Chapter 2

Nora POV: We met at the coffee shop on Fifth, the one where Tyler had asked me out four years ago. I got there first. I sat in our old booth with a latte I couldn't drink, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck to hide the bruises, and my hands clenched in my lap so no one could see them shaking. He pushed through the glass door ten minutes late. Same sandy hair, same pressed shirt, same easy smile he wore at his office parties. Except today the smile didn't make it to his eyes. "Babe." He slid into the booth across from me. "Look, last night got messed up. That's all. We can fix it." "Fix what, Tyler?" He glanced around, then leaned in and lowered his voice. "Gregory Chase decides who gets the regional manager spot. You know that. He told me, if you were... friendly... for one night, the job was mine. One night, Nora. And then we'd have everything. The house. The wedding. The life we talked about." I just looked at him. The memories I'd been too drunk to hold on to came crawling back. Tyler's friends pouring my drinks. Tyler taking a phone call outside the booth, his voice low and eager. Don't worry, sir. She's almost ready. I'll send her up. Gregory Chase. Fifty years old. A gut that strained his shirt buttons and a wedding ring he took off at parties. At Tyler's Christmas party, he had cornered me by the coat rack and sniffed my hair like I was something on a dessert tray. I'd told Tyler about it that night. Tyler had laughed and said, He's an old wolf, babe. They're all like that. "You planned it," I said. "You got me drunk on my birthday so you could hand me to your boss." "Don't say it like that." He reached for my hand. "It's how things work. You're wolfless, Nora. You don't understand pack politics. Guys like me don't move up unless we have something to offer." Wolfless. He had never said it to my face before. Not in four years. He said it now like it was a reason. Like it was a price tag. I picked up my latte and threw it in his face. Tyler sputtered and jerked back. Foam dripped from his eyebrows. The barista froze with a pitcher in her hand. Two tables over, a woman gasped. "You disgusting..." Tyler's chair scraped back. He grabbed for my wrist across the table, and then he stopped. His nostrils flared. I watched his pupils blow wide. He leaned closer and inhaled, long and slow, the way wolves did when something was wrong in their territory. When he looked up at me again, his face had gone a sick, splotchy red. "You smell like a male," he hissed. I didn't answer. "You smell like..." He breathed in again, and his lip curled back off his teeth. "Who was he? Where did you go last night? You went to the wrong room, didn't you? You let some stranger..." His hand shot out and yanked my scarf down. The bruise on my throat was right there for everyone to see. The coffee shop went silent. I slapped him so hard his head snapped sideways. "Don't touch me," I said. "You little..." He lunged. I slapped him again. Harder. My palm stung all the way to my elbow. "The first one was for last night," I said. My voice shook, but I kept going. "The second one is for the four years I wasted on you." Tyler stood there with coffee in his hair and two red handprints blooming on his face. Every wolf in the shop was staring at him. A barista had her phone out. I saw the exact moment he realized it. "We're done," I said, and I fixed my scarf with hands I refused to let tremble. "Don't call me. Don't come to my apartment. What you did last night is called trafficking, Tyler. If you come near me again, I'll go to the Pack Enforcers and tell them everything." I walked out. I made it half a block before the tears came. I didn't stop walking. I didn't let myself sit down on the curb and fall apart, even though every part of me wanted to. Four years. I had planned a life with him. I had picked out names for children with him. And he had looked at me and seen something to trade. At the corner of Fifth and Main, the light turned red. I stood at the crosswalk, wiping my face with the back of my hand, waiting. Above the intersection, the giant screen on the side of the Crown Holdings tower flickered from a perfume ad to the morning financial news. BREAKING: SILVERCREST HEIR RETURNS TO TAKE THE THRONE. I didn't care. I worked on the twenty-eighth floor of that tower, and I couldn't have cared less about which rich wolf was going to run it. Then the camera cut to a man stepping out of a black car in front of a sea of reporters. Black hair. Charcoal suit. A jaw like it had been cut with a blade. The world went silent around me. The reporter's voice floated down from the screen, bright and cheerful. "Lucian Shaw, future Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack, officially takes over as CEO of Crown Holdings this Monday..." The man on the screen looked straight into the camera. Ten hours ago, I had woken up with his arm around my waist.