Marked By The Alpha I Was Sold To

Chapter Four

Mei Lin POV

Kai Wen did not wait for me to answer him. He crossed the room in three long strides and dropped into the chair beside my father as though he already owned this house, this table, everything inside it, every breath the rest of us were still taking.

I had not moved from where I stood by the doorway. My legs felt locked to the floor beneath me, refusing to carry me anywhere at all.

"Sit," my father said, not even looking in my direction.

I sat, my hands folded tightly in my lap to keep them from shaking.

"The contract," Kai Wen said, ignoring the tea, ignoring the pleasantries entirely. "My brother arranged this with you two years ago. Before he died."

"Yes," my father said smoothly, his voice as calm as still water. "Circumstances delayed the wedding at the time, but my daughter has now returned to honor the agreement fully."

"You never told me you had canceled it the first time around."

"There was a complication," my father said. "It has since been resolved."

Kai Wen studied him for a long, silent moment, his grey eyes narrowed slightly, as though he were hunting for a lie buried somewhere beneath the words. Then, slowly, his gaze slid over to me, and I felt it like a physical weight settling across my shoulders.

"My brother did not die in a border skirmish," he said. "That is the story your family told everyone who asked. That is not what actually happened to him."

The room went completely still, the kind of stillness that presses down on your chest. Even Hui Ling, beside me, seemed to stop breathing entirely.

"Kai Wen," my father said carefully, "I am not certain what you believe you are implying here."

"I am not implying anything at all." Kai Wen's voice stayed flat, controlled, which somehow made it far worse than if he had shouted. "I am telling you that I have spent the last two years finding out exactly who killed my brother. And every single road I have followed keeps leading straight back to Bukit Timah."

My father's jaw tightened, just barely, a small c***k in the calm mask he wore so easily. "That is a serious accusation to bring into my own house."

"I am not here to accuse anyone today." Kai Wen leaned back in his chair, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world. "I am here to collect what my brother was rightfully owed. The rest, I intend to uncover on my own schedule, in my own time."

I could not stay silent any longer. "Don't I get any say in this at all?"

Every head at the table turned sharply toward me.

"You will sit quietly," my father said, his voice dropping low and dangerous in a way I remembered from childhood, a warning I had learned young never to ignore.

"Why should I?" I pushed back, my voice shaking but refusing to stop. "So you can finish selling me off to a man who believes my own family murdered his brother in cold blood?"

"You lost the right to object the moment you made a bet and lost it." My father rose slowly to his feet. "You agreed, two years ago, to honor this arrangement if your mate bond ever failed. It has failed. Now you will keep your word to this family."

The words landed like an open palm across my face. I looked at my mother, desperate for something, anything, but she would not meet my eyes at all, staring instead at the tablecloth in front of her. I looked at Hui Ling next. Her face had gone completely pale, her fingers gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles had turned white.

Kai Wen watched the entire exchange without saying a single word, his grey eyes moving slowly between my father and me, as though he were memorizing every reaction, filing each one away for later use.

"Three days," he finally said, breaking the silence. "She leaves with me in three days' time."

"Of course," my father said, visibly pleased. "We will have her ready to travel."

"I am sitting right here." My voice cracked on the last word. "You are negotiating me like I am not even in this room with you."

"Mei Lin." My father's voice dropped even lower, quiet and cold as stone. "You can accept this arrangement like an adult, or you can continue to embarrass yourself further in front of our guest. Choose carefully, and choose now."

I said nothing else after that. I sat there in silence while the two of them finished their negotiations, while documents were produced and signed, while my entire future was decided in less than twenty minutes without my name appearing on a single page of it.

When Kai Wen finally rose to leave with his guards trailing behind him, my father turned back to face me one last time.

"Pack your things tonight," he said simply. "You will not be coming back to this house again."

Later that night, long after the house had gone dark and silent, Hui Ling crept into my room and closed the door softly behind her.

"I need to tell you something," she whispered, her voice trembling. "About why Father really has guards posted outside your window now. It is not only about the wedding, Mei Lin."

My whole body went cold and still.

"Hui Ling. What do you know that I don't?"

She opened her mouth to answer me and every single light in the house went out at once, plunging the room into complete darkness around us. Somewhere downstairs, I heard my father's voice rise sharply, followed by heavy footsteps moving fast across the floor below. Hui Ling grabbed my wrist in the dark, her grip trembling so hard I could feel it traveling up my own arm, and neither of us dared to say a single word.