Vivian POV

The next morning, the cold reality of my new existence settled in. Sitting in the back of the Pack sedan heading to Sterling Corp, my phone buzzed. It was an email from Arthur Penhaligon, the Beta. Copied on the thread: Alpha Julian Sterling.

Subject: *'Project Phoenix': Luna Liaison Appointment.*

I stared at the screen, my blood running cold. *Project Phoenix.* Serena’s rebirth, built entirely on the ashes of my marriage and my career. Because I was a wolfless Omega, deaf to the Pack's *Mind-Link*, this sterile email was my only connection to the Pack's ruling core. Julian was forcing me to personally oversee the handover of my own campaign to his mistress. It was a calculated, public execution of my dignity.

At 10:00 AM, I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the boardroom. The air instantly assaulted me. Massive arrangements of white lilies—the flowers of funerals—choked the room. But worse was the cloying, artificial stench of hothouse orchids radiating from Serena Chase. She stood at the head of the obsidian table in a triumphant white dress.

My newly heightened senses, a secret gift of my pregnancy, dialed the sickening scents up to a lethal dose.

"Vivian, darling," Serena purred, her eyes gleaming with malice. She spun around, deliberately waving a scent strip soaked in heavy musk and synthetic pheromones inches from my nose.

The aggressive scent of another she-wolf invading my territory was the final trigger. Deep in my womb, my pup violently recoiled, protesting the father's betrayal. A wave of intense nausea hit me like a freight train. I clamped a hand over my mouth, shoved my chair back, and bolted from the room.

I barely made it to the sink in the 40th-floor executive restroom before I retched. I splashed cold water on my face, gasping for air.

The heavy door slammed shut. The air froze.

Julian’s towering frame blocked the exit. His scent—winter storm and ancient pine—was laced with a dangerous, interrogating edge. His ice-blue eyes were dark with suspicion, his inner wolf, *Rage*, clawing at the surface. He was remembering my hypothetical question from yesterday.

"*What's wrong with you?*" he growled, his Alpha aura pressing down on my lungs.

Panic flared, but the fierce mother inside me took over. "Stress-induced ulcer," I choked out, forcing my hands to stop shaking. "It flared up."

To sell the lie, I reached into my purse and pulled out the relabeled bottle. I turned the label toward him—*Prescription Ulcer Medication*—then popped the cap. Holding his piercing gaze, I dry-swallowed a large prenatal vitamin.

The physical proof seemed to appease his beast. The suspicion in his eyes cooled back into glacial indifference. "Take a leave of absence after the launch," he ordered coldly. It wasn't care; it was a dismissal. He turned and left.

I exhaled a shaky breath, my hand resting on my stomach. I had just fed my pup right in front of the Alpha who wanted it dead, and he had no idea.

When I returned to the boardroom, the sight that greeted me solidified the ice in my veins. Julian was leaning over Serena, his large hand resting intimately on her lower back as they shared a private smile.

My phone lit up on the table. A text from an unknown number.

*This is Mark, Lily Evans' agent. Your husband is about to breach a multi-million dollar contract. We need to talk.*

I looked up at the golden couple, the Alpha and his chosen queen, completely oblivious to the storm gathering beneath them. Without a second of hesitation, I typed my reply.

*Downstairs coffee shop. 10 minutes. I'll help you burn them to the ground.*

Vivian POV

The adrenaline from my secret alliance with Mark carried me through the night, but by the next morning, the freezing reality of the penthouse extinguished it.

I stood in the center of the living room, the morning sun casting long, sterile shadows across the floor. Julian stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, adjusting his cuffs. His scent—winter storm and ancient pine—was suffocatingly heavy, demanding absolute submission.

"Serena's official welcome party is tonight at the jazz club in the Village," he said, not bothering to look at me. "You will organize the catering and ensure the VIP section is prepared."

I stared at his broad back, my nails digging into my palms. "I won't be your event planner for your mistress, Julian. Have Olivia do it."

Julian finally turned. His ice-blue eyes were devoid of any warmth. He didn't use the *Alpha's Command*. He didn't need to. He knew exactly where to slide the knife.

"The Pack's steward is auditing the family vault today," he said, his voice dangerously calm. "I noticed your late father's antique watch collection is taking up space. Since William Miller was human, those items don't meet the Pack's heritage standards. If you're too busy to handle tonight's arrangements, I'll have the steward dispose of them."

The air left my lungs. Those watches were the only tangible pieces of love I had left in this world. They were the late nights my adoptive father spent working to pay for my education, the quiet moments of a simple, human life before I was dragged into this ruthless Pack.

Julian was holding my father's memory hostage just to humiliate me.

"Fine," I whispered, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.

Hours later, the dim, whiskey-soaked air of the jazz club in the Village was suffocating. The space was already reeking of Serena's artificial hothouse orchids, a scent that made my heightened, pregnant senses violently recoil.

I walked toward the DJ booth, clutching the catering menu that required Julian's signature. I just needed to get this over with and escape.

As I approached, I saw Julian and Serena standing by the turntables. Julian was carefully sliding a worn Miles Davis vinyl record out of its sleeve. His face held a look of profound, genuine reverence—a softness I hadn't seen directed at me in three years of marriage.

"I kept it safe," Julian murmured to her, his thumb brushing the edge of the cardboard. "The best gift I've ever received."

My heart stopped.

My eyes instinctively dropped to the bottom shelf of the DJ booth. There, shoved into the darkest corner and covered in a thin layer of dust, was a pristine, unopened first-edition copy of the exact same record. I had spent months tracking it down for his birthday last year. He hadn't even bothered to tear off the wrapping paper.

But that wasn't the killing blow.

As Julian tilted the worn record toward the dim light, I saw the silver sharpie scrawled across the corner: *Happy 25th, Jay.*

*Jay.*

A sudden, violent ringing filled my ears. *Jay.* An intimate, tender nickname that belonged entirely to another woman. I was his Luna, his wife, and I was only ever allowed to call him Alpha or Julian. I was a political obligation; she was his soul.

The heavy wooden clipboard slipped from my numb fingers, clattering loudly against the hardwood floor.

Julian's head snapped up, his eyes instantly hardening into glacial annoyance. Serena leaned against his arm, looking down at the fallen clipboard with a triumphant, pitying smirk.

"Oh, darling," Serena purred, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness. "Don't be clumsy."

I couldn't breathe. The humiliation was a physical weight crushing my chest. I muttered a fractured excuse about checking the kitchen and turned, practically running toward the back exit.

I burst into the narrow back alley behind the club. The cold, damp air smelled of rain and rotting garbage, but it was better than the stench of his betrayal. I slid down the grimy brick wall, my knees hitting the wet pavement as a suppressed, agonizing sob finally tore from my throat.

I had given him everything. My pride, my career, my heart. And it was all just dust on a bottom shelf.

As the grief threatened to swallow me whole, a sudden, microscopic sensation rippled through my lower abdomen. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible flutter.

My breath hitched. My hands flew to my flat stomach.

It was my pup. It was as if the tiny life inside me was responding to my shattered soul, a silent promise that I was not alone. This child was mine. It carried the blood of an Alpha, but it also carried the hidden, ancient resilience of my mother's White Wolf bloodline. It was a treasure Julian Sterling would never, ever touch.

A strange, powerful heat bloomed in my chest, incinerating the last pathetic remnants of the submissive Omega I used to be.

I wiped the tears from my face, my hands completely steady. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed my lawyer's private number. He answered on the second ring.

"Prepare the documents to accept the rejection," I said, my voice echoing off the damp brick walls, cold and absolute. "I want nothing from him. Not his money, not his protection. Just my freedom."

I hung up the phone. I stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from my dress. I walked back toward the heavy metal door of the club, carrying a secret that would eventually bring the Alpha of the Sterling Pack to his knees.