Chapter 8: Nobody understood her better than I did.
Alyia's POV
The low murmur of voices drifted from the study as I approached.
Arthur, Daniel's father, sat behind his mahogany desk, the furrows between his brows smoothing the moment he saw me enter.
He set down his pen and gestured toward the leather sofa across from him with a warmth that had become rare in this cold, sprawling mansion.
"Come, sit. What brings you here today?" His gaze swept across my face with the careful attention of someone who'd learned to read between the lines. "And while you're at it, tell me—how are things between you and Daniel lately?"
At the mention of Daniel's name, my expression faltered for just a heartbeat before I managed a smile. "We're fine, Father."
"Fine? You don't need to cover for him." Arthur's voice hardened with protective anger.
"I've seen the newspapers, the gossip sites. That Della woman won't leave him alone, and Daniel's been fool enough to let it happen. Don't worry—when he gets back tonight, I'll make sure you get the justice you deserve."
The concern in his eyes was genuine.
Over these two years in the Sterling family's gilded cage, he'd been the only one who treated me like actual family rather than an inconvenient acquisition. Without his support, I never would have survived this long.
But I didn't need public relations damage control anymore. I didn't need apologies or justice or any of the Band-Aids we'd been applying to a wound that had never stopped bleeding.
I set down my teacup and lifted my gaze to meet his—those sharp eyes that had built an empire but had always looked at me with grandfatherly kindness.
"Father, thank you for always protecting me."
I drew a breath that felt like it came from somewhere deep and long-buried. "But if... if someday I truly can't hold on anymore, if I decide to end this marriage with Daniel and go back to the life I had before—would you support me?"
The air in the study crystallized into something brittle and fragile. The gentle smile on Arthur's face froze, then cracked. He stared at me for what felt like an eternity, his mouth opening and closing without sound.
Then he slammed his palm against the desk and shot to his feet.
"Did Daniel force you to say this?" Arthur colored his voice a dangerous shade of red. "He was tangled up with Della even before you two got married, and now that woman's been back in the country for three months and he's already pushing for divorce? Alyia, I'm calling him back right now. I'll tear into him until—"
"He didn't, Father."
I cut him off quietly, dropping my gaze to study my own hands—clean, unmarked, but somehow feeling stained by two years of pretending.
"I'm just... tired. I spent seven years chasing a man who never loved me. I spent two more years playing the perfect Luna, never making a single mistake anyone could point to."
I looked up again, and only then realized my vision had blurred with tears I hadn't given myself permission to shed.
"But I'm human too. My heart isn't made of iron.”
“I want to let him go. And I want to finally let myself go too."
Arthur stood frozen, his anger draining away into something that looked uncomfortably like grief.
Finally, he released a long, ragged sigh that seemed to age him ten years in a single breath.
"Go then, child."
His voice came out rough and worn. "I'll support whatever you choose. You're a good person—a better person than any of us deserved. It's the Sterling family who failed you, not the other way around."
"Thank you, Father."
I bowed deeply to him, the gesture carrying the weight of gratitude I couldn't put into words.
In that moment, the massive stone that had been crushing my chest for two solid years finally cracked open, just wide enough to let in a sliver of light. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something close to relief.
I walked out of the manor without hesitation and drove straight to Sterling Corporation headquarters.
Arthur had given his blessing. Starting today, I was no longer the Luna trapped in a gilded prison. All I needed to do was tell Daniel to his face, and then this would finally be over.
But when I pushed open the door to the executive office, I found it empty except for his assistant, who looked like he was drowning in the mountain of paperwork covering every available surface.
The moment he spotted me, he practically lunged forward like I was a life raft in a storm.
"Mrs.Alyia! Thank god you're here! Last night's press conference disaster has spiraled completely out of control. PR is about to collapse under the pressure."
"Where's Daniel?"
I cut through his panic with the question that actually mattered. The assistant froze, and something uncomfortable flickered across his face.
"Alpha went to the hospital." He paused, clearly weighing his words.
"Miss Della was badly shaken last night. This morning her condition worsened, and the doctors recommended she stay for observation. Alpha rushed over first thing."
I went still for a few seconds, waiting for the familiar ache of abandonment to hit.
In the past, this would have crushed me—the knowledge that once again, without a moment's hesitation, he'd chosen her.
But now? Now I just felt the dull recognition of a pattern I'd memorized by heart.
"I see." I turned toward the door. The assistant called after me reflexively.
"Mrs.Alyia, where are you go?"
"The hospital," I said simply. "There's something I need to tell him in person."
The assistant looked genuinely shocked. For two years, whenever Della was involved, I'd always been the one to step back, to make myself small and unobtrusive.
Even when Daniel needed to sign documents, I'd send them through intermediaries rather than face the humiliation of being dismissed in her presence.
But today was different. Today I was simply going to inform my husband that our marriage was over.
I grabbed my car keys and left without looking back.
Thirty minutes later, I stood outside the VIP ward at Metropolitan General. I'd just raised my hand to knock when Della's voice drifted through the door, thick with tears and theatrical vulnerability.
"Daniel... last night was such a disaster. Everyone's talking about me now."
My hand froze mid-air. The door hadn't been fully closed, leaving a narrow gap through which her words spilled out like poison.
"They're all calling me a homewrecker." She sniffled loudly. "If this continues, how am I supposed to face an audience again? How can I ever perform?"
Silence followed—the kind of weighted quiet that precedes something irreversible.
Then her voice came again, softer now, laced with calculated desperation. "You promised Lucy, didn't you? You told her you'd marry me, that you'd take care of me for the rest of my life. Have you forgotten?"
My fingers tightened around the door handle until my knuckles went white. Several seconds crawled past before Daniel's low voice finally emerged from inside the room.
"I remember."
My breath stopped. I'd already decided to let go.
I'd already told myself not to hope for anything anymore. But hearing those two words felt like being crushed under a weight I thought I'd learned to carry, my lungs suddenly unable to find air.
Some kinds of love, it turned out, couldn't be discarded just because you decided they weren't worth keeping.
I slowly lowered my hand and let it fall to my side. The words "let's get divorced" that I'd come here to say suddenly seemed pointless—redundant in the face of a promise made to a ghost I could never compete with.
I didn't knock. I didn't go in. I simply turned and walked back the way I'd come, my footsteps silent on the sterile hospital floor.
Ninety-eighth. That's how many times I'd stepped aside for her over the years.
This time, I thought, I really needed to learn how to make my exit permanent.
Daniel's POV
The hospital room had gone deathly quiet. Della watched me with eyes full of desperate hope and naked ambition, her lips curving upward the moment I'd said "I remember"—like she'd already won a game I hadn't agreed to play.
I looked at her face, so carefully similar to Lucy's, and felt my expression harden into something cold and final.
"I remember promising you I'd take care of you for the rest of your life." I stared down at her from my full height, letting each word land with deliberate weight. "But that care is limited to financial support, medical coverage, and the Sterling family's protection."
Della's face went sheet-white.
"Daniel... what kind of joke—"
"I never promised to marry you." I cut her off with surgical precision. "And I certainly won't end my marriage for anyone. I'll handle scandal. But don't ever let me hear you say something like that again."
The silence that followed felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. Then I caught it—the faintest trace of cedarwood and winter frost, a scent I would have recognized anywhere.
Alyia.
I frowned and turned sharply toward the door. Had she been here?
The thought sent an irrational spike of irritation through me. So she'd come, overheard part of a conversation, and then jumped to conclusions again—just like last night?
What the hell was she trying to prove with all this drama?
"Daniel?"
Della's tentative voice barely registered. I was already moving, pushing through the door into the empty corridor. She was gone, of course—probably already halfway back to the office to sulk.
I stood there feeling inexplicably annoyed when my phone buzzed. Father's name lit up the screen.
"Daniel." His voice sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with age. "Alyia came to the manor this morning."
I went still.
"She said she wants to end the marriage."
I closed my eyes and felt something like bitter amusement curl in my chest.
So she'd actually gone through with it—taken her little performance all the way to Father. Last night's divorce threats apparently weren't enough; today she'd escalated to dragging family into it. I could picture her perfectly, sitting across from him with that quiet, wounded dignity she wore so well.
"Father." I rubbed my temples, unable to keep the weary skepticism out of my voice. "You don't actually believe she wants a divorce, do you?"
The line went silent for several beats.
"Daniel." Father's voice came back measured and heavy. "She was serious."
"Serious?" I let out a low, humorless laugh and stared out the window at the city below. "Two years ago, she was willing to endure the entire pack's judgment to marry into this family. She clawed her way up from nothing—an orphan with no connections—to where she is now. She's Vice President of Sterling Corporation. She has your approval and the pack's respect. She's built everything she has from scratch."
My voice remained steady, certain. "Father, she values what she has more than anyone. Alyia isn't going anywhere."
Another long silence stretched between us before Father finally spoke again, his tone carrying a warning I chose to ignore. "For your sake, Daniel, I hope you're right."
The call ended. I stood alone in that sterile hospital corridor, my mind unwillingly replaying the look in Alyia's eyes last night—that unsettling calm, like she'd already made a decision I hadn't bothered to notice.
A flicker of something uncomfortable stirred in my chest, but I pushed it down immediately.
Alyia wouldn't leave me. In two years of marriage, I'd never even considered the possibility.
After all, no one walks away from the Sterling family willingly. And she, of all people, had fought too hard to get here.
I was her Alpha. In this world, nobody understood her better than I did.
