Chapter 171

Ella POV

The contents of the box were baffling. It was filled with a chaotic assortment of papers: business receipts, handwritten letters from people whose names I didn’t recognize—or who hadn’t signed them at all.

From the few lines I skimmed, the letters seemed meaningless, scattered fragments of someone else’s life. I wasn’t willing to sit and read them one by one. That still felt like too much of a violation of Alexander’s privacy.

I carefully began separating the contents into piles: receipts, letters, technical documents that might as well have been written in a foreign language for all I understood them, and photos.

There weren’t many photos, but the ones I found did little to illuminate the mystery of who Alexander was or what he was hiding.

A few were of him as a young man, standing beside his father or with a boy who I assumed was his younger brother. I couldn’t help but notice Diana was conspicuously absent from any of the pictures.

There were also group photos—classmates, friends at parties, happy moments frozen in time. One photo stood out: Alexander in racing gear, grinning broadly as he posed next to a sleek car.

They were snapshots of happier days, glimpses of a life before he became Alpha, before he had to guard every part of himself so carefully.

A pang of guilt hit me as I sifted through the box. I felt like an intruder, prying into memories that weren’t mine to see. This wasn’t why I’d opened the box—I hadn’t wanted to see his past laid bare, just find some clue to the present.

But where else was I supposed to look?

I stared at the disorganized piles in front of me, frustration and regret knotting together in my chest. There were no answers here, just more questions.

This was pointless.

I sighed and began putting the piles back into the box, trying to erase the evidence of my intrusion. If Alexander noticed the mess, I’d just say I accidentally knocked it over and apologize.

As I reached for the lid to seal the box, my fingers fumbled, and it slipped from my hands. It hit the floor at an awkward angle, and something fluttered out from beneath it.

I froze, staring at the item on the floor. A sheet of paper? No—a photo.

I picked it up, my heart seizing in my chest the moment I saw it.

Alexander looked younger in the image, though clearly an adult. Beside him stood a blonde woman with a radiant, loving smile that seemed to light up the frame. His arm was wrapped around her, and she leaned into his embrace in a way that spoke volumes about their closeness.

The connection between them was unmistakable.

She was breathtakingly beautiful, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her face. There was something hauntingly familiar about her.

I didn’t know her, not personally, but I’d seen her somewhere before.

I sank onto the floor, holding the photo in trembling hands. My mind raced, flipping through fragments of memories as I tried to place her. That smile—it stirred something deep within me, a feeling I couldn’t quite name.

Who was she? I felt like I was staring into the face of a ghost.

That was it! I must have seen her in the original timeline. But where? And when?

My eyes went wide, and the picture slipped from my trembling fingers, fluttering to the floor. A memory surged to the surface, vivid and undeniable.

The scandal that had destroyed Alexander in the original timeline—the one that dominated the media for months—that’s where I had seen this woman before.

This blonde woman, his ex, was at the center of it all.

I gasped softly, recalling the fleeting dream I’d had of her face not long ago. At the time, I couldn’t hold on to the memory; it had faded into the recesses of my mind. But now, there was no denying it.

With shaking hands, I picked up the photo and shoved it back into the box. My movements were frantic as I snapped the lid shut, hurried to the kitchen to grab a chair, and climbed up to return the box to its place on the top shelf.

Once it was back where it belonged, I sank into a kitchen chair and pressed my hands to my face.

This wasn’t the discovery I was hoping for.

I wasn’t looking for ghosts from Alexander’s past. I just wanted to understand why he was sneaking around like a thief in the night. This woman couldn’t be connected to that—not now.

He wasn’t sneaking off to meet a secret girlfriend. That much I could be certain of.

The late nights, the emergency meetings, the cryptic phone calls—none of those things made sense in the context of this woman. But even if she wasn’t tied to his current behavior, her existence was still important.

Alexander was connected to her in a way that had nearly destroyed him once before. In the original timeline, the scandal had ruined his life. I couldn’t remember the details, but it had to have been serious.

And the fact that he kept this photo hidden away only confirmed that whatever had happened still mattered. The secret between them still existed, even here, even now.

If that was true, it could all come back and ruin him again.

I couldn’t let that happen.

But how was I supposed to protect him when I couldn’t even remember what the scandal was about?

Frustration clawed at me as I groaned and slumped deeper into the chair. My fingers pressed against my temples, trying to stave off the headache that was building.

What was wrong with me?

Why could I so vividly recall David’s face when he sentenced me to death but not the endless stream of news stories that chronicled Alexander’s downfall?

I had to remember.

I couldn’t count on Alexander to tell me. That much was painfully clear now. Whatever his reasons, his secrets were too deeply ingrained, too important to him. I couldn’t rely on him to be open or honest, even with me.

If I wanted to fix this, I’d have to do it behind his back.

The realization filled me with a mix of resolve and guilt. I rubbed at my temples, willing myself to focus, but my thoughts refused to settle.

And this wasn’t even the most pressing issue.

There was still the strange text message from a mysterious sender—likely part of the scheme to steal my wolf and, ultimately, to kill me. That’s where my attention should be, but instead, I was fixated on Alexander.

I smiled sadly and shook my head, the weight of the truth settling heavily on my shoulders.

“I can’t even deny that I love him anymore, can I?” I whispered.

The words hung in the air, a quiet confession that I hadn’t wanted to admit, even to myself.

The sound of the door lock beeping suddenly cut through the silence. My heart leapt and I jumped to my feet and picked the kitchen chair up, running to put it back where I had taken it from.

The moment I sat the chair down, the door opened and Alexander stepped inside. He looked at me with surprise and I smiled awkwardly at him.

I felt guilty and I couldn’t shake the thought that he could tell I had been up to something.

He stepped further into the apartment, walking straight towards me. I cursed internally, and braced myself for whatever might happen next.