Chapter 3

My heart seized. Every drop of blood in my body seemed to freeze.

I was an orphan. Margaret Fairfax took me in despite what the Pack said about her.

She picked up scraps, took odd jobs, lived on almost nothing — and raised me anyway.

When I first started seeing Ethan, I never let him drop me off at home.

I was afraid he'd look at me the way everyone else did. At me and at her.

But when Ethan found out, he cried.

He held me and stroked my hair, his voice rough.

"Nora, I'm going to work hard. I'm going to give you the best life. I'm going to repay Margaret. And I'm going to make every person who ever looked down on you regret it."

He meant it, for a while.

When he proposed, he hired the best event planners in the territory. A sea of ten thousand roses. The whole Pack heard about it. Everyone envied me.

He put the house in my name. He brought in doctors for Margaret, covered every bill.

People who used to sneer at me came up to congratulate me, saying all the right things.

They used to whisper behind my back that Ethan must have a guilty conscience, that's why he treated me so well.

I believed in all of it. I thought this was permanent.

And then Serena walked in and shattered it.

But I never thought that today, he'd use Margaret's life as a threat.

My one weakness. To make Serena happy.

I dug my nails into my palm. It didn't come close to matching what I felt inside.

Despair pressed down so hard I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes. Tears fell without a sound.

When I opened them again, there was nothing left in them.

"Fine," I said quietly. "I'll apologize."

Ethan looked at me with satisfaction, snapped his fingers, and his assistant dropped a sheet of paper onto the hospital bed.

"Read it. Every word."

I picked it up. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

The whole thing was a lie.

Everything was flipped. Every fault placed on me. It said I'd turned bitter, that I'd been making up stories about Serena to damage her reputation.

It even said that Ethan faking his death was something I'd imagined — that I had a mental breakdown and invented the whole thing.

I had no way out. I held myself together, read the script, and recorded the video. Posted it.

When it was done, I was cold all over. Sweat soaked through me.

Ethan glanced at the wound on my neck, took a checkbook from his pocket, wrote a number fast, and pushed it into my hand.

He sighed.

"That's a million. Consider it compensation."

"Get yourself to a different hospital. I don't want Serena seeing you and getting upset."

He walked out.

I discharged myself, walked out of the hospital, and my phone rang.

It was my manager.

"Nora, we've been restructuring the team. Your termination notice has been sent to your email. The severance has already been processed to your account."

I stood there for a moment.

"Thank you for everything the company gave me," I said. "Understood."

I hung up and opened my phone.

The apology video I'd just recorded was already trending at the top. Every post about Serena had been scrubbed clean. No trace left anywhere.

Then a string of new messages came in.

From Serena.

Photos of her private suite, overflowing with designer bags, seasonal clothes, jewelry.

【Nora, take a look. This is only a fraction of what he gives me to keep me happy.】

【Let me be honest with you — he and I never actually stopped. The whole time he was trying to fix things with you, he came to me every single day.】

【There's no right or wrong in love. The one who isn't loved is always the outsider.】

I stood in the cold. Tears dripped onto my screen. I bit my lip and didn't make a sound.

Then my phone rang again.

It was Margaret's doctor.

"Miss Fairfax, your mother had a sudden cardiac episode. It's critical. You need to come sign the emergency surgery authorization now."

I didn't stop to feel anything. I ran.

The elevator took too long. I turned and bolted for the stairs.

I made it to the third floor when a group of people blocked my path. They said they were reporters.

"Miss Fairfax, we've heard you had a mental breakdown after being rejected, that you imagined Alpha Sterling's death — is that true?"

"Former classmates have come forward saying you're an orphan who grew up scavenging. Can you confirm?"

"You knew he was Bonded and you still went after him and spread lies. What do you have to say?"

Camera flashes went off one after another. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Their voices drilled into my skull.

I was sweating through my clothes. I shoved through the crowd, my voice cracking, begging.

"Please, let me through. I have an emergency. My mother is in critical condition. She needs surgery. Please."

They kept blocking me. Kept shoving cameras in my face. Kept demanding I give them the answer they wanted.

In the scuffle, my phone slipped and hit the floor. Someone stepped on it.

I bent down to pick it up.

A hand cracked across my face.