Delilah's POV
"Let's get something straight right now," Dante said as he leaned forward with his storm gray eyes boring into mine with pure hatred. "We don't want you here. We don't want your mother here either. This is our home and our mother's home. You're both intruders who don't belong."
"But there's a problem," Mateo added in a conversational tone like he was discussing the weather. "Our father is too obsessed with your mother to see reason right now. We can't get rid of her directly because he's completely blind when it comes to her."
My heart pounded harder and I didn't like where this was going at all.
"That's where you come in." Dante's smile was cruel and cold as he studied me like a predator sizing up prey. "You're the weak link in this whole situation. The pathetic little reject who got thrown away by her own fated mate. You're already broken and it won't take much to break you completely."
"We're going to make your life here so miserable that eventually your mother will have to choose," Mateo said with his amber eyes gleaming with malice. "You or our father. And any good mother would choose her daughter over a new mate she's only known for six months."
"She'll leave," Dante continued. "She'll take you and run just like you both ran from Riverbend. And our father will finally see what a massive mistake this whole thing was."
"What did I ever do to you?" My voice came out small and broken.
"You exist." Dante stood abruptly and looked down at me with disgust. "You and your mother came into our lives and tried to erase our real mother's memory like she never mattered. That's more than enough."
"Every single day we're going to remind you that you don't belong here," Mateo said as he stood beside his brother with both of them towering over me. "That you're worthless. That even your own fated mate didn't want you enough to keep you. We'll make sure everyone in this pack knows exactly what you are."
Dante leaned down and placed both hands on the table in front of me, bringing his face close to mine. "We'll tell them how your mate rejected you publicly. How he chose your bully over you. How you came crawling here with nowhere else to go because even your own pack threw you out like garbage."
My stomach dropped and my skin went cold. How did they know about Sarah? How did they know she was the one who beat me?
I knew it could be possible they'd heard about the rejection but these were details that shouldn't have spread. Personal, intimate details about the worst moment of my life.
Wait! Did they have spies monitoring our every movement?
"How do you know all that?" My voice shook.
"We know everything," Mateo said with a cruel smile. "We know he was fucking her the whole time. We know she beat you bloody in that bathroom just hours before the ceremony. We know exactly what he said to you in front of everyone."
They knew every detail. Every humiliating, painful detail that I wanted to bury and forget. Someone had talked or the gossip had spread faster and further than I thought possible.
"We'll make sure they know you're damaged goods," Mateo continued. "A reject who couldn't even keep her fated mate interested. The whole pack will look at you the way Riverbend did, with pity and disgust."
"Every training session, every pack gathering, every single interaction will be a reminder that you're not wanted," Dante said with his voice low and threatening. "We'll make your mother watch as you suffer. We'll make her see that staying here means watching her daughter be destroyed piece by piece."
"And when she finally can't take it anymore and chooses to leave with you, our father will see her for what she really is," Mateo said. "A woman who was never committed to him in the first place."
"Either way, we win," Dante straightened and looked down at me with cold satisfaction. "You either break and convince your mother to leave, or you stay and suffer while we make your life a living hell. The choice is yours, step-sister."
"And when you finally break and your mother takes you away from here, we'll have our home back," Dante said with his voice ice cold. "The way it should be. The way it was before you came and ruined everything."
Both brothers walked out and left me alone in the dining room with their threats hanging in the air like poison.
I sat there trembling with my hands clenched in my lap. They knew everything about my rejection, every humiliating detail including Sarah and the beating. And they were going to use it all as weapons to destroy me in front of this entire pack.
I pushed back from the table and made my way upstairs to my room on shaking legs. I changed into an oversized shirt for sleeping and crawled into bed, pulling my grandmother's quilt around me while their words echoed in my head.
A soft knock on my door made me sit up.
"Delilah?" Mom's voice came through. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah."
Mom entered with a soft smile on her face and sat down on the edge of my bed. Her copper-red hair was loose around her shoulders now and she looked more relaxed than I'd seen her in years. "The gardens are beautiful, sweetheart. Ryker showed me the moon flowers and I think we're going to be so happy here."
I looked at her hopeful face and felt my chest tighten with panic. I couldn't let Dante and Mateo do this to us. I couldn't let them use me to hurt her.
"Mom, we need to leave." The words rushed out before I could stop them. "The guys aren't what you think they are. After you and Ryker left dinner, they cornered me and told me that they're going to-"
A knock on the door interrupted me and before either of us could respond, the door opened.
Mateo stepped inside carrying a glass of milk and his amber eyes locked onto mine immediately. The look he gave me made my blood turn to ice. It was a death stare that promised consequences and pain if I said another word.
