Chapter 104

Running away from Ethan that night was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Only followed by having to pretend to be madly in love with Baron.

After I left Ethan in the bathroom, I went back to Baron and wrapped my arms around him. The same arms that were previously around Ethan’s shoulders. Baron felt so wrong.

It all felt so wrong.

“I’m ready to leave,” I whispered in his ear, letting my lips graze his cheek. Baron shivered at the contact and wrapped his arm tightly around my waist, gripping the flesh of my hip.

“Ok,” He smirked, pressing a kiss that lasted a little too long on my cheek. Ethan was coming out of the bathroom as Baron did it.

I knew he saw as his face darkened and he turned on his heel to stride back to Sarah. His entire aura was charged with anger. Guilt burrowed itself deep into my core, and I wished for a time machine to take me back to before I knew anything about Andrew or Baron or Sarah Silvers.

I just wanted it to be Ethan and I again.

It couldn’t though, and I had to stay strong.

Baron and I went back to Andrew’s house. We spent several days together, building a relationship and learning facts about each other. It was all fake on my side, of course, and I tailored myself to fit the mold of a perfect woman for Baron.

I needed him to love me so that I could completely garner his trust. I needed to learn everything he knew so I could use it to bring the two of them down.

Andrew approached me a week later, his face giddy and energized.

“Ava,” He sang as he sat down on the couch across from me.

“Andre-” I caught myself, “Father. What can I do for you?”

Andrew smiled, his face always looked so wicked even when he smiled.

“I see that you and Baron have been getting close over the last few days,” He paused and I nodded in encouragement for him to continue.

“We are,” I sat up straighter on the sofa.

“Once your divorce with Ethan is finalized, I want the two of you to get married. Baron has already come to me and asked for my blessing, I have given it to him.” Andrew clapped his hands together in finality.

A lump formed in my throat, but I nodded in agreement.

This just meant that I had to expedite my search for evidence. I’d already gathered a good portion of damning information, but nothing that was concrete enough to send Andrew or Baron to jail.

“That’s wonderful!” I forced my voice to sound chirpy and energetic. I couldn’t have him doubting my devotion to him or Baron. He needed to think that I trusted them both blindly.

Andrew and Baron became sort of ignorant to my presence after that. Before, they would close doors and hide themselves away for business meetings and strategy negotiations.

They stopped hiding themselves away, and that made finding evidence on both of them that much easier. Their computers were not password protected, and they spoke freely about rogue wolves and plans that I could record on my phone.

I gathered at least a hundred pieces of evidence against the two of them, and had them printed and stored on a USB so that I could send it off to Ethan.

Speaking of Ethan, Andrew and him were fighting far more frequently and angrily than they had before. They called each other frequently for screaming matches and threats. I was walking through the hall one night when I heard Andrew shouting into his phone.

“Leave my consumers out of your data inputs!” Andrew snarled into the receiver.

Ethan, who was on speaker, replied as calmly as ever.

“I have done what businessmen do, Andrew. If you are upset with these actions, perhaps you are not in the correct field of work. I don’t know how that will look as Alpha Chairman.” Ethan spoke.

I bit my lip, hearing Ethan’s voice was enough to cause my heart to skip a beat.

“If you do not back down, I will take one of Ava’s fingers for every failed business deal you cause me,” Andrew growled. I took a step away from the door, still listening. My breathing became ragged.

“Why do I care?” Ethan asked, my heart shattered. “We aren’t married any longer. She made her choice.”

“She did. Ava can you come here for a moment,” Andrew shouted, not knowing that I was just around the corner listening. “If you don’t care, then you won’t mind listening as it happens.”

Andrew spoke the second part lowly into the microphone so that I wouldn’t hear it if I was farther away.

“If you touch one hair on her head-” Ethan shouted, but Andrew hung up the phone before he could finish a threat of his own.

That’s when I realized it was time for me to go. I had enough evidence at that point to send off and cause issues for Andrew and Baron.

I needed to escape, my mom too. I snuck into my mother’s room and started shoving all her clothes into a duffle bag.

“Ava?” She asked, startled. “What’s going on?”

“We’re leaving!” I ushered her out the door and ran into my room to pack a bag of my own. Over the course of the weeks I was staying with Andrew I also kept putting aside money from the safe in his office in preparation for when I made my escape.

I didn’t want to leave with nothing the same way I left Ethan. I prepared this time.

My mother and I slinked our way through the inky night, caught a bus to the next town over, and rented a hotel room for a week while I tried to figure everything out.

I sent the folder I had gathered to Tristan. I was worried that if I sent it to Ethan, he would be too angry with me to open a letter from me. I didn’t want him accidentally destroying the evidence out of his anger.

Tristan was my next best bet, especially since he was my only consistent point of contact after I left Ethan the first time. I trusted him enough to understand what I was doing and what I needed him to do.

I never followed up with Ethan and Andrew after that. A month went by and I used the money I stole from Andrew to open up my own pastry shop downtown, and even went so far as to change my name so that Andrew couldn’t find me.

He would surely be angry with me for ruining his life.

Ethan won Alpha Chairman, I heard. I didn’t look him up online or pay attention to the news anymore, it only caused me heartache.

My mother and I ran the shop together, and it was a wonderful month after running away. The customers were kind, I was no longer in the public eye, and my life had a sense of serenity to it.

There was a void in me, though. The emptiness of a wolf who missed her mate. My life would be perfect if I had Ethan here with me, but I doubted I would ever see him again.

That reality became much more apparent at the end of the month when I woke up feeling extremely nauseated and exhausted. I ran to the toilet and expelled the contents of my stomach into the porcelain bowl.

“I remember my early pregnancy with you,” My mom spoke from the other side of the bathroom door. “I was sick every morning.”

I jerked my head up and finally understood what she was insinuating.

I was pregnant with Ethan’s child.