My Convicted Wife is My Mate (Bella and Kane) novel Chapter 45

chapter 38-2
KANE’S POV

We ate in silence.

Bella sat across from me. Her head was bowed slightly as she twirled noodles on her fork. She was quiet, but not withdrawn. It was the kind of quiet that felt natural, calm. I didn’t mind it. In fact, I liked it.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was peaceful. For a man like me, used to the constant noise of power—the barking of orders, the sound of obedience, the weight of responsibility—this kind of peace was rare.

When she smiled at something on her plate, I looked away before she caught me staring.

But the calm didn’t last. Inside, my wolf was pacing, restless. I needed to run. To shift. To release the violence burning in my blood before it ate me alive. It had taken everything in me not to rip Derek apart today—and that punk, Damien Silverwood, too.

The thought of them still made my jaw tighten. Derek, for what he did to Bella. Damien, for daring to think he could provoke me and get away with it.

I knew Jayden had handled it. He always did.

I could tell from the sounds that came from the ballroom—the crashes, the gasps, the silence that followed. Jayden’s loyalty was absolute. He would’ve made sure Derek understood what it meant to touch something that belonged to me.

Still, my anger didn’t fade.

There were deeper problems here—things I couldn’t ignore anymore.

Bella’s family. Gina. Damien. Every vulture sniffing around this region. Bella had a target on her back, and whether she knew it or not, I had put it there.

Because of who I was.

I was the highest Alpha in this region, and weaker wolves would do anything to win my favor. Even hurt someone they thought might matter to me.

And Bella, she did. That’s what made it worse.

The thought that she had been beaten and tortured in prison because someone thought it would please me made my chest ache.

She had no idea that she went through all those things because of me.

How would she look at me if she ever found out?

Would she still speak to me with that softness in her voice? Would she still smile at me over dinner, pretending things were normal?

I doubted it.

When dinner was done, I took a long shower. The water was freezing, but I welcomed it. The cold burned through the heat in my veins. It forced me to breathe, to focus.

When I finally stepped out, I toweled off and pulled on a shirt. My head felt clearer. But the moment I stepped back into the main room, I stopped dead.

She was sitting in the kitchen, bent over her work shirt, sewing something.

The image hit me hard.

She was humming quietly to herself, a small, tuneless sound that didn’t belong to any song I knew. Her hair fell over her shoulder. The lamp above highlighted her face, and for a moment, she looked almost ethereal.

Her fingers moved carefully, threading the needle through the torn fabric. Stitch by stitch, she did it patiently.

Anyone else would’ve thrown the shirt away. But she was trying to save it. Trying to make it last.

That small, stubborn act… it said everything about her.

It infuriated me. Because she shouldn’t have had to live like this.

Because that torn fabric was a reminder of what happened today, and every time I pictured her being pushed or hit, my vision darkened again.

Still, I couldn’t look away from her.

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