I shouldn’t be here. And still…
My gaze dragged until it landed on the desk. There it was. His laptop. Not hidden. Not locked away. Just… there.
Like a test. Or a trap.
My fingers twitched at my side, a restless, traitorous urge curling through me. Curiosity burned hotter than caution. It licked up my spine, whispering that one look wouldn’t matter. That I could take something from him for once.
I took a step closer before I could stop myself.
I flipped it open. No password. No biometric scan. Just an open digital door.
Is it snooping if the contract is signed and the vows are spoken? I was his wife. What was his was mine, and all. I was already justifying the breach.
I pulled out the chair and sat, my fingers hovering over the trackpad. I was on the hunt for anything to give me more power. What I found was a folder labeled with my name.
It definitely wasn't snooping if it was about me. I double-clicked on the icon. The folder spilled its contents. What was inside wasn't just a background check; it was an autopsy of my life.
There were dossiers on my past relationships, names of partners I hadn't thought of in years, even notes on my spending habits and the exact date I’d earned my last bonus. The level of intrusion was staggering. He hadn't just bought my debt; he’d mapped my soul.
And then, right beneath my personal file, was a folder for Sterling & Associates.
The red silk of my wedding dress pooled around me like a bloodstain. The laptop screen cast a cold, clinical glow over my face, illuminating the files he hadn't even bothered to hide.
I’d spent three years in the belly of the corporate beast. I knew how to read a ledger better than I knew how to read a prayer book. What I saw wasn't a hymn; it was a revelation.
Vidar was orchestrating a massive short-sell of Sterling & Associates. In the simplest, most brutal terms, he was betting that my old firm would fail. A short-sell is a gamble on a funeral; you "borrow" shares at a high price, sell them immediately, and wait for the company to crater so you can buy them back for pennies to return them. The difference—the wreckage—is your profit.
But Vidar wasn't just waiting for the firm to die. By dumping a massive volume of shares into the market all at once, he was forcing the price to plummet. He was the one holding the pillow over the firm’s face while the rest of the market would watch it suffocate.
My eyes scanned the transaction logs, and my blood turned to ice.
There, tucked into a sub-folder of "Acquisitions," were my own private shares. The equity I’d bled for. He’d already bought them up through a series of offshore shell companies. It was illegal—insider trading, market manipulation, a dozen different felonies—but the Blackwoods didn't live by the law of the land. They lived by the law of the wild.
A sick, twisted part of me realized he’d, in a sense, saved me. By moving my stock into his account before the crash, he’d insulated my wealth. I wouldn't lose a dime when Sterling & Associates hit zero.
But then I remembered Nell.
Nell, who didn't have a Blackwood protector. Nell, who believed in the firm even more than I had. She had poured every bonus, every cent of her savings, into buying more stock during the last quarter, convinced the stock would pay back in dividends.
If this short-sell went through—and it was already in motion—Nell wouldn't just be unemployed. She would be bankrupt. She’d be left holding a handful of worthless paper while her life’s work was stripped for parts.
My loyalty to Nell was the only thing I had left that hadn't been signed away in a marriage contract. I went back to my room and grabbed my phone.
"Pick up, Nell. Please, pick up the damn phone."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VIDAR
Ileaned against the cold steel of a shipping container, watching the Ironwood wolves scramble into defensive positions. From a distance, they looked formidable—a sea of dark fur and bared teeth—but the wind told a different story. I pulled the scent into my lungs, filtering out the sweat and the diesel, and tasted nothing but the sour, thin tang of desperation.
The pack was weak. It was the rot eating the heart out of the modern pack. It was a landscape of extremes: old wolves clinging to traditions that had no teeth in a digital age, or over-eager pups with plenty of snarls and zero experience. The Ironwoods were a textbook case of the latter.
Their old Alpha had been a titan; a wolf my dad had once respected. When the old man passed, my father had reached out, offering a steadying hand to the heir to keep the transit linesstable. The kid had snubbed the offer, mistaking an olive branch for a leash.
He’d chosen pride over survival. In our world, that was a terminal diagnosis.
The Ironwoods were desperate. Desperation was a poor substitute for the Blackwood machine. Once, they’d been something else. Older. Disciplined. A pack that understood patience as much as power. That had died with their last true alpha. What remained had fractured under the rule of his son; young, untested, and arrogant enough to mistake inheritance for strength. The elders had either walked away or been driven out. What was left behind wasn’t a pack. It was a collection of survivors pretending at one.
