Chapter 5

I made it halfway down the hotel hallway before my phone started screaming.

Not ringing. Screaming. The ringtone I set for my father was a blaring alarm sound because every call from Alpha Rafael Vargas felt like an emergency, even when it wasn't. Especially when it wasn't.

I answered while jabbing the elevator button. "What."

"Where are you?" His voice was the cold, controlled kind of furious. The kind that used to make me shrink when I was younger. "I've been calling you since last night."

"I was busy."

"Busy doing what? Running around the city making a fool of this family? Niall told me what you did at that club. You attacked him. In public."

"He had it coming."

"You get yourself home right now, Harper. Not your apartment. This house. You have one hour."

He hung up before I could answer. Typical Rafael Vargas. He didn't have conversations. He gave orders.

Part of me wanted to ignore him. Part of me wanted to take a cab to the airport and disappear to somewhere warm with no pack politics and no fated mates and no scheming sisters. But I knew better. If I didn't show up, he would come to me, and that would be worse.

Forty minutes later, I walked through the front door of the Vargas pack house.

The living room was arranged like a courtroom. My mother sat on the long sofa with a cup of tea, her posture perfect, her expression carefully disappointed. My father stood by the window with his arms crossed, his jaw set in that way that meant someone was about to get crushed. Nicolás sat in the armchair to the left, a white bandage taped neatly between his brows, his expression somewhere between anger and satisfaction. And beside him, perched on the armrest like a loyal pet, was Valentina. The thin cut on her cheek was covered with a discreet strip of flesh colored tape.

At the foot of the stairs sat a single small carry on suitcase. Everything I owned from four years of living at Nicolás's packhouse, packed into one little bag.

"Sit down," my father ordered.

"I'll stand."

"Harper." My mother's voice was softer but carried the same steel underneath. "Please. Sit."

I didn't sit. I picked up the suitcase handle and turned toward the door. "Thanks for packing my things. I'll be going now."

"Put that down." Rafael's voice hit me like a wall. Not Alpha command, not yet, but close enough that Solana flinched inside my chest. "We're not finished."

I set the suitcase down slowly and turned to face them. Four people. Four people who were supposed to be my family, looking at me like I was a problem to be managed.

"Here's what's going to happen," Rafael began, pacing toward the center of the room. "You are going to make a public statement to the allied packs. You will say that you rejected your fated mate because you fell in love with someone else. You will take the blame and you will do it graciously."

"You want me to lie."

"I want you to protect this family's reputation."

"Your reputation." I looked at Nicolás, then at Valentina. "While these two get to ride off into the sunset together?"

"The alliance with the Duarte pack is critical," my mother cut in. "Your father has worked twenty years to build it. Valentina and Nicolás are willing to step in and honor the arrangement. All we need from you is cooperation."

I stared at her. At this woman who gave birth to me, who braided my hair when I was small, who taught me to set a table and smile for guests. And she was asking me to publicly humiliate myself to cover for the two people who destroyed me.

"You want cooperation?" My voice was shaking now, but not from fear. "Fine. Let me cooperate by telling you the truth. Nicolás has been sleeping with Valentina for years. While I was living in his house, cooking his food, playing the perfect mate at every pack function, he was flying to Europe to be with my sister. The pain I felt, the damage to Solana, it wasn't just from the rejection. It was from months of betrayal bleeding through the mate bond. My wolf is crippled now. Do you understand that? She may never fully recover. I might never bond with anyone again."

Silence. My mother looked at my father. Nicolás shifted in his chair. Valentina examined her nails.

"That's unfortunate," Rafael replied after a long pause, and the word "unfortunate" landed in my chest like a stone. "But the alliance matters more than one damaged bond."

"One damaged..." I almost choked. "I'm your daughter."

"And as my daughter, you have a duty to this pack." He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the vein pulsing at his temple. "Which brings me to my next point. We've arranged a new match for you."

The ground shifted under my feet. "Excuse me?"

"Leandro Salazar. Alpha of the Silver Heights pack. He's wealthy, well connected, and very interested in taking a young wife."

"He's sixty three years old."

"He's a valuable ally."

I looked around the room. My mother wouldn't meet my eyes. Nicolás had the decency to look at the floor, though I could see the smirk he was trying to hide. Valentina was watching me with an expression I recognized from childhood, that satisfied little look she always got when she won and I lost.

Something clicked into place inside me. Not a crack this time. A lock turning. A door closing forever.

"You know what I finally understand?" I picked up my suitcase. "I was never your daughter. I was inventory. I was a product with a shelf life and a price tag, and the moment I stopped being useful, you started shopping me out to the next buyer."

"Harper, don't be dramatic," my mother sighed.

"Dramatic? You're selling me to a man older than Papa to cover up a scandal that your precious Valentina created, and I'm the dramatic one?"

"Lower your voice," Rafael growled.

"No." I looked him dead in the eye and held it. Held it long enough that his wolf stirred and his nostrils flared and the room got so quiet I could hear the clock on the mantle ticking. "I am done being your pawn. I am done being the backup daughter you throw away whenever the golden one needs something. Find someone else to sacrifice."

I walked out the front door, pulling the little suitcase behind me, my thick legs carrying me down the porch steps and along the driveway until I was on the street and the house was behind me and the cool air filled my lungs like permission.

My phone buzzed. A text from Isadora. You okay?

I typed back with trembling fingers. No. But I'm free.