Chapter 482
This used to be a link, a direct tether between her and her father—a device through which his voice, sharp and calculating, once echoed in her mind. It had carried his orders, his lessons, his silent expectations. A connection that had once been unbreakable. Until she shattered it herself.
The moment she submitted her body to Björn, forsaking the past for the future growing inside her, she severed the link. She could not risk it. Not for herself. Not for her unborn child. Her father was a man who operated in shadows, a being who viewed sentiment as weakness and ties as nothing more than tools to be exploited. If he knew of her pregnancy, if he deemed it relevant to his grand design, she had no doubt he would try to reclaim control—over her, over the child, over everything. And so, for the past decade or more, Yuki had waited.
Waited to see if he would reach out. If he would find a way to break through the silence. If her defiance had left even the faintest ripple in his vast, omniscient mind.
But he never did.
Not once.
It was as though her betrayal had never mattered. As though she had never mattered.
Perhaps he had written her off the moment she ceased to be useful. Or perhaps, in his cold, indifferent way, he had always known this day would come. The day she would find herself here, staring at the remnants of their connection, needing him for the first time in her life.
Yuki exhaled sharply, an almost bitter chuckle escaping her lips. How ironic.
Her father saw everything. That was one unshakable truth of the world she had been raised in. He did not need to ask questions because he already knew the answers. He did not need to look for things because, inevitably, things found their way to him. It was under his relentless gaze that Yuki had grown, a daughter molded in the image of one who knew all. She had once been his eyes and ears in places he could not reach. She had built her authority in Björn’s kingdom on the strength of that knowledge, on the understanding that she could see further, hear more, know before anyone else did.
But now?
Her today was not the Yuki of the past. The certainty she once carried, the unwavering confidence that she was always a step ahead—gone.