink into crystal-clear focus for the entire world

to see.