C5

“You look like death, Precious, but you’re still breathing.”

The man on the other side of the thick glass doesn’t blink as I am shoved into the visitor chair. He sits still, tall and terrifying, wrapped in a black suit that costs more than my old life. His eyes are razor sharp, dark and ancient, tracking the dried blood on my chin and the pale sway of my neck.

“You’re Timothy Theophilus Zuckerberg Perfection,” I whisper, my throat raw and burning. “The lawyer said you bought my sentence.”

“I don’t just buy sentences, Miss Vance,” he says, his deep voice sliding through the speaker grate like velvet over steel. “I own the system that built them.”

He doesn’t look at me with pity. He looks at me with intense, terrifying recognition. It is everything Lancelot isn’t—he is younger, harder, colder, built like a warlord who rules from the shadows. His presence crushes the air in my lungs, my wolf stirring in my chest, terrified and mesmerized all at once.

“You don’t remember me,” Theo continues, resting his large hands flat against the single metal table. “But I remember you. Four years ago, before Lancelot stripped your title.”

“I don’t care about four years ago,” I rasp, coughing into my fist as heat spikes through my stomach. “Why are you here? What do you want from a dying woman?”

Theo doesn’t flinch at my cough. He slowly opens a black leather folder and presses a thick document against the glass.

“Marriage,” Theo says plainly. “Full medical care in my private facility starting at eight o’clock this morning. Elite legal protection. Instant transfer out of this general prison population. One condition only: you belong to me until the day you die.”

My heart hits my ribs like a trapped bird. “Marriage? I’m an inmate. I’m a disgraced wolf who tried to poison a Luna. My body is failing from stage four pancreatic decay.”

“I know every crime you committed,” Theo says, his voice flat and unbothered. “I know the exact stage of your cancer. I know how many weeks your heart has left before it stops. I don’t save people, Miss Precious. I collect debts. And Kara Peterson owes me a debt that bleeds. You are going to help me collect it.”

“Why me?” I demand, my hands shaking on the cold metal surface. “Why give me a life when I’m already dead?”

Theo leans forward slightly, his dark eyes locking onto mine with absolute, unwavering certainty.

“Because I collect broken things,” he says quietly. “And when I rebuild them, they destroy everything in their path.”

My breath hitches in my dry throat. Before I can process the darkness in his words, I pull my gaze down to the paper pressed against the glass.

“What about my child?” I whisper, my voice cracking, the raw, bleeding wound in my soul opening wide. “The lawyer showed me the photo. He showed me what happened on those stairs.”

Theo’s face does not change, but his jaw tightens until the muscle jumps. He slides a second folder flat against the partition.

It is a medical file with Kara’s name at the top. The diagnosis is clear and absolute: complete permanent infertility, sterile from a botched teenage abortion years ago. She could never give Lancelot an heir. She needed mine gone so she could pretend to be whole.

Beside it, Theo presses a third sheet—the original EMT report from the night I fell down the marble stairs at the pack gala. At the bottom, under cause of trauma, the official pack medical examiner had written the word accident. But over that word, drawn in thick, blood-red ink, is a heavy circle around a single new word: HOMICIDE.

“Kara didn’t just push you, Precious,” Theo says, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark growl. “She planned the termination of your pregnancy two weeks before it happened. Lancelot signed off on her security clearance that night.”

Revenge flares through my blood like pure gasoline, overriding the agonized screaming of my dying cells. My wolf raises her head, howling for blood.

“Where is the chaplain?” I ask, my voice turning cold as ice.

Ten minutes later, the heavy iron door of the secure room opens. A prison chaplain steps inside, his hands trembling as he holds a small black Bible. There are no flowers. No music. No pack members cheering. Only the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the smell of bleach.

Theo stands beside me, his massive frame towering over my thin, shivering body. The guard unlocks my right handcuff just enough for the ceremony.

Theo pulls a heavy, solid black band from his vest pocket. He takes my cold hand in his massive, warm palm. The heat of his skin sends a sharp, electric jolt straight up my arm, making my breath catch in my chest. He slides the ring onto my finger, his thumb rubbing over my bruised knuckles with possessive force.

“Until death,” Theo speaks the vow, his dark eyes burning into mine.

He doesn’t wait for the chaplain to finish. Theo reaches out, cupping the back of my neck with his large, warm hand, pulling my face up to his. He leans in to seal the contract, his lips brushing against mine in a kiss that is cold, dangerous, and possessive.

As his mouth lingers against mine, his breath warm against my lips, he whispers three final words into my mouth:

“I was there, Precious. At that party. I saw you fall. And I saw her smile.”

A shudder rips through my entire body as he pulls back, leaving my lips burning from his touch.

By two o’clock that night, I am not in Cell 412. I am locked inside a private, reinforced suite in the high-security medical wing of the facility. The bed is soft, clean white sheets covering my thin legs, an IV drip pumping pain medication directly into my vein.

The heavy door unlocks with a soft electronic click.

Theo steps inside, carrying a sleek black laptop under his arm. He wears no jacket now, his dark dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the thick, powerful muscle of his neck.

He doesn’t touch me. He doesn't say a word about our kiss. He simply walks over to the side of my bed and sits on the edge, his massive weight causing the mattress to sink.

He snaps the laptop open and turns the high-definition screen directly toward my face.

On the screen is a crystal-clear, multi-angle live video stream.

It shows a candlelit, oceanfront honeymoon suite. Lancelot is standing near a balcony, pouring a glass of dark wine, his gold ring flashing under the dim lights. On the king-sized bed behind him, Kara lies wrapped in silk sheets, laughing softy as she checks her phone.

The audio feed hums to life, bringing their exact voices right into my small room.

“She’s in a maximum-security box now, baby,” Lancelot’s voice echoes clearly from the speakers as he walks toward the bed. “She will never hurt you again.”

“I know, my Alpha,” Kara coos, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. “She got exactly what she deserved.”

My chest burns with a violent, white-hot hatred that makes my knuckles turn translucent as I grip the bedsheets.

Theo slowly reaches down and slides the black laptop onto my lap, hovering his hand over mine for a single, heavy second. His fingers brush mine, warm and possessive, sending a violent wave of heat straight down to my stomach.

“You have full root access to every camera, every microphone, every hidden file in their pack network,” Theo whispers close to my ear, his dark voice heavy with lethal promise. “You control the lights in their room, the brakes on their cars, and the bank accounts that feed their pack.”

He leans in closer, his heavy alpha scent wrapping around me like a velvet collar.

“Welcome to your revenge, Mrs. Perfection.”