Chapter 183: Video Evidence
Moana
I went to work the next morning with my meeting with Olivia still plaguing my mind. Between all of the evidence I had gathered so far, what Olivia said, and how Edrick reacted when he discovered that I hadn’t taken the driver, I was seriously beginning to doubt my own safety at home.
That morning, I sneakily dumped my morning coffee again. By the time I got to work, my wolf’s energy was back to normal and she was able to offer me some insight on the situation.
“I am almost entirely certain that Edrick is indeed our mate,” Mina said during my lunch break, while I paced back and forth in my empty classroom and chewed nervously on my fingernails.
“But that doesn’t mean that his intentions are entirely pure, does it?” I asked.
Mina was silent for a few moments before responding. “No. It doesn’t.”
I cursed under my breath, thinking hard. I didn’t know much about the inner world of werewolves, but I had always been under the impression that fated mates would never want to betray each other. Then again, however, I couldn’t help but think back to the story of how Ethan was born. Michael and Verona were supposed to be fated mates, but Michael cheated on her anyway and betrayed her trust. It sounded as though there was more emotional abuse going on as well, but I didn’t know for sure. Either way, Michael had betrayed Verona despite the fact that they were mates. Was it possible that something ran in that family that made the men untrustworthy? I hated to believe it, especially after how kind Edrick had been…
But then again, he had just told me that he would never marry me. And although he seemed to have tried to make up for it the next day by spending the day with me, he had still not apologized, which made me think now that his nasty side was his true nature. Not only that, but the way that he had locked me in the car and told me that he wouldn’t let me out of his sight anymore made me nervous, as though I was his prisoner in some way.
As I paced back and forth in my classroom, I thought back to the first night that I had spent in the penthouse. After I realized that Edrick was the one who hired me, I had tried to go home; but he had sent frightening men after me. Maybe I should have taken that alone as the first red flag. Even before my true nature as a werewolf was known, he wouldn’t let me leave. Did he know that I was the Golden Wolf then, somehow, or did he only find out later and that just solidified his desire to keep me tucked away on a shelf?
All day, I couldn’t get my worries out of my mind. When I went home that evening, however, I had an idea as to how I could potentially ease my worries and find out for sure if I really was being poisoned, if I was simply being paranoid.
The next morning, I woke up earlier than normal. I woke up before everyone else and snuck over to the kitchen, where I placed my phone on video mode in a cupboard. I made sure to angle it in such a way that it couldn’t be seen normally, but so that the video would show a perfect shot of the coffee machine.
After that, I hit record and snuck back to my room.
Later, I came out of my room dressed for work as though I had just woken up. And just as I suspected, my coffee and breakfast were waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
“Good morning,” Selina said from where she stood by the kitchen sink. “Sleep well?”
I nodded, trying to act nonchalant as I sat down and began to eat my breakfast. I made sure to only pretend to sip my coffee, and waited for a moment when Selina had walked out of the room. Then, I quickly dumped my coffee down the sink and ran over to the cupboard to retrieve my phone. Selina came back in just as I was sitting back down at the kitchen counter, oblivious to everything I had just done.
My heart pounded as I finished eating my breakfast and got ready for work. Edrick walked with Ella and I to school and we said our goodbyes, and the entire time I felt as though I was going to explode,
When I got to my classroom that morning, the very first thing I did was sit down at my desk and pull my phone out of my purse. With shaking hands, I opened it up and clicked on the video that I had taken.
I scrolled through the video. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first; Selina came in and ground up the coffee beans, then filled the pot with water and put the coffee grounds into the filter. She turned on the coffee machine and walked away to start cooking on the stove with her back turned to the camera.
A little while later, however, Edrick came in. I watched with wide eyes as he took two mugs out of the cupboard and poured coffee and creamer into them; one for himself, and one for me.
Then, while Selina’s back was still turned, Edrick placed my coffee cup down at my seat.
My heart started to pound so hard that I felt as though it would pound straight out of my chest as I watched in horror. Edrick glanced nervously over his shoulder at Selina, as though checking to make sure she wasn’t looking, and then…
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of liquid. He put two drops of the mystery liquid into my coffee, quickly concealing the vial back in his pocket just moments before Selina turned around with the pan of scrambled eggs in her hand.
And then, he just walked away.
I stopped the video, my hands shaking more than ever before. I clamped my hand over my mouth, feeling vomit beginning to bubble up, and suddenly stood and bolted out the classroom door. Across the hall there was a bathroom, and I ran inside and burst into one of the stalls, ignoring strange looks from two high school girls.
The entire contents of my stomach came out into the toilet.
When I was finished vomiting, I staggered back out to the sinks. The two high school girls were gone by now. I leaned over the sink, sobbing quietly as I splashed cold water onto my face.
Now, I had all of the proof that I needed.
Edrick Morgan, the Alpha billionaire who I thought that I had been falling genuinely in love with, and whose baby I was carrying in my belly, was poisoning me.
I needed to not only get myself and my baby to safety… But I also needed to get little Ella to safety, too.
That night, I would have to return her to her mother. And then, I needed to disappear.
