Caroline POV:

When I returned to the table, the atmosphere in the restaurant had shifted. The air was thick with tension.

"You have no wolf," Ariana was saying to Blake, loud enough for the neighboring tables to hear. She was wearing my earrings. "That's why she doesn't understand our connection, Blake. She's basically human. She doesn't feel the pull of the pack like we do."

I stopped at the table. "I understand the pull of loyalty, Ariana. Something you seem to lack."

"Don't start," Blake warned, glaring at me.

Suddenly, the ground shook.

A boom echoed from the kitchen—a gas explosion. Rogues. It had to be.

The restaurant was chaos. Wolves were shifting, tables were overturning.

Above us, the massive crystal chandelier—iron and silver, beautiful and deadly—swayed violently. The ceiling groaned.

I looked up. The anchor bolt snapped.

"Blake!" I screamed.

Time seemed to slow down. The massive fixture was falling directly over our table.

It was the ultimate test of instinct. In moments of life or death, a wolf doesn't think. They react. They protect their most precious thing. Their mate.

Blake moved. He was a blur of speed.

He lunged across the table.

He tackled Ariana.

He shoved her clear of the impact zone, covering her body with his own, rolling them both to safety under a heavy oak sideboard.

I stood there. I didn't have Alpha speed. I didn't have a wolf to enhance my reflexes.

The chandelier crashed down.

The world exploded into pain.

Half a ton of crystal and silver metal slammed into me. I felt my right leg shatter. The jagged metal spikes, coated in silver dust, pierced my shoulder, pinning me to the floor.

The scream that tore from my throat was human and raw. The silver burned like acid, sizzling as it touched my blood.

Dust and debris filled the air.

"Ariana! Are you hurt?" I heard Blake's frantic voice.

"I... I think I scraped my elbow," Ariana whimpered.

I lay under the wreckage, gasping for air. The silver was poisoning me, fast. "Blake..." I croaked.

Blake crawled out from under the sideboard. He helped Ariana up. He checked her over, scanning her for injuries.

Then, he looked at the pile of twisted metal where his wife was buried.

He saw my hand sticking out, blood pooling on the expensive carpet.

He took a step toward me, his eyes wide with horror.

"I can't breathe!" Ariana gasped, clutching his arm. "The dust! My asthma! Blake, don't leave me!"

Blake hesitated. He looked at me, trapped and bleeding out. He looked at Ariana, who was standing and breathing fine.

"Beta guards!" Blake roared at the confused security team rushing in. "Get Caroline out! Get her to the hospital!"

He scooped Ariana up into his arms. "I'm getting Ariana to fresh air."

He turned his back to me. Again.

As the darkness encroached on my vision, I watched him run out the exit, holding another woman, while silver poison ate through my veins.

My phone was shattered in my pocket, but the calculation in my mind was crystal clear.

The chandelier fell. He became her shield. I became the casualty.

-20.

Total Remaining: 10.

Caroline POV:

Six hours. That was how long it took for the doctors to stabilize my vitals and extract the largest shards of silver from my leg. The pain was a dull, throbbing roar, like a beast trapped under my skin.

I signed the discharge papers with a shaking hand. The doctors protested, citing infection risks and the severity of the fractures, but I refused to stay. I couldn't breathe in that room.

I took a cab back to the penthouse. It was midnight. The city below was a grid of uncaring lights.

When I entered the apartment, the smell of whiskey hit me. It was a sharp, biting scent that overpowered the usual cedarwood aroma of the home.

Blake was in his study. The door was ajar. He was slumped in his leather armchair, a half-empty bottle of amber liquid on the desk. His tie was undone, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked wrecked, but not for me.

I stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on my crutches, gritting my teeth against the fire in my shattered leg.

He looked up, his eyes glassy and unfocused. For a moment, his face softened.

"Ariana?" he slurred.

The name was a slap. He was looking right at me, his wife of five years, and he saw the ghost of his past.

"No, Blake," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "It's Caroline."

He blinked, and the softness vanished, replaced by a weary irritation. "Oh. You."

He took a heavy swig from the glass. "I thought you were staying at the hospital."

"I came to get some papers," I said. I walked over to the safe. My movements were slow, agonizing. He didn't offer to help. He didn't even stand up.

"Why do you bother?" he muttered, swirling the liquid in his glass. "You're always so busy. So functional. Like a machine."

I ignored him, spinning the dial of the safe.

"You know," he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than a shout. "Sometimes I look at these five years... and I think, what a waste."

My hand froze on the dial.

"A waste?" I repeated.

"I'm just waiting, Caroline," he said, staring into his drink. "Waiting for her to heal. Waiting for the mistake to be corrected. We're just... placeholders. You and me."

The air in the room seemed to freeze. My wolf, or the echo of where she used to be, didn't even growl. She was too tired. She was already dead.

I finished opening the safe. I took out the thick envelope containing the magical binding contracts and my personal assets.

I turned to look at him one last time. He had passed out, his head lolling back against the leather.

I went to the bedroom. I pulled the black ledger from my bag. I sat on the edge of the bed, the leather cover cold under my fingers.

I opened it to the page where the number 10 was written.

He called our marriage a waste. He called me a placeholder.

I wrote the number down.

-5.

Then, I remembered the hospital room. When he left me to go comfort her because she wouldn't take a sedative. I hadn't recorded that yet.

-5.

I did the math.

Total: 0.

I stared at the zero. It wasn't a scary number. It was a circle. A completion. It was the shape of a moon that had finally gone dark.

I picked up my phone. I dialed the number for the extraction team.

"Initiate Protocol Omega," I said. "I want the divorce papers filed at dawn. I'm leaving tomorrow."

I looked at the ledger one last time. I didn't close it. I left it on the nightstand, open to that final, damning page.

I had given him every chance. I had given him a hundred points of grace. He had spent them all.

Caroline POV:

The sky was the color of a bruised plum. A storm was coming. The air pressure was dropping, making my healing leg ache with a deep, bone-grinding rhythm.

I stood in front of my mother's grave. She had been a Beta, strong and kind. She would have torn Blake's throat out if she were alive today.

I placed a white lily on the cold stone. "Goodbye, Mama," I whispered. "I have to find myself again."

A car horn honked from the road.

Blake was waiting in the sleek black SUV. He hadn't turned off the engine. He was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, impatient. He had only agreed to drive me here because it was on the way to the pack's Sunday dinner, and appearances still mattered to him.

I limped back to the car. The wind was picking up, whipping my hair across my face.

As I reached for the door handle, Blake's phone rang. It was the special ringtone he assigned to her.

He answered it immediately.

"Ariana? Slow down. I can't understand you."

I froze, my hand hovering over the handle.

"You're where? The South District?" Blake's face went pale. "That's near the Rogue border. You have a flat tire?"

He looked at the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a low growl that shook the ground.

"Stay in the car," Blake commanded into the phone. "Lock the doors. I'm coming."

He hung up and looked at me. He didn't unlock the passenger door.

"Caroline, I have to go," he said. "Ariana is stranded near the border. A storm is hitting. It's dangerous for a defenseless female."

"I'm standing in a cemetery, Blake," I said, the wind tearing at my coat. "My leg is shattered. I can't walk to the main road."

"Get in," he said, distracted. "I'll drop you at the turnoff. You can call a patrol."

"I'm not getting in if we're going to her," I snapped. "It's Sunday dinner. You promised the Elders."

"She's alone!" he shouted, his patience snapping. "Fine. If you want to be stubborn, stay here. Call a patrol yourself. They'll be here in twenty minutes."

He hit the gas. The tires spun on the gravel, spraying stones against my shins. The SUV roared away, disappearing around the bend, chasing after a woman who knew exactly how to play the damsel.

I was left alone in the rising wind.

I pulled out my phone to call the patrol, but the screen flickered. No signal. The magnetic interference from the coming storm was scrambling the reception.

The rain began. It wasn't a drizzle; it was a deluge. Freezing sheets of water slammed into me, soaking my clothes instantly. The cold seeped into my bandages, making the silver burns sting.

I couldn't stay here. The cemetery was isolated. If Rogues were near the border, they would pass through here to avoid the patrols.

I adjusted my crutches and began to walk toward the main road. Every step was a battle. The mud was slippery, threatening to send me sprawling.

Ten minutes later, I was on the shoulder of the highway. The rain was so heavy I could barely see five feet in front of me.

I saw headlights cutting through the gloom. A truck. It was moving fast, too fast for the weather.

I waved my arm, desperate for help.

The truck didn't slow down. It swerved.

For a second, I saw the driver's face. His eyes were glowing red. A Rogue.

He wasn't avoiding me. He was aiming for me.

I tried to jump back, but my bad leg gave out. I crumbled onto the wet asphalt.

The impact was like being hit by a wrecking ball. My body was thrown into the air. I felt ribs crack. I felt the world spin.

I landed in the ditch, the water rising around me. Darkness swallowed me whole, and for the first time in five years, I welcomed it.