Chapter 140 - 0140
Kaelen POV
"I can’t believe you’re actually going to spy on her," Darius complained from the passenger seat as I pulled into a secluded, dimly lit corner a short distance from the nightclub.
I needed to park far enough away to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to myself. After all, I was still the Alpha King, and my arrival at an ordinary nightclub would cause far more commotion than I wanted. Normally, I wouldn’t have cared. Tonight was different.
"If you have a problem with it, you’re free to get out and walk back," I said coldly as I shifted the car into park. I hadn’t even wanted him coming with me in the first place. He had simply invited himself along in the middle of my rant.
Just as I expected, Darius didn’t budge an inch. He merely folded his broad arms across his chest and leaned back against his seat, making me let out a low scoff.
"That’s what I thought."
Truthfully, I had been secretly pleased earlier when Ella told me she didn’t want to go out tonight. Then Nala had whispered whatever poisonous sweet nothings she was so good at into her ear, completely changing her mind.
Part of the reason I had even allowed her to leave was because Darius’s words during our confrontation earlier had struck a deep, agonizing chord within me.
He hadn’t given me a direct answer when I asked what I needed to do to make Ella look at me the way she looked at him. I couldn’t even blame him for holding back. After all, we were rivals pursuing the same woman, and in her eyes, I was already the villain.
Still, from the subtle hints buried beneath the few words he had said, I had managed to piece together one painful truth.
I needed to stop trying to control her.
I had to step back and let her make her own choices, even if every instinct inside me screamed against it.
Like tonight.
My phone suddenly buzzed in my hand with a live video feed sent by one of the newly assigned guards, a precaution I had secretly put in place before allowing her to leave the estate.
Tapping the screen, my blood immediately ran cold the moment the video began to play.
There she was.
In the middle of the crowded dance floor, wrapped securely in another man’s arms as her body swayed effortlessly with his. He was holding her far too close, one hand resting possessively against her waist.
"Who is this bastard?" I muttered under my breath, my fingers tightening around my phone until I thought the glass might crack beneath the pressure.
Darius shifted noticeably in his seat and leaned closer to look at the screen. The instant his eyes landed on the live feed, his expression darkened into something downright murderous.
Without warning, he snatched the phone straight out of my hand and furiously zoomed in on the man’s hand resting against her waist.
"Why the hell are the guards allowing this to happen?" Darius growled, his jaw clenched so tightly I thought he might crack a tooth.
Watching the jealousy written all over his face, I couldn’t help myself.
"Didn’t you specifically tell me I needed to give her space and stop acting like a tyrant?" I asked, throwing his own words from earlier right back at him.
At that, a low, feral growl rumbled from the back of Darius’s throat, but his eyes never left the glowing screen.
"Giving her space doesn’t mean letting her dance this closely with some random man," he snapped. "We don’t know who he is or what he’s capable of. Those guards should be punished for this."
A mocking chuckle escaped me, but my own fists remained tightly clenched at my sides, my knuckles turning stark white.
Control yourself, Kaelen. I repeated the words over and over in my head like a desperate mantra.
Don’t let this get to you.
It’s just a dance. She’s just dancing.
It’s not as if they’re going to finish the song, head over to the bar for a few drinks, start making out, and then...
My thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Wait.
Does this club have private suites upstairs?
It does.
Fuck.
What if...
No.
She wouldn’t.
...But what if she did?
For over thirty minutes after Darius handed my phone back, I remained frozen behind the steering wheel, silently fighting a losing battle against my own spiraling thoughts.
The harder I tried to force the disturbing images out of my head, the more vividly my imagination tortured me with increasingly detailed worst-case scenarios. I was literally losing my mind, sitting alone in the dark, staring at a glowing screen like some restless ghost.
"How much longer are we going to sit out here?" Darius suddenly asked, pulling me out of my suffocating thoughts. "We have connections inside this club. Sneaking in wouldn’t be a problem."
He wasn’t wrong.
I had deliberately steered Nala toward suggesting this particular club because I owned a discreet stake in it.
It wasn’t nearly as large or prestigious as the elite clubs in our core territory, and that was precisely why I had chosen it. Most of the men who came here held little influence or power. As far as I was concerned, standing beside the Alpha King was already the highest status any woman could ever attain. I had wanted to limit Ella’s options until choosing any other man in a place like this would feel beneath her.
Yet here I was, so restless I could have ripped the steering wheel clean off its column, and I was still too hesitant to step inside.
Not because I couldn’t.
Because I didn’t trust myself.
Out here, the phone screen acted as a barrier, keeping my impulses in check. The moment I walked through those doors, all it would take was seeing another man standing a little too close to her for every ounce of self-control I’d been desperately clinging to would disappear.
I’d drag her straight back into my arms without a second thought, destroying the patient, less controlling version of myself I was trying so hard to become.
Just as I was about to answer Darius, my phone suddenly erupted with a sharp, piercing ringtone in my hand.
My jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle in my cheek began to twitch.
The caller ID displayed Isaac’s name.
I had given the guards one very clear order. They were only to call my direct line if there was a genuine emergency.
So was she in trouble?
Fuck.
This was exactly why I hated letting her out of my sight.
Without wasting a second, I swiped across the screen and lifted the phone to my ear.
"What is it?" I barked, my voice carrying a sharp edge of authority.
"Uhm... Alpha... I..." Isaac’s shaky voice came through the speaker. The obvious panic in his tone made my chest tighten almost instantly.
"If you don’t start speaking within the next second, I’ll personally rip your tongue out," I growled into the phone.
Isaac drew a sharp, ragged breath before forcing the words out in one terrified rush.
"Miss Ella was drugged," he confessed, his voice trembling. "And... and the dosage was extremely high. We believe it might force her straight into heat."
The moment the words left his mouth, my blood turned to ice.
The warm air inside the car suddenly felt freezing as a murderous rage unlike anything I had felt in years exploded through my veins, obliterating every ounce of restraint I had been desperately holding on to.
Who would dare drug what belonged to me?
Had they grown so tired of living that they deliberately chosen the most agonizing way possible to die?
"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a dangerously quiet tone as my hand slammed onto the door handle.
Beside me, Darius had heard every word through the speaker.
Before I could even push my own door open, he had already thrown his open and stepped into the night, his eyes blazing with the same savage, murderous fury consuming me.