My hands moved before my mind could stop them, tapping on the screen. The video loaded. And then I saw him. Alpha Cain.
He stood in the center of a lavish hall, far grander than the one I sat in now. Music pulsed loudly in the background, laughter echoing around him. His arm was wrapped around a woman, his fingers resting possessively on her waist.
She was beautiful. Young. Smiling up at him like he was her entire world.
And he… he was smiling back. Not the polite smile he wore for formal events. Not the distant, cold expression he had given me for months. No. This smile was warm. Intimate. The kind of smile he used to reserve only for me.
My vision blurred.
“No…” The word slipped from my lips, barely audible.
But the video continued mercilessly.
He leaned down, his lips brushing against the woman’s ear as she laughed, pressing herself closer to him. Their bodies moved together to the rhythm of the music, slow and deliberate, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
As if I didn’t exist.
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white. This wasn’t a rumor. This wasn’t gossip whispered behind my back. This was real.