AVIA POV:

The next morning, the lie tasted like ash in my mouth.

"I'm heading into the city for some shopping," I told the driver, my voice even and light.

He nodded, ready to follow his orders, but I waved him off. "I'll take one of the other cars. I might be a while."

It was a small act of defiance, but it felt monumental. I drove myself, leaving the familiar black town car—and the man who watched my every move for Donavon—behind.

The coffee shop was a small, independent place tucked away on a side street, smelling of roasted beans and cinnamon. Josie was already there, in a corner booth, a stark slash of crimson hair against the dark wood paneling. Her green eyes, sharp as broken glass, scanned my face as I slid onto the bench opposite her.

"You look like hell, Avia."

There was no point in pleasantries. Not with Josie.

"I want to reject him," I said. The words came out flat, devoid of emotion. "I need you to prepare the documents."

Josie froze, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. Then, a slow, cold smile spread across her face. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a predator that had been waiting patiently for its moment.

"I've been waiting to hear you say that for three years," she said, her voice a low purr. "Tell me what the bastard did."

I recounted the previous night. The phone call. The words. Political tool. The sight of him with Jena and her son in the garden. I spoke as if I were reading a weather report, my voice a monotone that betrayed nothing of the storm inside me.

"That son of a bitch." She took a breath, visibly forcing herself back to composure, then gave me a long, searching look—not a lawyer assessing a client, but a friend making sure I was still standing. Only after that did she pull a sleek tablet from her briefcase. Her professional demeanor snapped back into place like a shield.

"Okay," she said, her fingers flying across the screen. "According to inter-pack law, since the mating was never consummated with a mark, the rejection process is simpler."

I flinched before I could stop myself. My hand drifted up, almost involuntarily, to the bare curve of my neck—the place where a mate's mark should have been. There was nothing there. Three years, and he had never even tried. I had told myself he was being gentle, that he respected my boundaries. Now I knew the truth: he had been saving that space for her. My fingers dropped back to my lap. "Go on."

"But the division of assets will be the main battleground."

I shook my head. The thought of his money made my stomach turn. "I don't care about the money, Josie. I just want out. Cleanly. Quickly."

Her sharp gaze pinned me to my seat. "No. You have to care. This isn't just money, Avia. It's compensation for three years of your life. It's the capital you need to be independent, to start over, to never have to depend on anyone again."

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died in my throat. She was right. I had a small account of my own—savings from a few quiet freelance translations I had done over the years, never telling Donavon, never asking for permission. It was enough to survive, but not enough to build a future. Not enough to be truly free. If I walked away with nothing, I would be trading one cage for another.

Her logic was a lifeline in the fog of my numbness. I nodded slowly. We spent the next hour discussing terms, her calm professionalism a balm on my raw nerves.

As I was getting ready to leave, she stopped me. "One more thing. Evidence. We need more concrete evidence of his preference for Jena. It will be powerful leverage when we present this to the pack Elders."

I nodded again, a plan already forming in the cold, clear space of my mind.

But before I could stand, Josie held up a hand. "And Avia—one more thing. The document itself is only half the battle. A signed rejection agreement starts the process, but it doesn't finish it. If he refuses to follow through, if he fights it, we'd have to take it to the Elders, maybe even to court. And while that drags on, he could bury you in legal maneuvers, drain your resources, use his Alpha authority to isolate you. The moment he knows what you're trying to do, he will fight you with everything he has."

I met her eyes. "So I can't let him know."

"Exactly." She leaned forward, her voice dropping. "You need his signature before he understands what he's signing. Once it's filed, it's much harder for him to stop. But if he sees it coming—if you hand him the document and ask him to read it—he will refuse. He will stall. He will find a way to trap you here longer. He has the power, the money, and the law on his side as long as he's the Alpha. Your only advantage is surprise."

I let her words sink in. She was right. If I walked into his study tonight and placed the rejection agreement in front of him, he would laugh. He would tear it up. He would tighten his grip on me, and I would never get another chance. I needed to be smarter than that. I needed to make him sign without knowing what he was giving me.

"Then we make sure he signs it without reading it," I said slowly, the shape of the plan beginning to form in my mind. "We hide it in plain sight."

Josie's smile was thin and sharp. "Now you're thinking like someone who wants to win."

Back at the manor, the air was thick with a foreign cheerfulness. Donavon was gone, at his corporate office downtown. Jena and Kaden were in the garden, their laughter a shrill, grating sound that set my teeth on edge.

I walked straight to the second floor. To his study.

There was a small anteroom off the main study that he always kept locked. In three years, I had never been inside. He'd said it was for storing sensitive pack documents. Another lie.

I knew where he kept the spare key.

He thought I was unobservant, a decorative object. But I saw everything. I saw the way he sometimes glanced at the top of his bookshelf, at a thick, leather-bound volume of pack history that was just a hollowed-out box.

I pulled a chair over. My heart started a frantic, heavy rhythm against my ribs. My fingers closed around the cold metal of the key inside. I paused, my hand hovering over the lock. Once I turned this key, there would be no going back. The wife who still hoped—the one who had convinced herself that maybe, just maybe, there was a reasonable explanation for everything—she would die on the other side of that door. I swallowed hard. Then I turned the key.

The lock clicked open with a soft snick.

I pushed the door open. A wave of stale air washed over me, thick with the scent of dust and lilies. Jena's scent.

The room was windowless, lit by a single dim lamp. The walls were covered in photographs.

All of them were of Jena.

Jena as a teenager, laughing on a swing. Jena with his brother, Arthur, on their mating day. A dozen professionally shot portraits of her, posed and perfect.

It wasn't an office. It was a shrine.

My stomach churned. A sour taste rose in my throat. I had told myself I was prepared for this—I had already heard him say the worst possible words. But seeing it, wall after wall of her face, her smile, her life—it was different. It was the difference between knowing a wound exists and watching the blade go in.

On a central table, a single silver frame held the place of honor. It was the picture from his phone: Jena, holding Kaden, with the Bradshaw manor looming in the background.

My eyes fell on a small, velvet-covered box at the corner of the table. My fingers, moving of their own accord, lifted the lid.

Inside, nestled on a bed of black satin, were a pair of earrings. Teardrop-shaped pink diamonds, glittering malevolently in the dim light. A certificate of authenticity was tucked beside them. The purchase date was last week. The price tag made my breath hitch.

Five million dollars.

Last week was our third wedding anniversary.

He'd told me he was busy. He'd forgotten.

I remembered that night clearly now. I had set the dining table with his favorite dishes, lit candles, put on the dress he once said he liked. I had waited until midnight. The candles burned down to nothing, their wax pooling in cold, hardened puddles on the silver holders. I had told myself he was just swamped with work, that he would make it up to me. No. He hadn't been swamped. He had been busy buying a multi-million dollar gift for another woman. For his brother's widow.

I took out my phone. The click of the camera shutter was brutally loud in the silent room. I photographed everything. The walls of pictures. The framed photo on the table. The earrings. The certificate.

I sent the encrypted files to Josie with a simple message.

"Is this enough?"

Then I put everything back exactly as I had found it. The key went back into its hiding place. I closed the door to the shrine, locking the secret away again.

My phone buzzed. A reply from Josie.

"More than enough. The first draft of the agreement will be ready tonight."

AVIA POV:

In the days that followed, Jena began to wear her victory like a new coat.

She started small. She instructed the staff to replace the navy blue curtains in the main living room-my favorite-with a gaudy gold brocade.

I watched from the top of the stairs and said nothing. I let her have the curtains. For now.

That afternoon, I sat by the hearth, the fire doing little to warm the chill that had settled deep in my bones. I was polishing a silver frame, my thumb tracing the familiar, smiling faces within. My parents. The only real family I had ever known. This frame was all I had left of them.

I had carried it with me through every move, every new room, every cold night when I felt utterly alone. I ran my sleeve over the glass, wiping away a smudge that wasn't really there. My thumb lingered on my mother's smile, then on my father's kind eyes.

Kaden, Jena's five-year-old son, was a whirlwind of destructive energy, tearing through the living room under his mother's indulgent gaze. She would murmur a soft, "Careful, sweetie," that held no real authority.

He skidded to a halt in front of me, his eyes fixated on the gleaming silver in my hands.

"What's that? I want it!" he demanded, reaching for it with sticky fingers.

I pulled the frame to my chest, my arm a protective barrier. "No, Kaden," I said, my voice quiet but firm. "This is very important to me."

His face crumpled. The tantrum was immediate and theatrical. "Mommy! She won't give it to me!"

Jena drifted over, a saccharine smile plastered on her face. "Avia, it's just an old thing. Don't be so stingy. Let the boy have a look."

I lifted my head, my eyes meeting hers. The placid lake was gone. Now there was only ice.

"I said no."

Her smile faltered, cracking at the edges. She wasn't used to being denied.

The front door opened, and Donavon walked in, bringing a gust of cold winter air with him. He took in the scene in an instant: me, clutching the frame; Jena, looking affronted; Kaden, gearing up for a full-blown meltdown.

The boy saw his advantage. He ran to Donavon, wrapping his arms around his leg. "Uncle Donavon! She's being mean to me!"

Jena's expression shifted to one of fragile, wounded innocence. "Donavon, I was just trying to encourage Kaden to be friendly with Avia, but..." She let her voice trail off, a masterpiece of manipulation.

Donavon's face darkened. He didn't ask what happened. He didn't care. He looked at me, his jaw tight.

"Give him the frame, Avia."

It wasn't a request. It was an Alpha's command, laced with an authority that vibrated in the air, pressing down on my will, demanding obedience. I noticed, in that moment, that he never once glanced at the frame. He never checked if it was fragile or valuable. He never looked at my face to see if I was hurt. He did not ask what Kaden had done. He simply chose. He had always chosen. My inner wolf snarled, wanting to rip his throat out for his injustice. I forced her down. A direct confrontation was a battle I couldn't win. Not yet.

Slowly, my fingers uncurling one by one, I held out the frame.

Kaden snatched it from my hands with a triumphant grin. He started running around the room, holding it aloft, making airplane noises.

Jena's lips curved into a smug, victorious smirk.

Then it happened.

The boy's grip loosened. The frame slipped. It arced through the air, a silver blur against the dark wood of the room.

It hit the marble hearth with a sickening crack.

The glass shattered, a spiderweb of fractures spreading across the smiling faces of my parents.

My world narrowed to that broken object. A strangled noise escaped my throat. I lunged forward, wanting to gather the pieces, to somehow put them back together.

But Donavon was faster.

He didn't go for the frame. He rushed to Kaden, grabbing the boy's hands, inspecting his fingers with frantic concern. "Are you hurt? Did the glass cut you?"

I stared at his back, at the broad shoulders hunched over the child who had just destroyed my most precious possession. The last bit of my heart turned to dust.

I stood up, my body feeling strangely light. I looked at the boy hiding behind Donavon's legs.

"You need to apologize," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

Jena immediately bristled. "He's just a child! You're scaring him!"

Donavon spun around, shielding Kaden with his body. He took a step toward me, his face a mask of fury. He shoved me, hard. "That's enough! It's a broken frame, Avia! What is wrong with you?"

The push sent me stumbling backward. My hip connected sharply with the corner of a side table. A hot spike of pain shot through me.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream.

I just looked at him. I held his furious gaze, and my own eyes were empty, a calm, desolate wasteland.

Then I turned and walked up the stairs without another word.

Later that night, I found him in his study, buried in paperwork. I walked in without knocking.

I placed a beautifully wrapped gift box on his desk. It was navy blue, tied with a silver ribbon. I had spent nearly an hour on that ribbon, looping it into a perfect bow, my fingers steady and careful. Each fold had been deliberate—the last act of a wife who had once believed in giving. I set the box in the exact center of his desk, directly in front of him, so that even if he tried to ignore it, it would sit there, waiting. It was the first gift I had ever given him without hoping for anything in return.

"Happy third anniversary," I said.

He looked up, surprised. The conflict from the afternoon had left a tension in the air, and he seemed to have expected my continued silence. I saw a flicker of something in his eyes-guilt, maybe. It was so faint, so fleeting, it might have been a trick of the light.

He grunted, his eyes already back on his work. "Just put it there."

I turned to leave. As my hand touched the doorknob, a small, cold smile touched my lips.

Inside the box was the rejection agreement from Josie. Two copies.

My signature was already on the dotted line.