Chapter 82

The room feels colder to me now, but maybe that's because I feel colder than the walls around me due to treachery. The sensation is like to a stone pressing against my chest, making breathing nearly impossible.

In spite of my efforts, I can draw no further away than feel the sensation, the reverberation of their betrayal, and the years it spanned. For all that time, Gerald and Hannah had schemed, spun the web of deceit, and what had I been but the incapable fool to realize it?

How could I not have seen it? I think through the incidents repeatedly in my mind and try to find out what aspects of the drama I missed. Gerald had been like a brother to Landen his Beta his right-hand man.

And Hannah… she had been my friend, or rather I thought she was a friend.

Now, looking back, I am able to identify what were obvious signs of them liking each other behind the scenes – the holes in their masks, the quick diagonal looks they exchanged when they thought no one was looking, the signs that shou