He Signed My Freedom Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 40
Noah and Iris each wrote a letter, too.
Noah said he had thrown away every toy Vivian ever gave him, and if I came back, he would train every day and never again say I was only the woman who took care of the manor. Iris drew a picture of four people holding hands, with Vivian’s figure scribbled over in black. Beside it she wrote, “Our real family.”
I read them, then gave the letters to the Registry for safekeeping and did not reply.
They still thought the problem had been Vivian, that if they just drove her away and restored the old arrangement, everything could return to the days when I kept giving and they kept taking. But what had really hurt me wasn’t just an intruder. It was that every single one of them had believed my love had no right to leave.
Clara occasionally wrote to me through official channels.
She said that after Vivian left, the pack manor was in chaos. Noah and Iris no longer made scenes, but at every meal, they stared at the place where I used to sit.
Lucian told them that I would forgive them, because I had loved them more than anything.
The children asked, “If she loved us most, then why won’t she come back?”
Lucian had no answer.
At night, he watched every guard recording from the past six months.
In the footage, I was always taking care of other people: checking the children’s training bags, preparing food for elders, organizing Lucian’s meeting records. I rarely smiled, and yet everyone had grown used to the certainty that I would always be there.
When he reached the staircase footage, he shut off the screen and sat alone in the study all night.
At the end of her letter, Clara wrote, “The Alpha says that once he brings you back, he’ll treat you well.”
I folded the letter and put it in a drawer.
Outside, Elias was holding an umbrella for Chloe. The moment she saw me, she ran over, hugging a new picture book.
“Evelyn, can we read the sea monster story today?”
I took her hand.
“All right.”
I never told Clara that kindness arriving too late meant nothing to me now.
And I never told Lucian that what he called “bringing me back” was, in itself, another denial of my choice.