Chapter Four

Natalie pov 

I stood outside Adrian’s office like a statue made of ice. My fingers squeezed the leather folder until my nails bit into my palms.

Part of me wanted to run. I wanted to fly down the stairs, run out into the rainy street, and never look back. But my feet would not move. 

A small, foolish part of my heart begged me to stay. 'You misheard him,' the small voice whispered inside my head. 'He loves you. He is just playing a game with his Beta.'

I pressed my ear closer to the crack in the heavy door.

"What happens to Natalia after the bonding ceremony?" Thomas asked. His voice sounded cold and curious. "If you marry the Crescent Pack girl, what do you do with the human?"

I held my breath. My heart beat so loud I was afraid they would hear it through the wood. 

"Nothing changes," Adrian replied. He spoke like he was talking about a piece of office furniture.

 "Natalia is useful, but she is completely replaceable. She does the paperwork, she writes the reports, she builds the strategies. That is all she has ever been."

"Does she know that?" Thomas chuckled. "She looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky."

"It does not matter what she thinks," Adrian said. "The pack elders expected me to show a formal connection with her because she ran the company’s backend. So I let her believe the bonding ceremony was for her. It kept her loyal. It kept her working eighteen hours a day for free."

A cold blade pierced through my chest.

I remembered every late night I waited for him in his office with warm tea. 

I remembered sleeping on the uncomfortable leather couch while he danced at fancy galas. 

I remembered defending him when rich investors questioned his young age. I remembered believing every soft touch and gentle look meant he truly loved me.

It was all a performance. Every single word was a lie.

"Besides," Adrian continued, his voice turning sharp and serious. "The elders found Scarlett."

My breath hitched in my throat. 'Scarlett.!'

"Scarlett comes from the oldest Alpha bloodline in the northern territory," Adrian said, and I could hear the pride in his tone. "Her family has pure political power. More importantly, her bloodline carries the ancient solar trait. The Blackwood pack needs that blood to stay strong. I am going to make Scarlett my Luna."

The last piece of my broken heart shattered into dust.

Scarlett was not just a beautiful wolf, she was royalty. She was everything I could never be. I had no wolf, no noble blood, I was just an Omega with a pen and a calculator.

"What about Natalia's five-year expansion plan?" Thomas asked. "The one she just finished?"

"I am taking it," Adrian said smoothly. "I will transfer all her strategies into Scarlett’s name before the anniversary gala tonight. Scarlett will present the expansion plan to the elders as her gift to the Blackwood Group."

"Will Natalia stay if you give her work to another woman?"

"She has nowhere else to go," Adrian scoffed. "We will slowly rewrite the company history. In a year, no one will even remember Natalia Ernest worked here. She will just be an old employee who used to file paperwork."

I stepped back from the door.

The heavy folder in my arms felt like a mountain pressing down on my chest. 

Every single page inside carried weeks of my life. Every number was written with my sweat. 

Every strategy was born from my sleepless nights. He was taking my mind, my hard work, and my soul, and handing it to another woman on a silver platter.

I turned around quietly. I did not scream. I did not kick the door open. I walked down the long, carpeted hallway like a ghost.

I walked into my private office and shut the heavy door. I locked it.

I stood in the center of the dark room for a long time. The memories attacked me like sharp knives. 

I remembered studying at Wharton, dreaming of changing the world. I remembered the night Blackwood almost went broke, and I stayed up three days straight to save it. I remembered how proud I was when Adrian accepted awards for my work.

How could I be so blind? I thought I was smart. I thought I was brilliant. But love had made me completely foolish.

My phone lit up on the glass desk. A text message from Adrian appeared on the screen:

*Wear the dark blue dress to the gala tonight, Natalia. It makes you look obedient and quiet.*

I stared at the glowing blue words. Something inside me snapped. 

The sadness washed away, leaving only a cold, burning rage. 

He did not want an equal partner, he wanted a slave who would build his empire while he wore the crown with another woman.

I sat down at my computer desk and opened my private, encrypted files.

If Adrian wanted to throw me away, he was going to learn how dangerous I could be. I pulled up my original employment contracts, intellectual property records, and early strategy drafts.

Then I noticed something strange.

Several of the big strategies Adrian planned to hand over to Scarlett were legally registered under my name. 

I had filed the copyright patents myself three years ago. 

Adrian had been too lazy to check the legal ownership. 

If he presented my work under Scarlett's name tonight, he would be committing massive corporate fraud. His greatest betrayal was about to become his biggest legal weakness.

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I searched deeper into the main server.

Suddenly, my eyes caught a red file locked deep inside the Blackwood confidential archives. It had a high-security lock, but my name was written on the title tag.

I cracked the password and opened the document.

The file was dated seven years ago. That was four years before Adrian ever met me at the college library.

I scrolled down the first page. Beneath my full name were two other names written in dark bold letters: *Marcus Ernest and Elena Ernest.* My mother and my father.

The Blackwood family knew who I was long before Adrian found me in that library. My whole life with him had not been a random meeting at all.