With that, she turned and walked away with her husband, leaving Nathan standing motionless in the middle of the apartment.
For several seconds, he simply stared after them.
His mother’s threat echoed through his mind, chilling him more than he wanted to admit.
He knew her.
And that was the worst part.
She was not someone who made empty threats.
“Nathan…”
Evelyn’s soft voice pulled him from his thoughts.
She walked toward him and slipped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her cheek against his back.
“We can build a life of our own,” she whispered intimately.
“We can have everything we’ve ever wanted.
We can each get what we desire.”
Nathan’s expression tightened.
“I want to be alone.” There was no anger in his voice this time.
Only exhaustion.
Evelyn remained silent for a moment before slowly releasing him.
Nathan stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
A moment later, the sound of running water filled the apartment.
Evelyn stood alone in the living room, staring at the closed bathroom door.
She had no choice but to leave.
She gathered her things, slipped on her shoes, and walked out of the apartment without saying another word, the sound of the shower following her until the door closed behind her.
ASHFORD HOLDINGS
Miles away, on the top floor of Ashford Global Holdings, another notification illuminated the screen of a private office overlooking the city.
Cassian Ashford lowered his gaze to the message displayed on his phone.
Lena Hartwell.
His expression remained unreadable, and only the faint flicker in his icy blue eyes betrayed that the notification had captured his attention.
After a moment, he placed the phone on his desk and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Rain rolled steadily down the glass, blurring the skyline into streaks of silver and gold as thousands of lights shimmered below.
He stood there in silence before speaking without turning around.
“Run her file.”
Behind him, Adrian Cole looked up from the documents spread across the conference table.
As Cassian’s Beta and closest confidant for more than a decade, he had learned never to question his Alpha’s orders, though the request still caught him by surprise. The source of this chapter is novelping(.)com.
“The human?” Adrian asked carefully.
Cassian acknowledged him with a slight nod.
Adrian retrieved his tablet and accessed the National Pairing Authority’s secure database.
Lena Hartwell’s government profile appeared almost instantly.
“Twenty-one years old,” Adrian began.
“She is a human.
2nd Year in University of Ashville, studying Forensic Pathology.
No criminal record.
Stable family records.” He paused as he continued reading.
“She submitted an exemption request to the Pairing Authority this morning.
It was denied.”
Cassian remained silent for a moment before asking.
“What else?”
Adrian scrolled farther down the report before stopping once again.
“She has been in a registered relationship with Nathan Reeves for the past three years.”
The office fell silent.
Cassian’s gaze remained fixed on the rain beyond the window.
“And today?” he asked, his tone low.
Adrian lowered his eyes to the report once more, scrolling through the final entries before answering.
“Today that relationship officially ended.”
Silence settled over the office.
The notification assigning Lena Hartwell to him still rested on Cassian’s phone beside the neatly arranged reports on his desk.
He had not looked at it again since reading her name, yet neither had he dismissed it.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, thick storm clouds had swallowed the midday sun, casting the city beneath them into an eerie gray twilight.
Rain streamed relentlessly down the glass, blurring the skyline until the towering buildings became little more than dark silhouettes against the darkened sky.
After several moments, Cassian finally broke the silence.
“Find out why.”
“Right away.”
He went through the system; it had all of Lena’s details until he found one clue.
“There are linked records attached to her file.”
“Interesting…”
Cassian finally lifted his gaze from the rain-streaked skyline.
“What is it?”
“She wasn’t single.” Adrian continued reading through the report before adding, “She was in a registered relationship with Nathan Reeves.
According to these records, they had been together for three years.
The relationship was officially dissolved today without her knowledge, and only a few minutes later Nathan Reeves received a compatibility assignment of his own.”
He opened the pairing record, but the moment the assigned partner’s name appeared, his brows knitted together.
“…An Ashford?”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“What did you say?”
Adrian enlarged the profile to make certain he had not misread it.
“Nathan Reeves has been assigned to Evelyn Ashford with a compatibility score of ninety-eight percent.” He paused before looking back at Cassian.
“She’s a member of the Ashford family.”
For the first time since the conversation had begun, the faintest flicker disturbed the calm in Cassian’s icy blue eyes.
“Which branch?”
Adrian accessed the Ashford family registry and quickly located Evelyn’s profile.
“The Northern Branch,” he replied.
“She’s the daughter of Alpha Victor Ashford…” His voice trailed off as he read the next line.
“Your uncle.”
Cassian offered no response.
His expression remained as unreadable as ever, but Adrian had served him long enough to notice the subtle shift in his demeanor.
Continuing his search, Adrian opened the Authority’s activity log and reviewed the sequence of events recorded throughout the morning.
“Lena Hartwell’s exemption request was denied at 9;30 a.m.
Nathan Reeves received his compatibility assignment at 8:30 a.m., and your cousin, Evelyn Ashford, reported to the designated meeting location less than thirty minutes later.” He paused, his eyes narrowing as he reached the final entry.
“Lena and Nathan’s registered relationship was officially dissolved earlier, before she represented the exemption request.”
Cassian remained standing before the window, watching the rain sweep across the city below.
“So the two events were connected.”
“It appears so,” Adrian replied.
“The Authority processed both pairings as part of the same compatibility cycle.”
Another silence settled over the office before Cassian spoke again.
“Continue.”