Chapter 49

Leaving the club he would never return to, Alex headed home. He braced himself for a severe beating from his father, waiting in silence as evening fell.

But his father didn’t return, even when the clock struck midnight. It wasn’t entirely unusual for the man to stay out all night, but he had never been gone this long before. Waiting for his father until the early hours of dawn, Alex eventually fell asleep on the sofa.

His father didn’t return the next day. Nor the day after that, nor the day after that.

And just before the new semester began in September, Alex finally realized that his father had abandoned him too. A text message from his father, who had ignored his calls for weeks, containing an apology and £300 told him everything he needed to know.

When Alex belatedly visited his father’s office, the doors were locked tight. Staring at the ‘Out of Business’ notice plastered to the glass, Alex asked the other tenants in the building how long it had been like this. They replied that it had been shut down for months, and without him even having to press for details, they freely gossiped about the rumors they had heard. With no hope of recovery, his father had sold the building and the machinery for a fraction of their worth. They also mentioned that he was drowning in massive debt.

Two days later, people identifying themselves as bank representatives showed up at his door. A woman in a sharp suit asked Alex where his parents were.

Alex couldn’t answer immediately. Only after a long, agonizing hesitation did he finally give them his mother’s number. Even as he recited the digits to these unfamiliar adults, a terrifying thought crept into his mind.

What if she’s already changed her number?

He felt as if he had been abandoned to face a towering, catastrophic tidal wave entirely alone.

Everything that happened after that day remained a blur. Whether it was because his brain was desperately suppressing the agonizing trauma to survive, or simply because time was dragging on at an excruciatingly slow pace, he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that too many things had changed all at once.

The old house Alex had lived in was seized by someone else, forcing him to reluctantly move in with his mother. In a house occupied by his mother’s new husband and child, he became a glaringly unwanted guest. The suffocating, uncomfortable tension clinging to the air conveyed that reality louder than words ever could.

His mother never smiled at him. From the very first day, she made it abundantly clear that she expected him to move out the second he became a legal adult. Ironically, whenever she said things like that, Alex found himself missing the father who had abandoned him. After all, his father had been the only person in the world who had actually wanted to keep him around.

The first day of his final year of high school was chaotic from the start. Rumors spread like wildfire, and whispers of Nathan transferring schools echoed through Alex’s classroom.

Whenever Nathan’s name drifted through the air, Alex held his breath, fixing his gaze rigidly on his desk. Just a month ago, he had been the first to know everything about Nathan. Now he was finding out through the careless gossip of strangers.

Rumors claimed it was an act of excessive self-defense, detailing how the Alpha, a full head taller than Nathan, had gotten his teeth smashed in and required six weeks of recovery. When the whispers added that Nathan’s lawyer brother had smoothly settled the incident without any legal repercussions, the gossip morphed into sheer jealousy over Nathan’s privileged life.

At that, Alex snapped his head around, glaring viciously at the boy who had spouted the envious remark. Perhaps sensing the aggressive, turbulent pheromones rolling off him, the Omega boy flinched, met his eyes, and immediately shut his mouth. A moment later, Alex heard them whispering about him instead, gossiping about him quitting football. That rumor had already made its rounds too.

Nathan finally appeared at school after the lunch break. A sudden commotion echoed from the hallway. Whether he had come to meet with a teacher or simply clear out his locker, Nathan didn’t stay for even thirty minutes before leaving the grounds for good.

The moment he heard Nathan’s name from the corridor, Alex instinctively turned his head. Through the back door of the classroom, he caught sight of Nathan walking past.

But Nathan didn’t look toward Alex’s side of the room.

Even as Nathan walked down the stairs, crossed the schoolyard with Tina and Jude, and exchanged his final goodbyes at the school gates, he never once glanced back. It wasn’t the warm, affectionate back that used to turn around to comfort him. It was a rigid, uncompromising posture of someone who hadn’t the slightest intention of ever looking back at a person named Alex Yeon.

That was the last time Alex ever saw him.

The plastic case holding the suppressants Nathan had given him yellowed with age. He spent two years acting as a hollow puppet by Ian’s side just to ensure the photo’s deletion. He finally saw the blackmail erased. The wristband he wore every single day stretched out until it was too loose to wear.

But even after all that time had passed, Alex never saw Nathan again.

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