Mated To The Crippled Alpha-Chapter 323: Reunited, I Am Elena Sis

Whitney’s nightmare didn’t surprise me.

I could almost see it through her eyes the basement lights, the sharp smells, the cold hands, the way people in the Blackwell circle treated bodies like tools. I didn’t die instantly when Silas stabbed me. I bled out slowly, trapped in that thin space between waking and darkness.

And while I was still there... they took me downstairs.

Whitney was the reason.

They needed a heart. They needed mine.

Even if my eyes were closed, I believe Whitney knew. I believe something in her recognized me, the same way you recognize family by scent in a crowded room. She must have fought. She must have screamed. She must have refused.

But refusal doesn’t matter when monsters decide your body belongs to them.

After that night, she lived with my heart beating inside her ribs. Not just a transplant. A reminder. A chain. A punishment she never asked for.

And that was why she didn’t end her life, no matter how badly she wanted to.

If she died, my heart stopped too.

If my heart stopped, then the last living part of "Elena" would be gone for real.

So she stayed alive for me.

That thought cracked something open inside my chest.

I held her tighter as she shook in her sleep. She clutched my clothes like she was drowning, her tears hot against my neck.

"Elena... I’m sorry," she sobbed.

My throat burned with words I couldn’t say.

Silly Whitney.

Back then, I used to get angry. I used to wonder why my sister could look at me like I was nothing. But now all I felt was pity... and a strange kind of gratitude.

If my heart had to keep beating somewhere, I was glad it was with her.

If my death could give her even one more day of breathing, then it wasn’t completely useless.

I couldn’t speak, so I just rubbed her back slowly, steady and calm, like I was smoothing down a panicked animal until it remembered it was safe. Inside my head, I kept repeating the same thing, over and over.

Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m here.

Her sobs finally softened. She pulled back a little, embarrassed.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I lost control."

I didn’t answer.

I reached for her hand instead and linked my pinky with hers.

Whitney froze.

I wasn’t sure she remembered, but when we were little, that was our secret. Any time I wanted to sneak her out to play, I’d hook her pinky under the table, shake it three times, then write one word on her palm.

Go.

I shook her pinky three times.

Her brows pinched, confused, like she thought it was coincidence.

Then I leaned down and carefully wrote on her palm.

Go.

Whitney went stiff, like her whole body had turned to stone. Her lips parted, and her voice came out small and shaky.

"Elena?"

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Cameras.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t do anything that would draw attention.

So I wrote again, slow and clear, right on her palm.

I am Elena.

For one second, she just stared at my hand like it wasn’t real.

Then the door flew open.

Vito stepped in and snapped on the light, flooding the room in harsh brightness. His voice came out like he was pretending to care.

"Another nightmare?"

Whitney was still in my arms. Tears ran down her face, but her eyes stayed locked on mine, like she was trying to hold onto the truth before it vanished.

I gently pushed her away and took two steps back, forcing my face into blank calm.

Vito didn’t suspect anything. He barely looked at me.

"Get out," he ordered.

I swallowed my anger and bowed my head like a good servant.

Vito gathered Whitney into his arms, holding her like she belonged to him, like he was comfort and not the reason she broke. But even as he held her, Whitney kept staring at me.

I shaped the words silently with my lips.

Wait for me.

Because she had given up on life a long time ago. The only reason she was still here was the heartbeat inside her that wasn’t originally hers.

Now she knew.

Now she had to live.

I stepped outside and the night heat hit me in the face. Jaford was the kind of place where the air clung to your skin. The yard buzzed with mosquitoes, and my knees still ached like someone had poured fire into the joints.

No phone. No tablet. No bed.

Just me on the steps, staring up at the moon like it could send messages.

I wondered if Lewis was looking at the same moon.

If he was sleeping at all.

If the bond between us sharp and hungry and alive was tugging at him the way it tugged at me. Like a thread tied around my ribs, pulling tighter every hour I stayed away.

I was back in Jaford, but the White Residence felt like a wall made of stone and eyes. Surveillance everywhere. That was why Yael didn’t chain me up.

He didn’t need chains.

This place was a cage that watched you breathe.

So I stayed still. I curled up on the steps and rested my forehead on my knees, trying to steal a few minutes of sleep.

A shadow fell over me.

"Elena," Yael said.

I looked up. His hair was messy, like he’d just rolled out of bed. His face was calm, but his scent carried that strange edge control wrapped around something wild.

"Come sleep in my room."

My eyes flicked toward Whitney’s window.

Yael followed my glance and shrugged like it was nothing. "Vito cares about her too much to harm her."

He was right. In the sick way men like Vito cared, they didn’t destroy what they considered theirs. They broke it, kept it, displayed it... but they didn’t let it go.

So I followed Yael.

As long as he didn’t look at me with hunger the way Vito looked at Whitney, I could survive this. Yael’s obsession was different. It was tangled in the past, in memory, in something that felt like a child gripping warmth so hard it bruised.

I slept on the couch in his room and dropped into darkness the second my head touched the cushion.

The next morning at breakfast, Whitney looked drained. Like she hadn’t rested at all, but she kept stealing glances at me, eyes sharp with questions she couldn’t ask in front of everyone.

Yael, casually kind, invited me to sit close.

Vito’s gaze narrowed. "Why are you so kind to Mute Girl?"

Whitney snapped before Yael could answer. "Do you think everyone is as cold as you?" Her voice was sharp, shaking. "Do you not even see other people as people?"

Vito went quiet.

He looked at her for a long moment and said nothing, but the air around him tightened. Possessive. Warning.

After breakfast, Whitney led me back to her room.

She asked for a back rub, but her hands were restless, her eyes too focused. The moment we got inside, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.

"Who are you actually?" she demanded, suspicion and hope fighting in her face.

I hesitated and glanced around automatically.

Whitney lowered her voice. "There are no cameras in here," she said softly. "Relax."

My breath caught.

My hands shook as I stepped toward the bathroom mirror. The glass was fogged from earlier steam, cloudy and wet.

I lifted my finger and wrote three words, slow and clear, like a vow.

I am Elena.