Maid For The Cursed Alpha Daddies

Nora POV What was the ultimate form of betrayal? Simple. It was when the people you loved and trusted the most were the very ones destroying you. Right now, I was living it. I still had the grocery bags in my hands when I pushed open the bedroom door. The sheets were tangled. The room was warm. And my fiancé Marcus was in our bed - with my sister draped across his chest, her fingers tracing lazy circles on his skin like she had been doing it for years. Maybe she had. I stood there frozen. The bags slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, and that sound - that stupid, small sound - was what made them both look up. "Nora-" Marcus shot upright. My sister Dana did not scramble. Did not cover herself. She just looked at me with a slow, almost bored expression and reached for the sheet like I was the one interrupting something. I heard the words coming out of Marcus's mouth. I watched his lips move. But none of it was landing. My brain kept throwing it back, refusing to process what my eyes were already confirming. "It's not - just let me explain-" "How long." My voice did not sound like mine. "Nora-" "How long, Marcus?" He opened his mouth. Dana answered. "A year." I turned to look at her. A year. She had sat through my engagement dinner with that smile on her face. Helped me pick my dress. Cried at the fitting - actually cried - and told me I was going to be so happy. A year. "You need to calm down," Marcus said, standing now, reaching for his jeans. "Don't." The word came out like a blade. "Don't you dare." "You're being dramatic, you always do this-" I picked up the glass of water from the nightstand and threw it. It exploded against the wall behind his head and he stumbled back, eyes wide. "Does that look dramatic to you?" My voice was shaking now. Everything was shaking. He took a step toward me, hand raised, voice going soft the way it always did when he wanted to manage me. "Baby-" "Don't call me that." I stepped back. "Don't you ever call me that again." Dana sighed from the bed. She actually sighed, like I was the problem in this room. "Nora, you can't be mad at feelings. It just happened. These things-" "Shut up." I pointed at her. "Shut your mouth right now." She raised her eyebrows and looked at Marcus. Something passed between them - quick, easy, familiar - and that small exchange hit me harder than any of it. That was when I heard footsteps on the stairs. My mother appeared in the doorway. Arms folded. Face already set in that expression she wore when a decision had been made and she was just waiting for everyone else to catch up. "Mom." My voice cracked. First time. "Did you know?" She did not answer immediately. And that silence was its own confession. "How long have you known?" "Nora, let's not do this here-" "How long?" Her chin lifted. "A few months." The floor dropped out from under me. My own mother. A few months. She had sat across from me at Sunday dinners and watched me build a future with a man she knew was tearing it apart behind my back - and she said nothing. Did nothing. "We thought it would pass," she said, her voice steady and almost reasonable, like she was the sane one here. "Marcus is a good match for this family. His father's connections alone-" "Are you listening to yourself right now?" "-and you are not getting any younger, Nora. A good man is hard to find-" "A good man?" I laughed. It did not sound like laughter. It sounded like something snapping. "You call him a good man while he's in bed with your other daughter?" Her expression did not change. And that was when I understood. This was not a mistake. This was not shock or denial or a mother who did not know what to say. She had weighed it. Calculated it. And decided that keeping Marcus in the family was worth more than telling me the truth. "There is something else," my mother said, her voice dropping. I stared at her. "Your father and I have been speaking with the Varkas family. Given the circumstances, we thought it was best to-" "The Varkas family?" The name hit me cold. Everyone in this city knew that name. "What do you mean you've been speaking with them?" She held my gaze without flinching. "We owe them a debt, Nora. A debt we cannot pay." "So?" "So we made an arrangement." The room went completely silent. Even Marcus stopped moving. "What kind of arrangement?" My voice was barely above a whisper. My mother straightened. "You will go to the Varkas estate in the morning. You will serve them until the debt is cleared." I stared at her. Serve them. Serve the three most feared Alpha brothers in the entire North. "You sold me." The words came out hollow. "You actually sold me." "It is not-" "You. Sold. Me." Each word landed like a stone. My mother's jaw tightened. "You are being dramatic-" "No." I cut her off. Stepped back. Looked at her, at Marcus, at my sister still sitting in my bed like she had already moved in. "No. I'm done." I turned and walked out. Down the stairs. Out the front door. The cold air hit me like a wall but I kept walking. I made it to the end of the driveway before my legs gave out and I grabbed the gate post just to stay upright. I did not cry. I wanted to. Everything inside me was screaming to just fall apart right there on the pavement. Four years with Marcus. A lifetime with my family. Gone. Traded. Sold for a debt I did not even know existed. But I did not cry. I pressed my forehead against the cold iron of the gate and I breathed. Then my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number. One line. A car will be at your door at six in the morning. Do not be late. - Varkas. I raised my head slowly and stared at the screen. They were already texting me. Which meant this had already been decided. Before tonight. Before I ever walked through that bedroom door. My family had not just betrayed me tonight. They had been planning this. The question was - for how long? And more importantly - what did the Varkas brothers want with me?