CHAPTER 4

Nora’s POV

I came back to the house after lunch to pack the last of my winter clothes and the box of my mother's things I kept in the hallway closet.

What I found when I pulled into the driveway made me slam the brakes so hard the tires screamed.

Everything I owned was on the front lawn.

My books were scattered across the wet grass, pages curling in the rain that had started twenty minutes ago. My shoes were dumped in a pile near the porch steps. My winter coat was hanging off a bush like someone had thrown it from the second floor window. The cardboard box with my mother's things was sitting in a puddle, soaked through, and the framed photo of my parents on their wedding day was lying face down in the mud. The glass was cracked right down the middle, a clean split that ran through both their smiling faces.

I turned off the engine and sat there for a moment. Just sat there. Staring at my entire life tossed across a yard like trash day at a flea market.

Something inside me went very, very still.

I got out of the car. The rain hit my face immediately, cold and sharp, but I barely felt it. I walked across the driveway toward the porch, and that's when Rachel appeared in the front doorway.

She had her cane in one hand and her other hand pressed to her chest in that signature pose of hers. Wide eyes. Trembling lips. The whole performance.

"Oh, Nora. I'm so sorry. This is awful."

"What happened to my things, Rachel?"

"One of the pack girls, I think it was Sierra, she said she was helping you move out since you were leaving anyway. I told her to wait, I told her it wasn't her place, but she just started throwing things and I couldn't stop her." Rachel's voice wobbled perfectly. "I feel terrible about this. I really do."

I looked past her at the open front door. At the muddy footprints on the hallway floor that matched Rachel's shoe size exactly. At the single cane mark pressed into the soft wet soil right next to my mother's broken picture frame.

Sierra didn't do this. Sierra had never been inside the main house without an invitation.

Before I could say a word, Damien's black truck pulled into the driveway. He stepped out, took one look at the mess on the lawn, and his face went hard as stone.

"What the hell happened here?"

Rachel moved toward him immediately, her cane clicking on the porch. "It was Nora. She came in screaming about the divorce and just started throwing everything out of the closets. I tried to calm her down but she told me to stay away from her. She was so angry, Damien. I was honestly frightened."

I watched her eyes while she talked. Watched the way they flicked to Damien's face between every sentence, checking if it was landing. Calculating. Adjusting. She wasn't upset. She was directing a scene.

And Damien was eating every bite.

He turned on me with fire in his eyes. "What is wrong with you, Nora? You want to leave? Fine. Go. But you don't get to come in here and destroy the house and terrify Rachel on your way out."

"I didn't do this."

"Rachel just told me exactly what happened."

"Rachel is lying."

His face hardened so fast it was like watching a door slam shut. "Don't. Don't start with this. Rachel has no reason to lie. She has been nothing but kind to you since she arrived and all you've done is make her life harder."

I stared at him. At this man I had loved for three years. This man who watched me cook and clean and smile and bleed for his pack and never once believed a single word that came out of my mouth.

Something inside me snapped. Not loud. Not explosive. Quiet. Like a thread that had been stretched too thin for too long finally letting go.

"It doesn't matter."

He blinked. "What?"

"I said it doesn't matter, Damien. None of it. Not the clothes. Not the shoes. Not even the picture frame." I bent down and picked up my mother's photo from the mud. The crack ran right through her smile. I wiped the glass with my sleeve and tucked it under my arm. "Because I am never coming back to this house. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not next month. Not ever."

Something shifted in his face. The anger cracked and underneath it was something raw and startled, like a man who just watched the ground open up where he was about to step.

He crossed the lawn in three fast strides and grabbed my arm. Hard. "You don't get to say that."

"Let go of me."

"No." His grip tightened. His other hand came up and caught my jaw, tilting my face toward his. "You don't get to walk away from me like I mean nothing."

"You mean nothing? That's interesting coming from the man who just replaced me with another woman in my own bedroom."

His eyes darkened. His breathing changed. And then he kissed me.

Not gentle. Not loving. Not anything close to tender. This was possession. This was a man putting his mouth on something he considered his, not because he wanted it but because he couldn't stand the thought of someone else having it.

I didn't kiss him back. I stood there in the rain with my eyes open, watching the water run down his jaw, and I waited. I waited the way you wait for a storm to pass when you know the sun is coming.

When he pulled back, his chest was heaving and his eyes were wild, searching my face for something I wasn't going to give him.

"You belong to this pack, Nora. Even after the divorce goes through, you are still a registered member of Silvercrest. You cannot leave pack territory without my direct permission. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

I looked up at him. Rain was running down my face, mixing with something hot leaking from the corners of my eyes, but I didn't wipe it away.

"Yes, Alpha."

He flinched. Not at the words. At the way I said them. Empty. Hollow. Like they were coming from a stranger.

His hand dropped from my jaw. He stepped back. His fingers were shaking.

I picked up what I could carry and walked to the guest house without looking back. I closed the door. I locked it. I sat on the bed and pressed my mother's cracked photo against my chest.

Then I pulled out my second phone and opened the countdown I had set three days ago.

Twenty six days.

I was going to make it. No matter what they did to me. No matter what lies Rachel told. No matter how many times Damien grabbed me and kissed me like he still had the right.

I was going to walk out of those gates. And when I did, I was never looking back.