Chapter 8: The Frenemy

Vivienne POV

I was minding my own business, invisible to everyone as usual, thumb dragging lazily down my screen on WolfChat when the post stopped me cold.

BREAKING: Luna Rachel Missing — Fled Back to Human World With Son, Alpha Confirms

I sat up straighter. The photo attached was old — Rachel in her wedding gown, round-faced and smiling like she believed in something. Underneath it, a quote from Jacob himself, grief-stricken, broken, begging the pack to pray for his missing wife and child.

Something about it sat wrong in my stomach. Not sad.

Wrong.

Lucy's name was tagged beneath his, adding her own tearful plea, and the comments were already flooding with hearts and prayer emojis from wolves who'd never once looked twice at Rachel when she was Luna. I scrolled further, searching for anyone else who felt the same itch under their skin that I did — anyone who thought it strange that a woman who'd clawed her way into loving this pack would simply vanish into the night with her son and never resurface.

No one questioned it. No one ever questioned anything Jacob said.

I was still staring at the photo, at the particular tightness around Rachel's eyes in that old wedding portrait, when my mother's voice cracked through the house like a whip.

"Vivienne!"

Could it be. Someone finally remembered I existed.

I climbed the stairs slowly, phone still clutched in my hand, Rachel's smiling face still burning behind my eyes. The hallway upstairs felt colder than usual, the air holding its breath. Something had happened here. I could feel it in the walls, in the too-perfect silence.

No one was in sight. Not even Danielle — the stranger, the thief who'd done nothing but walk into our lives and steal the fortune that should have been ours.

Such a thief.

I crept forward and caught the murmur of voices bleeding out from beneath her door.

Wasn't Jackson just downstairs a minute ago?

I slowed as I neared the door, my pulse ticking up without my permission. A second voice answered — deeper, unfamiliar, rough at the edges in a way that made the hair along my arms rise. Curiosity dragged my hand toward the doorknob before I'd even decided to move.

"Vivienne!" My mother's voice again, sharper this time, yanking me back to myself before my fingers could close around the handle.

I knocked gently and let myself into her room instead, the door easing shut behind me.

"You called, Mother?" I said, and the smile that came with it was real — the first real one I'd worn all week.

"Oh, dear. I just missed your presence. I wanted to check on you."

"Oh — really?" The smile widened before I could stop it. A week. A full week, and not a single soul in this house had spoken my name until now.

"Yes. I noticed you've been so dull since that witch Danielle woke up from her coma." Her expression shifted the moment the words left her mouth — folding into something I recognized instantly. Something practiced. Something that always came right before she needed me for something.

She didn't waste time working up to it.

"Can you do me a favor, my daughter?"

Anger spiked through me, hot and immediate, straight up into my skull. I felt my claws twitch beneath my skin before I could master them.

She was my mother. I owed her that much control, at least.

"What is it, Mother?"

"Danielle stole everything from this family — our wealth, our standing, all of it. The moment she fully claims her inheritance, she could throw every one of us out onto the street if she wanted to. And after everything we did to her before her accident, can you imagine she wouldn't want to?"

The memories came rushing back before I could brace for them. The torment. The years of looking through her like she was furniture. The humiliation we'd all taken turns dealing out. I hadn't led any of it — but I hadn't stopped it either. And Danielle, since waking, had become someone I couldn't predict at all.

"What do you want, Mother?"

"You know what they say. Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer."

My stomach dropped. "Are you serious? I've spent my entire life staying out of everyone's schemes, refusing to be the villain in someone else's story — and this is what you're asking of me?"

"Listen to me, Vivienne—" She cut through my protest before it could gather momentum. "I know exactly what you think of me right now. But think of yourself, for once. This isn't only about me."

She wasn't wrong. Danielle had taken everything — from the family, from me.

My pulse thudded once, hard, in my throat. Was I actually considering this?

It's not even wrong. I'd only be taking back what's already ours.

"But why me, Mother?" The question came out smaller than I meant it to.

"Because you're the only one I trust completely. And your temperament — quiet, watchful, different from the rest of us — makes you perfect for this. No one will ever suspect you."

"I can't give you an answer yet. I need time to think."

"Wait, Vivienne—"

I was already through the door before she finished, my back to her, refusing to turn around no matter how sharp her voice climbed behind me.

How could my own mother ask this of me?

I stalked back down the hallway, my thoughts still tangled around Rachel's missing-persons post, my mother's request coiling on top of it like a second weight — and that's when I saw them. Danielle, and the new bodyguard, stepping out of her room together.

I froze mid-step.

Something about the way they moved was wrong. Too close, too careful, like two people trying hard not to look like they'd just been caught at something. The man leaned toward her as they walked, his voice pitched low, his expression flickering with something raw before he smoothed it back into professional distance.

What exactly happened in that room?

The second they turned the corner out of sight, I noticed the door standing open behind them — carelessly, like neither of them had thought to check.

I didn't decide to go in. My feet simply carried me there.

I wasn't sure what I was hunting for. I only knew, with a certainty that pulled at something old and hungry in my chest, that I needed to see whatever they'd left behind.

The wooden designer desk sat against the far wall, and there, in plain view, lay a single sheet of paper.

I crossed the room, picked it up, and read.

The gasp tore out of me before I could stop it. My jaw locked. My hands went cold around the edges of the page.

This can't be. This can't be real.

Footsteps. My mother's voice, drifting closer from the hallway. "What are you doing here? Are you okay, honey?”

I folded the paper once, twice, my heart slamming against my ribs as I shoved it into my sleeve and forced my face into something calm.

"I'm done thinking about it, Mother." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm in.”