The silence in my office is suffocating
A low him from the fluorescent light overhead is the only sound, but it grates on me like nails on a chalkboard.
I’ve read the same line on this report live times now, and I still don’t know what it says.
Siena.
Her words won’t stop playing in my head, over and over, like a broken record. My father died while you were ignoring my
calls
I lean back in my chair, rubbing a hand over my face. The leather creaks under me, the sound sharp in the quiet room. I can’t get the look on her face out of my mind. That mix of anger and pain, the way her voice trembled when she said
seventeen calls.
Seventeen.
I reach for my phone and scroll through my call history, though I know I won’t find anything there.
It feels like a lifetime ago, but the memory of that weekend surfaces anyway. I’d been with Lila. She had insisted she was injured and needed to be monitored and protected.
Any other time, Lila had insisted my phone remain off or with her.
I remember her smirk, the way she’d leaned across the table at dinner, her manicured nails tapping against the wine glass. “You don’t owe her anything, Raiden. She’s just using you. Cold–digger, remember? She only calls when she wants something.”
I’d believed her.
Or maybe I’d wanted to believe her. It was easier that way, wasn’t it? To think of Siena as manipulative, grasping, desperate.
Easier to justify ignoring her and avoid my failures.
But now, sitting here in this cold, empty office, I can’t stop wondering
Had Lila known? Had she deliberately kept me from answering those calls? And if she had… why didn’t I question it?
I stare at the financial records spread across my desk. Windhowl’s financial records. I hadn’t planned to go digging, but after leaving Siena’s room last night, I couldn’t help myself. And now I’m staring at numbers that tell a story I should have seen years ago,
Massive medical debts. Payments stretching back years, coinciding almost exactly with her father’s illness.
How could I be so cold?
I’d thought she was wasting pack funds, being reckless, irresponsible
I’d dismissed her requests for additional support as selfish. But now, the pieces are falling into place, and the picture they’re forming makes me feel sick.
I misjudged her. I listened to Lilah—
The realization settles over me like a weight pressing down on my chest.
16:20 Mon, 21 Apr
Chapter 52
How many times did I brush her off, roll my eyes at her “excuses.”
