CHAPTER 14

Vanessa

The first time I met Brent, I thought he was a god. He was tall and broad and had a scent like pine and power.

I wasn’t his mistress at first, I was only his strategy.

Three months ago, a pack had contacted me. It felt surreal to me but after I heard what was in it for me, I knew I had to get in.

“Make her look unstable,” the older wolf said to me after I honoured his invitation. “Make the council question her. The Alpha needs a clean slate.”

“And after?” I asked, because I was stupid enough to believe I mattered.

“After, the Alpha chooses who he needs at his side,” he said. “Someone loyal and useful.”

I took the money. I took the plan. I fed Helena’s secrets to the gossip mill one drop at a time. I smiled at council meetings. I let Brent’s hand rest on the small of my back where people could see.

I thought it was a courtship.

I thought when Helena was ruined, when the pack turned on her, he would turn to me. I had done the dirty work. I had earned it.

I was wrong.

The last time Brent looked at me was two weeks ago. I had cornered him in his office after a meeting. “We should talk,” I said. “About us and about what comes next.”

He didn’t even look up from the papers. “There is no us, Vanessa. You did what you were paid to do.”

Paid to do? Like I was a weapon he rented and returned.

Now the whispers are changing, now they aren’t about Helena, they’re about me.

And worse. The operatives who gave me the envelope of pictures of Helana have stopped answering my calls.

I wasn't safe anymore. I realized it tonight when I found muddy boot prints outside my door. My door, on the third floor, with the wards Brent himself set. Wards that should only open for pack.

Someone got in or someone had been let in.

I was pacing my room now. The silk dress I wore to impress him was on the floor. Then a soft knock came on the door and instantly, my blood went cold because it was already past midnight and no servant knocks like that.

“Who is it?” My voice cracked, no one answered, then another knock came.

I grabbed the letter opener from my desk with my hands shaking.

The hallway was empty when I finally opened the door except for a small brown package on the mat with no name and seal on it, just my name written in black ink.

I should have left it or called someone, but I’m Vanessa and I’ve made worse choices. So I picked up the box, brought it inside and set it on the table.

I cut the string on it and opened the box slowly, inside was a black velvet. And on top of the velvet, catching the lamplight, was a ring, not just any ring. It was Brent’s ring.

The ring he never took off and the same ring that was supposed to go on my finger someday.

It was covered in fresh blood that was dripping from the velvet onto my hands.

I dropped it and stumbled back as my stomach heaved.

The last thing I heard before the lights went out was my own name whispered from the hallway.

“Vanessa.”

HELENA POV

I thought I would have cried when I found the forgeries but I didn't.

I should have because it contained three months of signatures that weren’t mine and a loan agreement with the South Pack that put 2 million in the Callahan accounts the day after my name was dragged through the mud.

All signed “Helena Callahan.”

But the H was wrong. She always made the loop too big. And the date stamp was from a day I was in the healer’s wing with a fever.

It was clumsy and desperate.

Mara, my lawyer, laid the papers out on the table like tarot cards. “This is fraud, Helena. This is grounds to freeze their assets.”

I stared at them. My hands don’t shake. “Can we file tomorrow?”

“Yes. But he’ll know within hours and he’ll come for you.”

Let him.

For weeks I’ve been the ghost in my own home. Eating alone. Sleeping alone. Hearing Vanessa’s laughter down the hall. Hearing people talk about me like I was already dead. But I wasn't dead.

I spent the afternoon in the archives, pulling every document I could. The names of the operatives who visited Brent’s office the week before the rumors started. One of them was Vanessa’s cousin.

Suddenly, it all connected. Brent didn’t just cheat. He orchestrated it. He used her to ruin me, and he used pack funds to pay for it.

The irony tasted bitter. I was trying to save this empire but he was trying to sell it.

“File it,” I told Mara. “First thing.”

She nodded and packed the files. Before she left, she squeezed my hand. “You’re doing the right thing.”

When she left I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea I wouldn't be able to drink later.

Then my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number. I almost ignored it then it buzzed again. This time it was a photograph.

I checked my phone and opened the message only to see a photo of Vanessa’s dark room with the door open. And on the floor was a dark shape, her hair spread out and a glint of silver near her hand.

My blood turned to ice at the sight.

Then another message with no words and just a video of 5 seconds long dropped. It was a gloved hand picking up Brent’s ring from a puddle with blood on the floor and blood on the walls then the video ended.