Chapter 3

The next morning I went to Blackpine Group anyway.

My badge failed at the lobby turnstile. The receptionist would not look at me and said only that the notice had just come down from the CEO's office. I asked her to call the head of administration and stood in the lobby for ten minutes. In the end a security guard brought out a cardboard box holding my personal things, my spare shoes, and five years of awards.

My office had already gone to Damian's cousin. Every project permission was frozen and my old team had been broken up. A few longtime employees stepped out of the elevator, saw the box, and stopped where they were.

"Ms. Hart, what happens to the annual project?"

"Follow whatever the company has arranged now."

I was not going to make them pick a side that morning. Damian was waiting for me to walk out with something so he could cast me as an ex who had stolen company assets.

My phone rang. Damian told me to come up to the top-floor conference room.

He sat behind the desk I had once picked out for him. Clara leaned against the window drinking warm milk. She wore a loose knit sweater and still looked pale, as if she were the one who had been shoved into a wall the day before.

Damian slid a tablet across to me. The social media accounts for Clara's Closet were buried in questions, and more than a dozen clients wanted refunds. Someone had recognized Damian's car as a fixture behind the store. Someone else had figured out that all ninety-nine dresses had been paid for on his card.

"Who did you tell?" Damian asked.

"I didn't tell anyone."

"Then why are clients suddenly canceling?"

"Maybe your car is too easy to spot."

Clara set down her cup, her eyes going red again. "Evelyn, I know you hate me, but the people who work at the store haven't done anything. Could you post a statement saying you and Damian split up amicably a long time ago?"

"No."

Damian's face darkened. "It's one statement. Do you have to take everything she has?"

"The apartment, the store, and most of the clients she has were mine to begin with. I'm not the one taking everything from somebody else."

"So you are still keeping score." He tapped the tablet, and a drafted public statement came up on the screen. It said I had lost control of my emotions because I could not accept a change in my fated mate bond, and that Clara and Damian had only become official after I stepped aside. Sign it, and I could come back and keep running my projects.

I pushed the tablet back. "I'm not going to lie for you."

That afternoon Blackpine's official account posted the statement, almost word for word the draft, only without my signature. Damian announced that I had been removed from my position because personal emotions were affecting my work. Clara followed with a video of herself crying, saying she had only fallen in love with a man who was willing to protect her at the lowest point of her life, and that she had never meant to hurt anyone.

The attacks under the video started fast. That I could not shift and had no business being Luna. That I could not stand being left, so I was jealous of a pregnant woman. Someone spliced my photo together with a picture of a lame wolf. Employees who spoke up for me got called in by HR.

I turned off my phone and started sorting my personal files. The invitation from Silverbank was still in my inbox. Three months earlier, Seraphina had offered to make me a partner, and I had turned her down because I did not want to leave Damian.

I answered that email.

My wrist started to burn. A black pattern surfaced under the skin. I knew it was Damian's Alpha mark, but I had no idea why it would be tied to an ordinary employment contract. A moment later my lawyer sent over the supplementary project documents I had signed six months ago. Buried in the middle of a dozen pages of authorizations was a three-year non-compete. If I joined any other pack-owned company, the mark would keep eating away at my wolf, and it would trigger a penalty large enough to bankrupt me.

Damian's call came through right after.

"You saw the agreement?"

"When did you put it in there?"

"Before you left for Europe. You signed that stack yourself."

I remembered the night before I flew out. He put a pile of documents in front of me and said everyone was waiting on my signature. I was packing. I did not check it page by page.

"You were already planning to betray me back then?"

Damian was quiet for two seconds. "I just didn't want the core of the company walking out with a personal relationship."

So March twelfth was not where things got out of hand. By the time I left, he was already calculating how to keep me at the company.

"Most of your savings went to the Reids and to Clara," he went on. "You can't pay the penalty. Give us your blessing publicly, stay at Blackpine and finish the projects you started, and I'll keep your package."

"You think I have no other options?"

"You can sue, of course, but that takes years. Evelyn, your wolf was always weak. It won't survive the mark grinding at it that long."

He knew me too well, so every step he took landed on the place that hurt most.

I did not argue. I hung up and dialed another number. Seraphina picked up right away.

"Evelyn?"

"I need you to get me out of a non-compete." I looked at the burning black lines on my wrist. "In return, Blackpine's biggest project next year will be our first project."