34 Chapter 34
34 Chapter 34
Seraphina’s POV 1
The drive back to Silver Moon Harbor felt like racing through a nightmare where the road kept stretching longer with each mile, no
matter how hard I pressed the elerator. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles had gone white, and I could taste copper in my mouth from where I’d bitten my lip hard enough to draw blood.
My phone had gonepletely ck after that final call with Ophelia, the screen cracked and unresponsive no matter how frantically I
pressed the power button. Now it was nothing but a useless piece of stic and metal, cutting me off from any updates about Adrian’s
situation.
“Please,” I whispered to any god who might be listening, pressing the dead phone against my chest like a talisman. “Please let him be safe.
I’ll do anything. Just let my baby be okay.”
The moment I reached the school parking lot, I was out of the car and running toward the building on legs that felt like jelly. My high
heels clicked frantically against the asphalt as I raced toward the main entrance, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs I thought
it might burst.
The front doors were locked-of course they were locked, school had ended hours ago. I pounded on the ss with both fists, not caring
that I probably looked like a madwoman, until a janitor finally appeared from somewhere in the depths of the building.
“Ma’am, school’s been closed for-”
“My son!” I gasped, pressing my face against the ss. “Someone took my son! I need to speak with his teacher, with anyone who was
here, please!”
The janitor’s expression softened as he took in my obvious distress. He unlocked the door and stepped aside to let me in. “What’s your boy’s name? I can try calling Mrs. Henderson at home.”
“Adrian Knight,” I said, my voice breaking on his name. “He’s in Mrs. Henderson’s ss. Someone picked him up who wasn’t supposed to.”
Mrs. Henderson arrived within twenty minutes. She found me sitting in the hallway outside her ssroom, my head in my hands as I
tried to keep breathing through the panic attacks that kept washing over me in waves.
“Seraphina? Oh dear, what’s happened?”
I looked up at her through eyes that felt swollen from crying. “Someone took Adrian. You let someone take my son.”
Her face went pale. “The woman said she was his aunt. She had identification-herst name was Knight, same as yours. She said you’d
had an emergency at work and had asked her to pick him up.”
“What did she look like?” I managed to ask, though I already suspected I knew the answer.
“Blonde hair, maybete twenties? Well-dressed, very polite. She seemed to know details about you and Adrian…” Mrs. Henderson trailed off, guilt flooding her features as understanding dawned. “Oh God. Oh, Seraphina, I’m so sorry. I thought she was legitimate.”
Valerie. Of course it was Valerie.
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“Mrs. Henderson,” I said urgently, turning to the teacher who was still standing nearby with guilt written across her kind face. “I need to borrow your phone. Mine was damaged, and I need to call someone who might know where Adrian is.”
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely manage to remove my SIM card from the broken device and insert it into Mrs.
Henderson’s phone.
The moment the phone connected to thework, I dialed Valerie’s number from memory. My blood turned to ice as the phone began to
ring, each tone echoing in the empty hallway like a countdown to disaster.
She answered on the second ring.
“Where is my son?” I didn’t bother with greetings or pleasantries. “Valerie, I swear to God, if you’ve hurt him-”
“Oh, hello there, sister dear!” Valerie’s voice bubbled through the speaker with sickening cheerfulness, like she was calling to chat about
the weather instead ofmitting kidnapping. “My, my, you sound upset. Is something wrong?”
“Where. Is. My. Son.” Each word came out sharp as broken ss.
“Adrian? Oh, he’s fine. Probably.” Herugh was light and musical. “I really couldn’t say for certain, though.”
I had to grip the edge of a nearby desk to keep from copsing as the implications of her words hit me like physical blows. “You left him
somewhere? Valerie, he’s four years old! Where did you take him?”
“Now, now, no need to get hysterical,” Valerie said. “I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually. Children usually do, don’t they? Well, most of them
anyway.”
“I’ll kill you,” I whispered, my voice carrying every ounce of maternal fury I possessed. “I will tear your throat out with my bare hands and
watch you bleed to death if anything happens to him.”
“Such violence! Really, Sera, motherhood hasn’t improved your temper at all.” Valerie’s voice was positively dripping with false concern.
“But don’t worry-I might be willing to tell you where I left the little darling. For a price, of course.”
“What do you want?” The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
“Marriage, of course. Harold is quite generous-he’s even willing to raise that little bastard as his own.”
“I already told you no,” I said, my voice growing stronger with each word. “I’m not marrying anyone, especially not that disgusting pig.”
“Oh, but you are, Valerie said. “Because if you don’t show up at the Knight house within two hours, ready to apologize and ept
Harold’s generous proposal, well… let’s just say little Adrian might have a very lonely night in the big, scary forest.”
The phone went dead, leaving me staring at the screen inplete silence. For a moment, I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do
anything except sit there as the full horror of the situation crashed over me. 1
Adrian was alone in the wilderness somewhere, probably terrified and calling for me. And the only way to get him back was to sacrifice
myself to Harold’s disgusting hands.
I was fumbling for my car keys when I heard the sharp click of heels against marble floors. I looked up to see a familiar figure approaching through the school’s main entrance, and my blood turned to absolute ice. 1
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34 Chapter 34
Valerie stepped through the doorway like she owned the ce, her blonde hair perfectly styled and her designer outfit immacte
despite thete hour.
“Hello there, sister,” she purred, stopping just close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume mixed with something else. “You
look absolutely terrible. Really, Sera, you should take better care of yourself.”
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