Aiden's POV:
I froze. My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat, like a bird trapped in a cage. The weight of my words hung in the air, suffocating and irreversible. Every syllable, every accusation, every ounce of venom I had hurled had found its target, and that target was still standing.
Stephanie had heard everything. Every. Single. Word.
The room felt like it was shrinking around me, the air thick and oppressive, as though it had been tainted by my mistake. My wolf, Zeke, stirred uneasily in the back of my mind, growling low—a warning, a reprimand. But I couldn’t focus on him. Not with her standing there.
She stepped down the staircase slowly, her hand gripping the glass in her hand with a steadiness that unnerved me. The soft creak of the wooden stairs was the
