Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 192

Aria’s POV

I made it to my car in under a minute.

That was probably a record. Considering my leg was throbbing with every step, and I’d had to say a rushed, barely coherent goodbye to Selene while grabbing my bag and my keys simultaneously. She’d tried to stop me at the door—something about looking at the cut first, about not driving in this state—but I was already halfway down the front steps by then.

"I’m fine!" I’d called back without turning around.

I wasn’t fine.

I got into the driver’s seat and let myself breathe for exactly three seconds. Then I started the car.

3:47.

Twenty-two minutes late. I replayed the school’s pickup policy in my head. Thirty-minute grace period before they started making calls. Before they—

I pulled out of the driveway too fast. The tires scraped the curb. I didn’t stop.

I drove.

My leg was bleeding again. I could feel it, that slow warm seep through the fabric of my slacks. The makeshift bandage Selene had insisted on before I’d even reached the front hallway—torn strips from an old kitchen towel, wrapped tight and efficient—had held so far, but the pressure of pressing my foot against the gas pedal wasn’t doing it any favors.

I pressed harder anyway.

The school was twenty minutes away under normal circumstances. I made it in fourteen.

I parked halfway onto the curb—I’d deal with that later, too—and got out. Moving fast. Not quite running because running with this leg was a specific kind of misery, but the closest thing to it I could manage.

The school day had officially ended forty minutes ago. The front of the building was quiet now. Most parents long gone. A few teachers standing near the entrance, talking. The crossing guard folding up his sign.

I went straight for the spot where we always waited.

The bench near the side gate. The one with the chipped blue paint that Lina liked to pick at while we waited for Lilith to finish saying goodbye to her new friends. Our spot. The spot they knew. The spot where I’d told them, a hundred times, *if I’m late, you wait right here, okay? Don’t move. Don’t go with anyone. You wait.*

The bench was empty.

I stopped.

Stood there for a second, looking at it. Like maybe I was seeing it wrong. Like maybe if I blinked they’d appear—Lina swinging her legs, Lilith sitting very straight the way she did when she was trying to seem older than she was.

Empty.

I turned around. Scanned the courtyard. The playground. The benches along the far wall.

No small dark-haired girl. No quiet auburn-headed one.

My heart did something uncomfortable inside my chest.

*They probably went inside.* A sensible thought. A reasonable thought. *The teachers probably brought them inside when pickup ran long. That’s procedure. That’s fine. They’re fine.*

I walked back toward the entrance. Faster now.

One of the teachers near the door glanced up as I approached.

"Hi—sorry, I’m late for pickup. My daughters—Lina Moon and Lilith Nightfang? They usually wait by the side gate but they’re not—"

The teacher’s expression shifted. I couldn’t quite read it. Something between surprise and something else.

"Ms. Moon," she said. And then she hesitated. That tiny pause that I would remember for a long time afterward. "They were picked up."

I heard the words. Processed them. Didn’t understand them.

"What?"

"Someone came for them." She said it carefully. Measured. Like she was choosing each word. "About thirty minutes ago. She had her ID. And a letter—a consent form, signed, confirming she was authorized for emergency pickup. We checked everything against the records."

The world had gone very, very still.

"Who." The word came out flat. Not a question. A demand. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"She said she was your relative." Another pause. "She was very—convincing, Ms. Moon. She had all the correct documentation. We followed every protocol."

"WHO." My voice came out louder than I intended. One of the other teachers looked over.

She flinched slightly. "I—if you’ll follow me inside, I can pull up the record—"

I was already through the door.

---

The administrative office smelled like old coffee and laminated paper.

I sat in the chair across from the front desk and did not feel myself sitting. My body had gone somewhere separate from my brain. My brain was running very fast. My hands were still. Too still.

The teacher was at the computer. Typing. Pulling up records.

"The name she gave was—" She squinted at the screen. "Moon. Same surname as yours. She presented her pack identification card. Everything matched the system."

"What did she look like?" My voice was coming out very calm. That frightened me a little.

"Tall. Dark hair—well-done waves. Very—put together. Expensive clothes." She paused. "She had sunglasses. Gold earrings."

Each detail landed separately. Like stones dropping into still water.

Tall. Dark hair in waves. Gold earrings.

*Expensive clothes.*

I knew before I asked. I already knew. Something in my chest had known the second I saw that empty bench.

"Do you have cameras?" The words came out barely above a whisper. "On the pickup area. Do you have footage?"

"Yes." She looked at me for a moment—really looked—and whatever she saw in my face made her stop asking questions. She just turned back to the computer. Clicked something. Pulled up another screen.

"I’ll need to call the head of security to access the footage directly, but I can show you the still from when they left. We capture an image automatically whenever—"

"Show me."

She turned the monitor toward me.

The image was grainy. Timestamp in the corner: 3:19 PM. The side gate, the bench, the familiar stretch of pavement I’d been standing in less than ten minutes ago.

And there, in the corner of the frame.

Two small figures. One of them was holding someone’s hand. The other had her backpack pulled up high on both shoulders the way she did when she was nervous.

And the woman walking them toward a car at the curb—

Dark hair. Expensive coat. Sunglasses pushed up on her head.

Serena.