Chapter 37: Matter concerning Marbella II

It wasn't long until they're tangled together on the couch. Liam had stolen his blanket from his bed, and now the plain white blanket is messily covering both of them.

Blue eyes looked at the shape of the door, visible by the light reflecting from the window. There's also some light seeping in from the hallway, and footsteps passed by ever so often as people began retiring to their rooms. The people who are living in this hallway are the twins, Nox, and the two pairs of couples: Star and Meg, Alex and Rita. Each Aster child gets their own room (except the twins who are inseparable, and Mar who asked Liam to be with him), and when they're courting someone, their future spouse can move in with them.

Unbeknownst to those people, Liam is in Mar's room as more than just a friend. Hopefully, their neighbors aren't nosy because last year Liam was allegedly listening to Star and Meg's conversation because they're across the hall from them. Well, it's nothing big, just Star saying that she doesn't like Laura and Meg saying it's none of their business to judge the omega. Next to Mar's room, it's the twins.

The twins are... Okay. They can be a little loud when they're drunk, but other than that, they're great neighbors. They don't mind Liam sleeping 18 hours a day last year, so this year they won't mind what they heard.

Additionally, there's the butlers and the maids. The butlers, Arkham and Petrov who have the key to this room, can come in anytime if Mr. Aster gives him permission or orders them to get the room's inhabitants. The maids will come in when one of the two puts a sign in front of their room saying that they need cleaning or their dirty laundry needs to be taken away. There's nothing to worry about as long as they keep things as they did many years before.

The maids might question the excess amount of pheromones and scents in the air, but hey, the pair of alphas can say that they're older now and the maids are betas; what does betas know about adult alphas? As the summer gets hotter, their scents will intensify.

It's ironic to point out that just last week, Liam was pinning after his best friend while he was knee deep in school work, and now the platinum blond alpha is thinking of ways to get rid of any evidences that they're making out and jacking each other off. They didn't talk about it much, but they have the mutual understanding that Mr. Aster and Mr. Velison wouldn't want their two alpha sons to be with each other romantically or otherwise. If the time comes and their fathers find out, Liam was ready to pack up and leave like Blue and Rex did.

Mentally, at least.

"Liam..." Mar's voice was barely a whisper. His face was half buried in the taller alpha's neck.

"Yeah?" Liam responded back, his fingers were gently combing through jet black hair.

"What if my mother was a terrible person?" The black haired alpha began rambling about hypothetical questions. "What if she wasn't who she told me she was? I know we only spent a few hours on the flashdrive, but you saw what she was capable of."

Of course Liam saw what Marbella was capable of. In one of the eighty-something articles they read, most were written in the perspective of Marbella Silverin herself, the two young alphas found out that Mar's mother was more than just a journalist. Sure, her title was journalist on paper, but what she did was better described as bounty hunting and black mailing.

And Petrov?

The head butler was one of the first people whom Marbella recorded about in her journal. There's a list of many people the woman had "take out", and Petrov was the first case she documented in detail. Petrov was also known by another name, but clearly it's Petrov. Liam could recognize that man anywhere, and the head butler hasn't aged much.

"You know what my father can do." Purple eyes slowly blinked up at Liam, and for the first time in a long time, Liam saw fear in those eyes.

A few days ago, when Mar was on top of the taller alpha on the ugly green couch in Liam's apartment living room, the fear in those magenta eyes were dangerous, as if the black haired alpha was about to lose control, and he feared that he was going to lose control and indulged himself too much. This time, the fear in those eyes was about something else. Fear of what he could become if he chooses to walk on the same path his parents had gone down.

"My mother despised my father." Mar's voice was flat yet soft. Those purple eyes moved from blue ones to look at the curtained window. "Yet she told me she loved him. She loved me. She loved Rex and every one of my siblings. She was so good at lying, and I didn't know she was lying until it was too late."

"She loved you, Mar." Liam's fingers tightened in his companion's hair. His other hand gently rubbed circles into the alpha's back. "I talked to her. She told me to look after you, remember?"

A small chuckle came out of his best friend's lips. "Yeah. I think I know why she was poisoned."

Obviously, Marbella had a past that wasn't pretty. The platinum blond alpha began releasing his pheromones in hopes of calming down his companion. It's rare for alphas to do that, they're not equipped for it like the omegas, but it works most of the time. Usually, alphas use their pheromones as a weapon against each other, yet here he is, defying that tradition.

"She was safe until she tried to leave with me." Mar murmured into Liam's neck. "She didn't want me to grow up with my father's influence, so she tried to leave the family and take me with her. He didn't let her, Liam. He broke her legs."

What the fuck.

The platinum blond alpha didn't come into the picture until Mar's mother was already bedridden...

"I was ten, I think." His best friend's voice was shaking a little. "Her injuries never got better, and her health declined. I think that's when the poisoning started, when they were treating her injuries that my father caused."

"I thought you told me you and your mother got into a car accident?" Liam was dumbfounded at this point. This is why Mar doesn't like talking about his mother; the topic always opens up uncomfortable cans of worms.

"The car accident was kinda staged?" His best friend sighed. "She took me into a car one day, saying that we're getting away from there. I didn't protest. She drove, and someone shot us on the highway. From a normal driver's perspective on the highway, the traffic cameras and the police, they said it's a car accident. But I knew someone shot our car. She and I were taken to the hospital. We were in an ambulance, no serious injuries. There, father broke her legs. With his own hands."

"In front of you?" Liam's voice was barely a whisper when he felt wetness on his collar bone.

"I pretended to be asleep." Mar's voice quivered as he continued. "Pretended that I passed out in her arms for the entire ambulance ride. Pretended that I didn't see what he did to her. For some time, I made myself believe that it wasn't him because he held me when my mother was getting treatment."

The platinum blond alpha took a deep breath. What the hell. He knew Mr. Aster is terrible, but not like this—

"I don't want to hurt you the way he hurt her." Mar breathed out as he pushed himself off his companion.

Without missing a beat, Liam's hands gripped on the black haired alpha's shirt since he was caressing his best friend's back.

"You're not him." Liam's voice was pleading as he looked up at his companion. "You're not her either. You're you."

"I'm made of them, Liam." The black haired alpha sneered, but his eyes were watery. "You're too good."