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Mira’s eyes narrowed at me, and I could feel the anger rolling out of her. “Have you been digging into my life?”

I shrugged.

“Stay away from him, Mira. You don’t have to reduce yourself to his level to get my attention. You already got it from the deals you’ve stolen.

She scoffed, leveling me with a look of disbelief.

“This might come as a shock to you and your overly inflated ego, but the world does not revolve around you. There’s nothing I would love more than to be as far away from you as possible, and the men I choose to date are no business of yours.”

“That’s a bit too difficult to believe when the man in question happens to be my stepbrother,” I shot back, and her face morphed into a mix of shock and horror.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mira

“That’s a bit too difficult to believe when the man in question happens to be my stepbrother.”

Griffin’s words echoed in my head, threatening to tear apart everything I’ve believed.

Victor was his stepbrother? I didn’t even know he had a stepbrother not to mention Victor being the one. Also, how did I miss Victor being of royal blood, not just by relation, but as a possible heir to the throne?

I could feel my chest tighten and a solid lump forming in my throat. It took every bit of control I had gathered over the years to not let out a scream.

Five years. Five whole years spent away from Griffin, five years of building a life where neither he nor anyone could walk in and treat me like dirt, five years of carefully hiding away only to find out I was never as far as I thought. There were bits of him scattered in every part of my life. From our son Noah to my business and now, my personal relationship.

The goddess wasn’t fair at all. I couldn’t have come this far to end up in the same family I fought so hard to escape.

And Victor—why did he keep something this huge from me? Did he know who I was the whole time and intentionally decide to mislead me?

No. That wasn’t possible. If I didn’t know about him, he might have known nothing about me, too. Plus, very few people knew about the bond between Griffin and me.

But even that did not excuse him from keeping such information from me.

I tucked the information into the back of my head. I would confront Victor when I was ready for him. Right now, it was Griffin in front of me, and I was determined not to give him the satisfaction of cornering me into a spot.

“Like I said, the world does not revolve around you, and the men I date have nothing to do with you.”

The smug look on his face immediately hardened into anger, and he looked like he wanted to punch something.

“So, it was intentional then.”

I shrugged. I wasn’t going to explain myself to him. He clearly believed I was out for him, and the last time I tried defending myself in front of him, I ended up in the dungeon. He could believe the worst of me for all I care.

“What was the end game, huh?” he said, his voice low and dangerous as he took a step forward, driving me further into the corner until there was barely enough room for a needle to pass between us.

“To run my business to the ground while my brother attacks the throne from the other end and afterward, he marries you and makes you queen?”

Griffin’s words didn’t surprise me, but they never ceased to have the same face-smacking effect on me.

“Whore.”

“Ambitious Omega.”

“Social climbing Omega.”

The words resounded in my ears, a reminder of how my advances in the human world didn’t matter to my world and how I’d always be low-ranking.

Rage poured through me like lava as the familiar taste of humiliation burned in my throat. I straightened my back, refusing to let him see the effect his words had on me.