Claimed And Marked By Her Stepbrother Mates - Chapter 472

Chapter 472: 472-A Kiss Of Goodbye For The Night
Helanie:

After I told them I wanted to wait for the dinner to end before we tell Norman, the brothers decided to drop me home. Emmet called Lamar and asked him not to leave the suite.

“I don’t think all of you should be missing out on the rehearsal dinner. Your mother is right about one thing—since it’s Norman’s dinner, we should handle this in a way that doesn’t bring him shame,” I said, sitting in the backseat with Kaye on one side, while Maximus and Emmet sat in the front. Emmet was driving.

He’d been taking his anger out on the poor steering wheel for a while now—hitting it and honking at invisible obstacles.

“My brother will not be happy after he finds out what is going on. He will not be focusing on the dinner or anything,” Emmet uttered, his eyes showing emptiness but his deep sighs proved he was distraught and worried how Norman would feel about marrying in the family of my rapist.

“I’m sure Norman would’ve done the same if he found out about this,” Kaye muttered, his fist pressed to his mouth, biting himself every few minutes.

“What’s going to happen next? He’s a powerful one,” I said, feeling unsatisfied with everything. The rogues had left the packs years ago. They were strong, but they had no authority over pack matters. If the packs decided to start a war—even if the brothers survived—their people, the handful of them from the mansions, wouldn’t be able to fight back. They’d be outnumbered.

I knew that much.

“Don’t worry about anything. It’ll be taken care of. We’ll find a way,” Emmet said through gritted teeth, adjusting the rearview mirror to glance at me—until Maximus reached up and tried to tilt it for his own view.

“You two do realize she’s stressed out, right? No need to fight just to catch a glimpse of her,” Kaye muttered under his breath.

My phone beeped, and I checked the text with a frown on my forehead.

Professor Dick: Where are you?

I change his name every once in a while. It was Norman texting me.

“Who is it?” Kaye leaned in and grunted.

“He didn’t text any of us—” he started, but as if on cue, his phone started ringing.

“The first message was for her. My brother is weird,” Kaye added before accepting the call and putting it on speaker.

“Where are you all? That’s not fair,” I heard Norman complain for the first time, but there was a playful tone to it.

I quickly gave Kaye a look, silently asking him not to tell Norman anything yet. We’d need to talk about this in private, not in front of a whole community of Alphas who already hated me. They didn’t even know my name properly and had a habit of accusing me of always causing trouble with the Alphas.

“We had to drop Helanie home. She wasn’t feeling well,” Kaye said casually.

As soon as he said that, I heard Norman briskly walking on the other end of the call until he reached a quieter area. His footsteps were so heavy.

“Why? What happened? Did someone say something to her? Damn it, we should’ve asked someone to keep an eye on her so nobody bothered her,” the concern in Norman’s voice shocked me.

Sure, he had been there for me many times, but I always thought that was because of his brothers—or his sense of duty to do the right thing.

“Yeah, it’s not that. We’ll let you know soon. Hey, by any chance… is Darius staying for dinner?”

I noticed Maximus nod at Kaye, like that was the right question to ask. They didn’t want to share a meal with him.

“Yeah, why? That’s a weird question,” Norman replied from the other end.

“Nothing. It’s just that ever since he got into Fellmoon, all he talks about is how great he is and blah blah,” Kaye said, clearly running out of excuses.

Norman was quiet for a few seconds before he added, “Listen, I don’t like him either. But let’s just tolerate him for Jessica’s sake. She’s been looking for all of you.”

That made me realize—even he didn’t like him.

Kaye nodded at Emmet, as if asking what they should do now. I could tell none of them were okay with sharing a meal with the rapist.

“It’s okay. We’ll use it to our advantage,” Emmet said, and Kaye agreed.

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Kaye told Norman.

“Wait—what did Emmet say?” Norman asked, but Kaye had already ended the call.

They dropped me off, and Emmet wanted to say one last thing before leaving.

“Don’t stress over anything. We won’t let anyone get away, okay?”

He cupped my face in his hands, standing behind the car while his brothers watched from a distance.

As Emmet leaned down and brushed his lips against mine, Maximus grunted, and Kaye started clicking his tongue in mock annoyance.

“Goodnight,” Emmet said, breaking the kiss and rolling his eyes at his brothers.

“Drive safe,” I said, pulling away from him and giving a nod to his brothers. They gave me small, half-hearted smiles and straightened up.

As I walked past them, I noticed how they tried—almost hesitated—to have another word with me. But that chapter of my life was over. I couldn’t get close to them again.

“That’s not fair. How come he gets a kiss and we don’t get anything?” Maximus muttered, still not ready to accept that we had broken up.

“Because we messed up,” Kaye admitted.

I was already in the elevator, staring at the buttons and expecting to see the tenth floor. It would be so weird to see it again. Because tonight, I felt broken all over again.

Once I entered the suite, I was welcomed by my friends. I ran into Lamar’s arms and cried my heart out. The others joined in while Penn kept grunting, saying we should ambush Darius and get rid of him.

I don’t think I’ve broken down like that in a long time.

But I had a feeling—things were only going to get worse from here.