The urge to scream clawed at my throat, a physical thing with talons and teeth, but I swallowed it down. My wolf was pacing in the back of my mind, snarling, demanding blood, demanding that I shift and tear through that mahogany door. But the human part of me—the part that had just heard the man I loved call me nothing more than a bank account—froze.
If I burst in there now, I knew exactly what would happen. Cyrus would use his Alpha voice. He would force me to my knees. He would spin a web of lies about how I was hallucinating, how I was unstable, just like he did with Sarah. And without proof, the pack would believe their Alpha over a jealous, emotional Beta.
My hand trembled violently as I reached into my purse. Not for a weapon, but for my phone.
I pressed my back against the cold wall of the hallway, making myself as small as possible. I focused on suppressed my aura, pulling every scrap of my energy inward until I felt like nothing more than a ghost. It was a skill I’d learned as a child to avoid attention during pack meetings, and now, it was the only thing keeping me safe.
I held the phone up to the crack in the door. The camera lens found them instantly.
On the screen, the betrayal was in high definition. Jasmine’s hand tangling in Cyrus’s hair. The glint of the whiskey glass. The way he looked at her with a hunger he used to save for me.
"...accidents happen," Cyrus’s voice drifted through the speaker, clear and damning. "Or maybe she just fades away into the background like a good little Beta."
I hit the stop button. The video saved.
I didn't stay to hear more. I couldn't. The bile was rising in my throat, acidic and burning. I backed away, one silent step at a time, my heels hovering over the plush carpet. When I reached the elevator, I slipped inside and pressed the button for the lobby. As the doors slid shut, sealing away the sliver of light from the bedroom, I didn't feel relief. I felt dead.
I drove on autopilot. I didn’t go back to the pack house, and I certainly didn't go to the apartment I shared with Cyrus. I found a nondescript chain hotel near the airport, the kind of place where no one asked questions and everyone paid in cash.
The moment the door to Room 214 clicked shut behind me, my legs gave out. I barely made it to the bathroom before I was violently ill, my body purging the shock that my mind couldn't process. I stayed there on the cold tile floor for a long time, shivering, clutching the toilet bowl as if it were a life raft.
Eventually, the trembling stopped. Not because I felt better, but because there was nothing left to feel.
I pulled myself up to the sink and splashed icy water on my face. I looked into the mirror. The woman staring back at me looked like a stranger. Her skin was gray, her eyes hollow and dark, stripped of the light that had lived there for ten years.
I reached up and touched the silver pendant at my throat—my grandmother’s necklace. It was cool against my feverish skin.
"He wants a good little Beta," I whispered to the reflection. My voice sounded raspy, foreign. "He wants the Hansen money. He wants the alliance."
A tear leaked out, but I wiped it away angrily. The Elena who cried over fired assistants was gone. She had died on the floor of a cheap hotel bathroom.
"I will give you exactly what you want, Cyrus," I vowed, my eyes hardening into flint. "And then I will take everything."
The next morning, the sun was offensively bright. I wore my best dress—a soft, powder-blue number that Cyrus had once said made me look "sweet." I applied my makeup carefully to hide the dark circles and practiced my smile in the rearview mirror until it looked genuine.
I met them for brunch at a bistro in the Upper East Side. When I walked in, they were already seated. They looked perfect together, chatting over menus, looking for all the world like a loyal Alpha and his dutiful pack member.
"Elena!" Cyrus stood up as I approached, a wary look in his eyes. He was checking my scent, looking for suspicion. "I didn't expect you to call for brunch. Are you feeling better?"
I didn't flinch when he kissed my cheek. I didn't recoil when I smelled Jasmine’s perfume clinging to his collar.
"I am," I said, my voice steady and soft. I sat down and placed my hand over his on the table. "I wanted to apologize, Cyrus. For everything. The hotel with Sarah... I was out of line. I let my insecurities get the best of me."
Cyrus blinked, surprised. His shoulders dropped an inch. The tension evaporated from his frame. "Well... yes. You were. But I'm glad you realize that."
I turned to Jasmine, who was watching me with narrow, calculating eyes. I widened my smile, injecting it with as much warmth as I could muster.
"And you, Jas," I said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. The same hand that had been on my fiancé's chest last night. "Thank you for taking care of him when I’m being crazy. I don't know what I’d do without such a loyal friend."
Jasmine stunned for a split second, and then a smug, victorious grin spread across her face. She thought I was pathetic. She thought she had won.
"That's what friends are for, El," she purred.
"Exactly," Cyrus said, squeezing my hand back, his arrogance returning in full force. "We're a team, Elena. As long as you trust me, everything will go according to plan."
"I know," I said, picking up my menu to hide the cold fire burning in my eyes. "I trust you completely, Alpha."
I ordered my coffee black. I needed the bitterness to remind me of the truth, while they drank their sweet mimosas and toasted to a future that I had already begun to dismantle.
