Chapter 383: Grandma Had Played a Final Trick on Dominic

I felt completely powerless standing there watching them. The rift between Whitney and Vito ran too deep for any words to reach not tonight, maybe not for a long time. I had already suspected what Vito was really doing, but that didn’t make it easier to witness.I moved toward Whitney and gently helped her to her feet. "Don’t cry. You need to take care of yourself. What if you make yourself sick?" She didn’t respond at first, but the moment her eyes found mine, something in her cracked open. She threw herself into my arms, sobbing like she’d been holding it in for years like a child who had finally found the one safe place left in the world.

I held her and rubbed slow circles on her back. "It’s okay. You still have me. I’m not going anywhere."

Her voice broke between sobs. "But my dad... and the others..."

"They’re gone," I said softly. "And we can’t change that. All we can do is keep living. You’re the only family I have left from the Morrigans. If something happened to you, Whitney, I don’t know what I’d do." I knew I was pressing on something tender, using it to give her a reason to hold on. But I needed her to find something anything worth staying for. Even if it was just me, it was enough.

She sniffled quietly, and I wiped her face with the back of my hand before glancing over at Vito. "Is there any food?"

"Yes," he said. "Come with me."

I kept my arm around Whitney as we made our way to the dining room. She hadn’t eaten in nearly a full day, and I could feel how fragile she’d become. All I wanted was to get a little strength back into her body.

The moment we stepped inside, a large figure pulled me into a hug so sudden I nearly stumbled. Yael, with his red-rimmed eyes and that low, worried rumble in his voice, muttered into my hair, "You really scared me."

Now that I knew the full truth about the Blackwells the real history beneath all the pain I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I reached up and patted the top of his head like I would a younger brother. "See? Still here. No need to panic."

He really did remind me of an oversized bear in that moment, all bulk and poorly hidden emotion. I thought about the childhood photos I’d seen of him round-cheeked and grinning, completely unaware of the life waiting for him. If things had gone differently, if the people around him had been kinder, he might have grown up gentle instead of guarded.

"I’m starving," I said, nudging his solid frame aside.

His face split into a wide grin. "Already made food. You need to eat a lot." He immediately started pulling out bowls and utensils, moving with a surprising kind of eagerness.

Whitney, however, had gone still beside me, her expression tight. "Elena," she said quietly. "The Blackwells hurt the Morrigans so badly. How can you just smile at him like that? He’s one of them."

If I had still been the person I was before all of this, I probably would have agreed with her. But something in me had shifted. I saw things differently now. Both sides had done damage just in different ways, for different reasons, wearing different masks. I didn’t want to waste what energy I had left on hating a man who was just as much a product of this tragedy as we were. The real threat was somewhere else entirely, living comfortably in a shadow neither of us had the reach to touch yet.

Before she died, Grandma had told me to let go of revenge. Don’t retaliate. I’d taken that as a warning to leave the Blackwells alone and the Blackwells had already made it clear they wouldn’t touch Whitney or me. But that meant Grandma’s warning was pointed somewhere else. At the Commander and his wife.

So why had she brought them up in front of Dominic at all?

She had known she was dying. She could have taken every secret with her to the grave. Unless that was never the plan.

The more I turned it over, the clearer it became. Grandma had played one final card before she left. She couldn’t accept what had happened to the Morrigans, couldn’t accept watching future generations carry the weight of a collapse they hadn’t caused. So she’d handed Dominic a thread to pull pointed him toward the Commander, let the Blackwells take on the danger of chasing that truth. She’d wanted us protected. She’d used them as a shield without them ever knowing it.

Maybe she had understood exactly how powerful and dangerous the Commander really was. Maybe that was precisely why she hadn’t wanted me anywhere near it.

I couldn’t explain any of this to Whitney. Her grief was already filling every corner of her. What she needed right now was food, rest, and the smallest reason to keep breathing.

If I wasn’t wrong about Vito, he would start loosening his grip on her soon. Quietly, gradually, he’d give her back her independence piece by piece. That was why he’d kept the Morrigans’ real history hidden. Why he’d pushed her toward hating him. He wanted her to live, even if it was a life built on that hatred. It was the closest thing we had to a silent understanding between us.

I didn’t explain any of it. Instead, I turned back to Whitney. "You haven’t eaten all day. You need food before anything else."

Her face closed off. "I don’t want to eat."

Before I could find the right words, Vito’s voice cut across the room, low and flat. "If you won’t eat on your own, I’ll feed you myself."

He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. Whitney stiffened something flickered across her face and then, quietly, she lowered her head and picked up her utensils. Whatever memory had moved through her, it had been enough. That particular brand of harsh care was ugly, but it worked.

I ate a little, keeping some aside for Carter. Yael noticed and glanced down at the portion with a grim expression. "Don’t worry. My mom won’t let him go hungry."

The sadness in his face made me sigh. "Where is Aunt Amber, anyway?"

What I really wanted was to find Dominic and talk.

Yael didn’t even hesitate. "Probably under a tree somewhere. Find a big one and you’ll see her."

"Why a tree?"

"Easier to cry, throw a fit, or hang yourself from branches that won’t snap under the weight of all that drama."

I stared at him.

What exactly was happening between Amber and Dominic?

With Vito in the room keeping a quiet eye on Whitney, I felt comfortable slipping away. I went looking, and exactly as Yael had said I found them in the orchard, far enough from the main building to have some privacy, the ground clear and clean underfoot.

Amber was standing on Dominic’s back like it was a step stool, waving a bedsheet overhead and announcing loudly that death was a preferable alternative to her current life. Dominic was on his knees in the grass, jaw tight, letting her use him as furniture without a word of protest. I had absolutely no idea how long they’d been like that.

She was acting like the most spectacularly spoiled woman alive and the terrifying thing was, she had earned the right. Years of being adored and indulged by a man of Dominic’s caliber had made her fearless in the most chaotic possible way. And thinking back to what I knew of their history, the passion that had clearly existed between them, the way she must have trusted him completely I understood why the betrayal had broken something in her. She had loved him. Fiercely. And he had played with that.

Their dynamic was broken in every visible way and yet somehow still holding.

Dominic, still on his knees, was speaking in the carefully measured tone of a man who knew exactly how much ground he’d lost. "Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I will never lie to you again. If you’re still angry, I’ll let you tear me apart and feed the pieces to the snakes. Just please don’t hurt yourself. It would destroy me."

I had heard enough. I cleared my throat loudly. "Hey. You two."

Dominic shot upright immediately, the commanding composure snapping back into place so fast it would have been impressive if it weren’t so obvious. But Amber, suddenly without her footrest, tangled herself in the bedsheet mid-motion and swung sideways off the branch she’d grabbed.

"Aunt Amber!"

"DOMINIC!" Her voice rang through the trees like a bell. "You absolute bastard we are done! I want a divorce!"

Dominic, somehow managing to look both guilty and insufferably calm at once, said, "Honey, do you remember? The registry lists me as a widower."

"WHY ARE YOU STILL BREATHING?! Give me back my bodyguard the real one and stay away from me!"

"If you hate my face that much, I’ll cover it," he said, completely unblinking. "You can look at my chest instead. I’ve been keeping it in excellent condition. All for you."

I stood there with my mouth open.

I genuinely felt like I had walked into something I had no business witnessing.