Chapter 4

When I got home, I pulled up my résumé. This time I wasn't limiting myself to companies inside our pack's territory. I started looking at the top firms worldwide.

Then my phone rang.

Lucas.

I forced down the irritation and picked up.

His voice came through, stiff and sharp. "Did you actually quit? Because of a couple of comments? Are you serious?"

"You're upset I was with Catherine today, that's all. I already said I'd be with you. What more do you want?"

"Look — get your dad to help me land this new project. Once I close it, I can clear my debts. Then we can finally be together properly."

The sheer brass of it made my stomach turn.

I kept my voice flat. "You're the one who said we'd be together. I never agreed. Get this through your head: from now on, there is nothing between us. Fated mates don't have to end up together. Stop bothering me."

I hung up before he could speak.

That night, I got an email from an anonymous address.

It was a photo. My mother's grave. A timed explosive sitting beside it.

At the bottom of the email: Come alone. If you bring anyone, it goes off immediately.

The countdown was at two hours.

I didn't have time to think. I grabbed my car keys and drove straight to the cemetery.

The cemetery was empty at night, the lights low and dim.

I went straight to my mother's grave.

Lucas stepped out and blocked my path.

It was him. He was the one who'd planted a bomb at my mother's grave to threaten me.

I hadn't thought he could sink this low.

I clenched my fists at my sides and forced myself calm.

"Lucas. What do you want?"

His teeth were clenched. "Someone caught the whole thing on video that day. Now everyone at the office knows I owe money because I gambled!"

"You're going to kneel in front of this camera and apologize. You're going to tell everyone that you bought Ron off, that you set me up. That the debt wasn't mine!"

"And then you're going to call the partnership, and you're going to tell them I'm running the project."

"In your dreams!"

His face twisted into a grin, and he raised the remote in his hand. "All I have to do is press this. Your mother's grave, her remains — gone."

He moved his thumb toward the trigger.

"Don't! I'll do it!"

I forced the words out through my teeth.

He raised his phone immediately and started recording.

I took a breath. "Lucas didn't gamble. I bribed people to frame him."

He nodded, satisfied, and posted the video straight to the company group chat.

Then I called the partner firm and used my father's name to demand they install Lucas as project lead.

I hung up and looked at him, ice cold.

"Now disarm it."

Greed flickered through his eyes.

"You signed that check earlier without blinking. You must be sitting on a lot."

"I want a check, right now. One million."

He tossed a blank check at me, with a pen.

I signed it without hesitation. One million.

"I give you the check, you give me the remote."

He agreed, easily.

The second the remote was in my hand, the explosion went off in the distance.

He tossed a backup remote at my feet.

"That's what you get for humiliating me in public."

I stood frozen, staring at the column of fire rising over my mother's grave. I couldn't process it.

He took the check, brushed his hands off, and walked away.

I ran toward the grave. The empty cemetery rang with my screaming.

Lucas.

My hand clenched until my fingernails cut into my palm and drew blood.

You want to die? Fine. I would grant you that wish.

The next morning, my apology video had spread through the entire company.

A lot of coworkers were posting complaints to the Council of Elders. I let them.

Three days later, I walked into the celebration party the company was throwing for Lucas's new project.

I went straight up to him while he was mid-speech and took the microphone out of his hand.

"I'm reporting Lucas — for embezzlement of company funds, for failure to support a dependent parent, and for theft of intellectual property!"