Chosen by the Beast Alpha

Chapter 139: Chapter 139

Lena’s POV

When she got home, Lena took a shower. The second she stepped out, she saw Dominic on the phone. His whole face was tight, like a string pulled too hard.

She walked over quietly and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. He didn’t pull away. She rested her cheek against his back, listening, and then she heard the voice on the other end.

Eliza.

Lena seriously couldn’t get how Eliza could keep doing this. Dominic had turned her down more times than anyone could count, and she still kept calling. Again and again. No shame, no self-respect, nothing.

And Dominic—for some reason—just couldn’t fully cut her off.

He ended the call. Lena looked up at him and asked softly, “Are you leaving?”

She asked because she had heard Eliza crying on the other end.

Daniel’s POV

Daniel stood in the pack law enforcement office with Eliza beside him. Even under a full layer of makeup, the swelling on her face was obvious. Tears kept sliding down her cheeks, one after another.

Luke came out of the back room. He shot Daniel a glance, then lowered his eyes to Eliza with open disgust. “You really think you matter to Dominic? You mean absolutely nothing to him.”

Daniel’s face didn’t change.

Luke strode toward Eliza. She flinched hard and stumbled back a step.

Daniel moved between them. “Luke, maybe life outside this territory suits you better.”

“Get lost!” Luke roared, but he wouldn’t meet Daniel’s eyes. He looked past him at Eliza, his voice dripping with contempt. “Dominic got played by this she-wolf, and he’s too blind to even see it.”

Then he turned to Daniel. “Pass a message to him for me. If he treats Lena right, I stay out of it. If he doesn’t, I’ll come back and settle the score myself.”

He spat on the floor and walked out. Daniel waited until the sound of his footsteps faded, then finally turned to Eliza.

“What happened?” His tone was flat and professional.

Eliza wiped at her tears, breathing unevenly. “Luke showed up at my apartment and told me to stay away from Lena. But when did I ever go near her?”

She swallowed hard, like even saying it hurt. “He was the one who came to me first. He was the one chasing me. I thought he actually cared about me, but he was just using me to get back at Dominic and Lena. He thought Dominic was still in love with me, so being with me was his way of getting revenge for losing Lena.”

Her voice snagged on a sob. "When he realized Dominic didn’t care about me the way he thought he did, he snapped. He blamed me, he threatened me, and then he tried to..."

She couldn’t finish. Her body shook as she dragged in a trembling breath.

"I never wanted to come between Dominic and Lena. I’ve been through a relationship falling apart before. I know how bad that kind of pain is. I would never do that to someone else."

Daniel listened in silence, face unreadable, giving nothing away. Whether she was telling the truth or not, only she knew that.

"Come on. I’ll take you home."

She looked up at him. "Daniel, do you believe me?"

"Whether I do or not doesn’t matter."

"I love Dominic. But I know it’s over between us." At that point, it sounded less like she was talking to him and more like she was saying it to herself. "I just want to hold on to whatever little friendship we have left."

He stayed where he was, waiting until she steadied herself.

At last, she straightened up, wiped her face, and lifted her chin. "Let’s go."

Lena’s POV

Lena had no idea what had happened to Eliza. She didn’t ask, and Dominic didn’t tell her.

She figured the whole thing would blow over soon enough.

Then Luke showed up again.

She and Anna had just finished lunch and stepped outside when they saw him standing on the sidewalk, looking absolutely wrecked. His eyes were red, and his clothes were crumpled like he’d been wearing them for days.

Anna instantly pulled Lena behind her, ready to put herself between them.

"Lena." His voice was rough, almost scraped raw. "If Dominic has a problem, he can come to me himself. Don’t drag my family into this."

Lena had zero clue what he was talking about.

Anna shot him a furious look. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Luke didn’t even glance at her. His eyes stayed locked on Lena.

“I don’t know what went down between you and Dominic on the business side of things.” Lena kept her distance, her tone flat. “But if he’s the one who did it, then go talk to him. Don’t stand here yelling at me.”

He looked awful, seriously awful—drained, wrecked, carrying a kind of frustration she had never seen on him before.

“That night, I went to Eliza, and I ended up getting hauled to the enforcement office. Dominic sent people to deal with it. He had Eliza taken away.” Luke’s jaw tightened. “Eliza is poison. A beautiful snake. She’s sly, calculating, and there’s no way she’ll ever accept you being with Dominic. I’m telling you this because I saw it with my own eyes.”

Lena frowned.

“You mattered to me once. I screwed everything up. This is on me.” His voice dropped, rough around the edges. “Everything I did to you came from jealousy and resentment. I couldn’t stand that you left. But I’ve let it go now. I want you to be happy. I’m not going to let Eliza make your life even harder.”

Hearing words like that come out of Luke’s mouth caught her completely off guard. About half of what he said, she could believe. The other half? It just felt like he wanted something.

She almost laughed. “Whether I’m happy or not has nothing to do with you. Luke, whatever Dominic’s done to your family, I can’t help you.”

He stared at her, clearly stunned that none of what he said had landed at all.

Lena linked arms with Anna and walked away. He didn’t follow.

Once they got into the car, Anna turned to look at her. “He sounded pretty sincere. I was this close to feeling bad for him. How are you not reacting at all?”

“Ever since he got involved with Eliza, the way he felt about me completely changed. They used each other, things blew up, and now he regrets it. That’s all this is.”

Anna nodded slowly. “Yeah. That tracks.”

“Dominic didn’t go after a whole family just because of some she-wolf. This is business.” Lena’s voice stayed calm, but there was a hard edge under it. “A real alpha doesn’t make a move that big over feelings alone. If Eliza affected anything at all, it was just that her situation gave him an excuse to do something he’d probably already planned.”

Anna thought it over. “Okay... yeah, that makes sense.”

Lena leaned back into the seat, tired all the way down to her bones. “Still, Eliza is the real problem here. She’s exhausting. Like, next-level exhausting.”

“Dominic is exhausting too.”

Lena turned and looked at Anna.

“He knows how you feel about Eliza, and he still can’t fully cut her off. Isn’t that exhausting too?”

Lena looked out through the windshield, her chest feeling weirdly tight. “...Yeah.”

Over the next few days, Dominic barely came home. He always got back after she’d fallen asleep, and he was gone again before she woke up. If he hadn’t kissed her awake in the middle of the night—leaving her breathless and dazed—she honestly would’ve thought he never came back at all.

I didn’t ask Dominic what had been keeping him so busy. Anna had already sent me a bunch of news links, and after I went through them, the whole picture was basically right there.

The Slade family business was falling apart, piece by piece. Bloodmoon Pack was taking over their assets through completely official channels. Clean. Efficient. Ruthless as hell.

So yeah. That was what Dominic had been dealing with all this time.

I’d never really asked about his work before. His world was his world. Even if I asked, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t magically pull me into that part of his life.

I’d already been off work for over a month. The weather was getting colder, and I found myself scrolling through job listings again.

Anna kept telling me to take it easy. "Once you go back to work, you won’t get a real break again. So just enjoy it while you can."

She wasn’t wrong. But doing nothing all day was starting to mess with my head. The more idle I was, the more anxious I got. It was like my nerves were being slowly wound tighter and tighter.

Then my phone rang.

Celeste.

The second I saw her name on the screen, my stomach dropped hard.

Dominic had actually gotten home early for once. I lifted the phone and looked at him, silently hoping he’d get what I meant. I really, really did not want to answer that call.

He walked over without a word, took the phone from my hand, glanced at the caller ID, and answered it himself. Then he switched on speaker.

"Lena, sweetheart, has there been any progress on what we talked about last time?" Celeste’s voice came through warm and gentle, smooth enough to make the tension in the room feel even sharper.

Dominic looked at me, his eyes fixed on my face.

"What did she talk to you about last time?"

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