"Take the plate away," Lucian said without looking up from his tablet.

The maid reached across my place setting, lifting the untouched bowl of stew before I could even pick up a spoon.

"I was going to eat that," I pointed out.

"The staff takes orders from the Alpha," Lucian answered, his tone smooth and dismissive. "You are not permitted breakfast service outside the kitchen quarters."

"Good to know," I replied. "I prefer my own cooking anyway. Less poison."

He ignored me, turning toward the double doors of the formal dining hall as three high-ranking pack elders stepped inside.

"Alpha Lucian," Elder Vance—no, Elder Thomas bowed his head. "We came to review the quarterly patrol reports."

"Have a seat," Lucian offered, gesturing to the walnut chairs. His eyes cut to me where I sat at the far end of the long table. A cruel smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Excuse the clutter. My replacement bride hasn't learned her boundaries yet."

Thomas frowned, glancing between us. "Replacement?"

"You remember the wedding announcement," Lucian said loudly, ensuring every guard by the door caught the barb. "Isabelle had the good sense to run. Nora jumped at the chance to slide between silk sheets and wear a family crest she didn't earn."

A quiet chuckle broke out among the guards.

Thomas cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well. The lineage remains Cross blood."

"Only on paper," Lucian remarked. "A scavenger is still a scavenger."

I didn't blink. I didn't reach for a napkin to dab phantom tears. Instead, I smiled, raised my water glass toward the elders, and took a leisurely sip.

"If being opportunistic makes me a scavenger," I said clearly, "what does that make the Alpha who couldn't keep his first bride from jumping out a window?"

The dining room instantly dropped into total silence.

Thomas froze. Lucian’s fingers clenched around his silver fountain pen until the metal creaked.

"Out," Lucian commanded, his voice vibrating with warning. "Everyone. Except her."

The elders didn't hesitate. They filed out within five seconds, the heavy doors latching behind them.

Lucian rose from his chair, closing the distance between us. "You think you're clever, don't you?"

"I think your insults are boring," I said, leaning back against the leather cushion. "If you want to break me, you need better material."

"I don't need material to ruin you, Nora. You're already living in the servant's quarters." He leaned over the table, shadows cutting deep across his cheekbones. "Keep testing me. See what happens to your room when winter hits."

"Threatening me with cold weather?" I laughed right in his face. "I grew up in the north, Lucian. Try harder."

He wheeled around and left the room, his long strides carrying him straight toward his study.

I watched him go. Explaining my innocence would never work; Victoria had poisoned his mind, and his bruised male pride wanted a punching bag.

Fine. If he wanted a punching bag, he was going to break his fist on iron.

Later that afternoon, I wandered past the open library adjacent to the executive wing. Lucian had stepped away to take a private call on the balcony, leaving his leather portfolio wide open under the desk lamp.

A thick packet stamped *Oakhaven Ironworks & Mining Consortium* lay spread across the blotter.

I picked up the overview page. It was a multi-million-dollar land acquisition. Blackwood lands bordered a massive zinc vein, and the contract negotiations were scheduled for five o'clock that evening.

Page seven contained the price-per-acre royalty baseline: *2.4% net yield.*

I grabbed a thin black pen from the crystal holder, scratched out the two, penned in a sharp *8.4%*, and closed the folder exactly as I had found it.

Then I slipped out the side corridor.

The fallout began at five-fifteen.

I sat in the parlor two floors up, listening to the muffled shouting echoing from the conference wing.

"What do you mean, eight percent?!" Lucian’s roar carried through the ventilation shafts. "We agreed on standard industrial rates yesterday! Who drafted this summary?!"

A terrified analyst stammered an excuse.

"Call the regional director right now!" Lucian barked. "Shut down the wire transfer! Audit the entire draft team!"

For the next eight hours, the entire west wing was chaos. Couriers sprinted across the foyer. Lucian’s Beta tore through three filing cabinets in the records room. Lucian spent the entire evening on encrypted satellite lines, furious and paranoid, convinced his corporate partners had attempted a hostile ambush right under his nose.

By midnight, IT had pulled the security loop from the study doorway.

The footsteps outside my bedroom were loud enough to shake the doorframe.

The door banged open against the wall.

Lucian filled the threshold, his tie undone, his collar crooked, his hair disheveled. Fury radiated off him in waves.

"You sabotaged my deal."

I took a slow sip from the porcelain mug of black coffee I had brewed myself, setting it gently on the small wooden bedside table.

"No," I answered calmly. "I taught you to read your own contracts."

He closed the space between us in two strides, gripping the edge of the small table so hard the wood groaned.

"Do you have any idea how much money almost walked out the door today?" he growled, his gray eyes burning. "I spent six hours on the phone with three different legal teams because of one stroke of your pen!"

"Then you should thank me," I countered, looking straight up into the storm in his eyes. "Imagine if a real rival had done that instead of your neglected bride. You signed off on a binder you hadn't even double-checked. That's sloppy work for a ruthless Alpha."

Lucian stared at me, his chest rising and falling heavily. For the first time since I stepped into Blackwood Manor, there was no mocking arrogance on his face.

He was looking at someone he didn't recognize.

"You're not Isabelle," he muttered, the realization dropping like a stone.

"Isabelle would have cried in the bathtub," I said, meeting his intense stare without an ounce of shame. "I don't cry. You made me your enemy the second you locked me up here. Did you expect me to play dead?"

His jaw set into hard stone.

"Enjoy your little victory, Nora," he whispered, venom returning to his voice. "Because tomorrow morning, your name comes off every account tied to this estate. No cards. No allowance. Not a single cent will clear under your signature."

"Is that a promise?"

"Try buying a glass of water outside this gate," he warned. "Let's see how long your sharp tongue lasts when your stomach is empty."

He slammed the door behind him.

The next morning at dawn, I didn't bother checking the house accounts. I knew they were frozen.

Instead, I unlocked the small velvet pouch hidden inside the lining of my leather luggage. Before my father forced me into Isabelle's gown, I had emptied my personal safe at the Cross estate. Diamond brooches, vintage sapphire pendants from my grandmother, and solid platinum timepieces.

By noon, I was sitting across from a broker downtown, signing off on a certified cashier's check worth four hundred thousand dollars.

By two o'clock, I walked into the modest office of Kestrel Capital, a struggling boutique investment firm situated directly across the road from Blackwood Manor's private transit hub. They had been trying to secure a commercial zoning lease Lucian had spent months choking out of the market.

I bought forty-nine percent of the voting shares on the spot.

At five o'clock, Lucian was waiting in the grand foyer when I pushed through the front entrance, carrying a slim leather folder under my arm.

He held up a tablet, his expression triumphant. "The bank flagged your cards three hours ago. Welcome to poverty, Nora."

I stopped in front of him, slipping a crisp white document out of my folder and handing it over.

"What is this?" he demanded, snatching the paper.

"Read it yourself this time," I suggested sweetly. "Since you're so fond of contracts."

Lucian glanced down at the letterhead. His eyes widened, tracking down the corporate registry to the bold signature at the bottom: *Nora Cross-Blackwood, Majority Partner, Kestrel Capital.*

The color drained from his face.

"You bought Kestrel?" he snapped, his voice tight. "They hold the right of first refusal on the transit corridor!"

"They do," I agreed, flashing a radiant grin. "Which means every truck carrying your newly audited iron ore has to pay my toll to cross the county line."

Lucian stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist. "You used my family name to buy a blockade against my own trucks?!"

"I used my own money, Alpha," I replied, tapping the side of his chest with the edge of the folder. "If we're going to be enemies, at least make it interesting."

He glared down at me, his breath coming quick and hot, his pride thoroughly shredded.

Before he could speak, his assistant sprinted down the staircase, holding an emergency dispatch phone in the air.

"Alpha!" the man gasped, terrified. "The southern borders just sent an alert. Isabelle's car was found abandoned at the gorge!"

"The Northern Ridge Pavilion," Victoria said, handing me a laminated map card with a warm, sisterly smile. "Lucian asked me to make sure you got the coordinates. The elders gather there before the hunt begins."

I took the card from her fingers. "How thoughtful of him to send an errand girl."

Victoria’s painted lips tightened, but she kept her sweet tone intact. "He just wants to see if you can carry yourself like an Alpha's wife in front of the territory's high families. Don't be late, Nora. They judge tardiness harshly."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," I replied.

Twenty minutes later, I stood deep in the evergreen canopy of the Blackwood hunting grounds.

The silence here was wrong. No birds sang in the branches above. A low, guttural snarl vibrated through the brush fifty yards away.

Feral wolves. Unranked rogues kept starved in the preserve's perimeter for target practice.

I pulled out the pack communication radio Lucian’s guards had issued me at the gate. The screen stayed completely dark. When I popped the battery cover, the copper contacts inside were snapped clean off.

"Real subtle, Lucian," I murmured.

I didn't panic. Panic was for people who trusted their husbands.

Instead of pushing toward the danger zone where the beasts paced, I slipped off my thick shearling jacket and shook out the pocket. A tiny blinking red light caught the sun. A magnetic locator beacon—planted by Victoria while she pretended to smooth down my collar back at the lodge.

I smirked, walking over to a heavy fallen branch right at the edge of the predator ditch. I draped the jacket over the wood, jammed the tracker deep into the seam, and backed up twenty paces into the thick brush behind a massive cedar trunk.

Footsteps crunched through dead pine needles ten minutes later.

A tall man in a private scout uniform crept through the brush, hunting rifle lowered. He stared at the GPS unit on his wrist, then locked his eyes on my discarded jacket silhouetted against the dark gully.

"Target located at coordinates," the scout whispered into his throat mic. "She's cornered near the den line."

A snap of twigs broke behind him.

Two heavy figures in black combat gear hit the scout like freight trains.

The man crashed into the dirt with a choked grunt, his rifle skittering into the leaves. A knee drove hard between his shoulder blades, pinning him down before he could draw his sidearm.

"Alpha's escort, secure the intruder!" a voice barked.

Branches parted.

Lucian strode into the clearing, flanked by four pack elders and a half-dozen high-ranking guests dressed in tailored shooting tweeds. His jaw was set like iron, his dark eyes sweeping the clearing with frantic impatience—until his gaze swept past the pinned scout and locked directly onto me.

I sat on a dry boulder beneath the pine, calmly paring a green apple with a pocketknife.

Lucian stopped dead in his tracks.

The elders behind him began murmuring.

"What is the meaning of this?" Elder Thomas muttered, adjusting his spectacles. "Is that a scout from the South Gate?"

"He was following my jacket," I said, slicing off a wedge of fruit and popping it into my mouth. "Though why someone would send an armed tracker after the Alpha’s wife during a formal banquet is beyond me."

Lucian walked over to the pinned man. He wrenched the scout's head up by his hair, squinting at the badge sewn onto the man's vest.

It was Victoria’s family crest.

Lucian’s expression turned violently cold. He let go, wiping his fingers on his coat before stepping straight toward my boulder.

"You knew?" he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear.

"Of course," I replied, meeting his glare without blinking.

"How?"

"Victoria has the poker face of a toddler," I answered, snapping the pocketknife shut with a sharp click. "You wanted me lost in the woods so you could play the furious husband who had to rescue his incompetent bride. Too bad. You caught her scout instead."

Lucian stared at me, his chest motionless. The contempt in his face had vanished, replaced by an uneasy, rigid stillness.

He had never looked at me with caution before.

"Get up," he said quietly. "We're going back."

"Lead the way, darling," I smiled.

The drive back to Blackwood Manor was dead quiet. Lucian spent the entire ride staring out the tinted glass, his fingers tapping against his knee in a rapid, agitated cadence.

The moment our SUV pulled into the circular driveway, his personal secretary rushed down the front steps, white as a sheet.

"Alpha Lucian," the secretary blurted out before the door even swung fully open. "We have a security breach in the private archives."

Lucian’s head snapped up. "What did you say?"

"The digital locks on the west wing study were bypassed forty minutes ago," the man stammered, following Lucian as he practically leaped from the vehicle. "The logistics ledger for the northern shipping line was accessed. Physical copies are missing from your desk safe."

Lucian froze on the top step.

Slowly, his head turned toward me.

"Check the hallway monitors," Lucian ordered, his voice dropping into a razor-thin tone. "Now."

"We did, sir," the secretary said, holding up a small clear plastic evidence bag. "The camera outside your office was disabled with a frequency scrambler. But we found this dropped on the rug by your desk."

Inside the plastic pouch lay an antique silver hairpin, engraved with the Cross family crest.

Lucian plucked the bag from his assistant's fingers. His eyes flared with a fury twice as deadly as before.

"Clear the floor," Lucian commanded. "Get every guard out of the west wing."

The staff scattered without another word.

Lucian grabbed my wrist, hauling me across the marble foyer and slamming his heavy oak study doors behind us. He threw the evidence bag onto the glass coffee table between us.

"You used the hunting trip as a distraction," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "You let me focus on your little forest stunt so you could raid my safe!"

"Check the timestamps," I said flatly, pulling my wrist from his grasp.

"I don't need to check anything! That pin belonged to your grandmother!"

"I gave that pin to Victoria three days ago," I countered, raising my voice to match his thunder. "Because she begged me for a keepsake after Isabelle ran."

Lucian let out a bitter, mocking snort. "Still pointing fingers at Victoria? First you accuse her of bribing scouts, now you frame her for corporate espionage?"

"I don't frame people, Lucian. I collect receipts."

I reached into the inner lining of my boot, pulled out a small black flash drive, and tossed it against his chest. It bounced off his shirt and landed squarely on his mahogany desk.

Lucian frowned, looking down at the drive, then back to my eyes. "What is this?"

"Plug it in," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Unless you're scared of seeing what an idiot you've been."

His jaw clenched. He snatched the drive, slammed it into the side of his monitor, and tapped the keyboard with furious force.

A video feed flickered to life on the screen.

It wasn't the main security network. It was a wide-angle lens hidden inside the bronze clock sitting atop his own bookshelf.

On the screen, the study door swung open thirty minutes after we had left for the woods.

A woman slipped into the room wearing gloves and a dark trench coat. She moved straight to the desk, entered the passcode into the floor safe with zero hesitation, and slid the shipping ledgers into an oversized leather tote.

Before turning to leave, she leaned over the desk, pulled a silver hairpin from her pocket, and let it drop onto the plush rug.

Then she turned toward the camera.

The overhead lamp hit her face clearly.

It wasn't me.

It was Victoria.

The room dropped into absolute, suffocating silence.

Lucian stared at the screen, his fingers hovering frozen above the keyboard. The color drained from his jaw, leaving his face pale under the harsh study lights.

"She has had your safe combinations for months," I told him, stepping closer until I could see the sudden fracture in his icy composure. "She has been feeding your trade routes to external buyers while whispering poison in your ear about me. She told you I forced Isabelle out so you would keep all your rage locked onto me while she cleaned out your vaults."

Lucian didn't speak. His eyes remained glued to the looping footage of Victoria's smiling face on the monitor.

For the very first time since the wedding vows were read, doubt cracked across his features.

"Why didn't you stop her?" he whispered, his voice hoarse, almost hollow.

I gave him a slow, merciless smile.

"Because watching you figure out you hated the wrong woman is worth every penny she stole."

Before Lucian could answer, the red landline on his desk shrieked, the emergency siren from the estate’s outer gatehouse blaring through the receiver.