Chapter 320: Brother?
Maria.
I was still lost in my thoughts, my mind tangled in confusion and disbelief, but no matter how hard I tried to ignore them, I couldn’t stop myself from listening to their conversation.
"Oh my, look who we have here!" she said dramatically, blinking her eyes repeatedly as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
The fake surprise in her tone instantly irritated me.
I knew without a doubt she was talking about me, but honestly, I didn’t even have the energy to react to her nonsense. My mind was already too occupied trying to process everything happening around me.
"Brother, you didn’t tell me you would be bringing her here!" she added, turning toward Vincent with clear curiosity dancing in her eyes.
Brother?
The word echoed painfully inside my head.
"Anything urgent at the moment?" Vincent asked calmly, his gaze fixed on her as though her unnecessary drama didn’t affect him in the slightest.
"Brother!" she called again before pausing midway.
I noticed the way her eyes slowly shifted toward me, almost like she was reconsidering her words because of my presence.
"Parables or direct?" she finally asked carefully.
The question only deepened the strange feeling building inside me.
What exactly was she trying to say?
"You know what, we can discuss whatever you came for later," Vincent said, his voice firm as he turned his attention toward me.
But I didn’t dare look at him.
I simply couldn’t.
Because none of this made any sense to me anymore. Everything happening right now felt like some terrible joke the universe had decided to play on me.
Tell me why Galen would boldly stand there and address Vincent as her brother.
The same Galen I knew.
The same Galen who was supposedly a rogue.
Worse, I had thought she was nothing more than a lackey receiving orders, but now I guess she was part of the mastermind.
"Okay," Galen replied simply, surprisingly not arguing any further.
But that only made things worse.
Because Galen was never the type to back down so easily unless something much bigger was involved.
My thoughts spiraled uncontrollably as realization slowly began piecing itself together in my mind.
What exactly was it she wanted to say that suddenly couldn’t be said in front of me?
Why did she even bother coming to the Moon Bridge Pack in the first place as a rogue?
And involving me?
Everything suddenly started making terrifying sense.
No wonder she had been so confident back then.
Confident enough to stand before me without fear and confident enough to smirk arrogantly while saying...
’Do you know what I am to the Lycan prince?’
At that moment, I hadn’t understood the meaning behind those words.
But now...now I finally understood why she had spoken with such certainty.
And it also explained why helping her escape from the Moon Bridge Pack had been ridiculously easy.
Almost as though the entire thing had already been arranged long before it happened.
The realization made my stomach twist painfully.
All this time, there had been something bigger happening right in the room I slept, yet somehow, I had completely failed to see it.
The quadruplets are actually a plague to my life.
"Maria, it seems we have a lot to catch up on!" Galen said with a wide grin, flashing her teeth at me as though we were old friends reuniting after years apart.
The sight of her alone irritated me.
I rolled my eyes away immediately, not even bothering to hide my annoyance.
"We have nothing to catch up on, Galen," I replied firmly, my voice sharp with irritation. "Don’t forget the assassin that almost took my life because of your stupid gambling was you," I added coldly.
The memory alone was enough to make anger crawl beneath my skin again.
Galen scoffed lightly, completely unbothered by my accusation.
"Come on, Maria," she said casually, waving it off as though nearly getting me killed had been some harmless prank. "I knew one of them would take the bait, and I only wanted to help you see that they were cowards who couldn’t admit love."
The nonchalance in her tone stunned me.
As if my life had meant absolutely nothing.
As if the fear, the blood, the chaos...none of it mattered.
A smile slowly spread across my lips, but there was nothing pleasant about it.
"Really, Galen?" I asked quietly. "Did I ask you to?" I paused briefly, staring directly at her. "And that too at the expense of my life," I finished, my voice dropping lower.
The air between us instantly became tense.
Before I even realized it, my feet had already carried me forward until I was standing directly in front of her.
Close enough to see the faint amusement still lingering in her eyes.
Close enough to feel my anger rising uncontrollably.
I looked straight into her eyes, my chest rising and falling heavily as every memory of what she had done replayed in my mind.
"Choke her to death!" Vernia suddenly declared inside my head.
The fury in her voice sent a dangerous thrill through me.
And honestly...
A part of me wanted to do exactly that.
Galen deserved it.
After everything she had done, after every reckless decision she had made with my life hanging in the balance, she deserved worse.
But this wasn’t my territory, this was theirs. One wrong move and I could easily lose my head before ever making it back to Noah.
That thought alone forced me to remain still. Forced me to hold back the rage clawing violently inside me.
I needed to survive first.
"Coward!" Vernia sneered mockingly in my head.
The insult made my jaw tighten and before I could even properly react, everything happened in a split second.
Vernia surged forward inside me and instantly took control. My body moved before my mind could process it.
The next thing I knew, my hand connected harshly against Galen’s face.
The sound echoed sharply through the air.
Galen gasped in complete shock, her eyes widening as her head jerked slightly to the side from the impact.
Silence followed immediately after.
And I stood there frozen.
My own eyes widened slightly as realization slowly settled in.
I had slapped her.
No...Vernia had.
But strangely enough, despite the shock running through me, despite knowing how dangerous this situation could become, there was a deep satisfaction buried inside me.
A dangerous satisfaction.
Because honestly?
Galen owed me that at the very least.
