Sign It

CALEB

For someone my age, I was good at this. Better than good, if I'm honest, though Mum would tell me off for saying so out loud.

Computers had always been my playground. Nobody taught me any of it. I just picked it up the way some pups pick up scent-tracking before they've even shifted for the first time, and by the time I was old enough to understand what I was actually doing, I was already better at it than most of the adults getting paid to stop people like me. In certain corners of the world my mum knew nothing about, they called me Mr. Caesar. A digital ghost. Somebody who could dig up anything, if you gave him enough time and a decent connection.

This time I'd gone after the national medical registries first, running every fragment I had against every record available. Nothing. Not one useful match anywhere in the system.

It left a knot in my chest I didn't love sitting with.

I wanted to hand my mum an actual name, not just a promise that I was looking. But the trail had gone properly cold, and if the ordinary registries had nothing on him, that left exactly two possibilities. Either my real father was already dead, or he was someone important enough that his records had been buried somewhere no ordinary system could touch.

If he was dead, I decided, that still wasn't going to be the end of it. I'd find a way to make that not feel like enough of an ending either.

My fingers moved fast over the keys, and I watched the so-called upgraded Dark Web defences crumble under me exactly the way the old ones had. I couldn't help the small, satisfied smirk that pulled at my mouth. Whoever was running security on that side these days needed to be fired. They hadn't learned a single thing since the last time I'd been through.

Buried deep inside that same network was the thing I actually wanted: the top-tier Genetic Database, the kind of vault that could tell me anything about anyone, if the anyone in question was still alive to have a file at all.

My hands kept moving. Then, all at once, my expression went tight.

Lines of garbled code flickered across the screen. Someone was tracing me back.

A slow, confident smile crept onto my face despite the spike of adrenaline. Not bad. Faster than last time. Somebody on the other end was finally getting better at their job.

I was just lining up a counter, ready to push straight through whatever new wall they'd built, when a voice drifted up from downstairs. One of the house staff, announcing Nathaniel's return.

I logged off instantly, shut the whole rig down without a flicker of hesitation, and slipped downstairs before anyone thought to wonder what I'd been doing up there.

POV: MAYA

I was in the sitting room when Nathaniel walked in, a pot of tea steeping in front of me, steam curling slow into the quiet.

He stopped in the doorway a beat too long. I could feel him noticing it, the tea, the stillness, the fact that I wasn't the woman who'd once have been pacing and furious by the time he finally showed his face. In six years he'd never once seen me sit this still in a room he'd just walked into.

His gaze dropped to the bag in his hand, then flicked back to me, some calculation working behind his eyes. I already knew what was in it before he set it down. 

A designer bag, clearly meant for someone else originally, hastily duplicated once I'd made a scene at the checkpoint. Something to smooth things over. Something a woman was supposed to be grateful for.

He crossed the room, sat on the sofa across from me, and placed the bag deliberately in my line of sight. I didn't so much as glance at it. Being ignored never sat well with him. 

"We need to talk," he said, breaking the silence first, the way he always did when he mistook quiet for weakness. I set my cup down and finally met his eyes. 

"Do me a favour and sign this first."

I pulled the folder from beside me and slid the papers across the table. He didn't need to read the header to know what it was. His expression went to ice instantly. 

"You're actually doing this." He snatched the pages up, scanned them, jaw tightening. 

"Are you finished with the performance? There's nothing between Elise and me. Do you have to make a scene everywhere now, first the checkpoint, now here in our own home?"

"If we're ending it, there's no reason to drag this out." My voice stayed level, calm, entirely without heat. "I've already signed my half. Read the terms. If they're acceptable, sign yours."

He didn't bother reading a single line. He tossed the papers back onto the table between us, voice sharpening. 

"You think you can just walk away because you've decided to? I'm Alpha of the strongest pack in this country, Maya. A Luna doesn't simply hand back a mark, there are territories involved, alliances, the whole pack's standing with the..."

"Funny," I cut in, before he could finish building his case. 

"I don't want a single thing that belongs to Blackstorm. Not the territory, not the title, not one coin of pack wealth. I only want what was always mine to begin with." I kept my voice steady, unhurried. 

"It's in the final clause. The trust my mother left me before she died. Your grandfather made it clear, years ago, that money was set aside for me and no one else. It belongs to me regardless of anything that happens between us."

For a moment something flickered across his face, genuine surprise that I'd refuse the weight of everything Blackstorm could offer. Then it smoothed over just as fast.

He controlled a fortune that could buy and sell most of the packs in this country twice over, and here I was, telling him I wanted none of it. Impossible, his expression said. She's performing. Trying to get a reaction out of me.

I'd played the dutiful Luna for six years, after all. Stayed quiet at gatherings, never questioned his absences, poured everything into raising Caleb and keeping the peace. Edmund had adored me for it. 

In Nathaniel's mind, I was simply a woman protesting neglect the only way she knew how, and he clearly believed, with the same confidence he believed everything about himself, that this was no different.

"Elise isn't well," he said instead, his tone shifting toward something he probably thought sounded like solemn duty. 

"Her condition's been fragile for years, she needs constant care, and raising Elathan on her own hasn't been easy for her." A pause, weighted for effect. 

"You know what happened during the rogue incursion, years back. I nearly didn't survive that attack. She threw herself between me and a wolfsbane blade meant for my throat. Whatever's wrong with her now traces back to that night. I owe her more than either of us can repay."

I watched him deliver that little speech with such practised conviction I nearly laughed out loud.

How easily the lies rolled off him. The real mistake had been mine, six years ago, agreeing to bind my life to a wolf who'd never once looked past his own certainty long enough to actually see me.

"You don't owe me any explanation," I said. 

"The moment I said it's over, it was over. Your favourite is home now, Nathaniel. I'm simply making room for the two of you properly this time. You should be thanking me." I nudged the papers back across the table toward him. 

"Sign it. I'm sure she's waiting to hear it's done."

"Maya. Enough." His voice cracked sharp through the room.

He stared at me, searching my face for the anger he'd clearly expected, the tears, the scene he thought he knew how to manage. He found none of it. Only a calm he had never once seen from me in six years of marriage, and something in his expression finally, finally shifted.

For the first time, I watched a thought cross his face that had never once occurred to him before. I could literally read what’s on his mind right now, he’s thinking...

“She isn't bluffing. She actually wants this.”