The ceremonial blade felt cold against my palm as I turned it over in my cell, watching the moonlight catch on its silver edge. Three years I'd stared at this same patch of wall. Three years since the mate bond that once burned like wildfire in my chest went completely, utterly silent. The day it broke, I thought I was dying. I wasn't that lucky. "Winters! You got a visitor." I looked up at Officer Chen, surprised. In three years, I'd had exactly zero visitors. My father made it clear the day I was sentenced—I was no longer his daughter. The Silverpine Pack had disowned me completely. "Who?" I asked, sliding the blade back into its hiding spot beneath my thin mattress. They'd never found it. The one thing Marcus gave me before everything went to hell, and ironically, the same blade I'd used to— "Didn't say. Lawyer type. Fancy suit." Chen unlocked my cell. "You got twenty minutes." The visiting room smelled like industrial cleaner and broken dreams. I'd never been in here before. Never had a reason. But sitting at the metal table in a suit that probably cost more than my father's truck was a man I didn't recognize. Salt-and-pepper hair, sharp eyes, briefcase that screamed money. "Miss Winters." He stood, extending his hand. "My name is Richard Ashford. I represent certain interested parties regarding your upcoming release." I didn't take his hand. "I'm being released in six hours. What interested parties?" He withdrew his hand smoothly, unbothered. "Direct. I appreciate that. My client wishes to make you an offer." "Your client have a name?" "Alpha Marcus Thorne." The name hit me like a physical blow. I'd trained myself not to react to it, spent three years building walls around the hollow space where our bond used to live. But hearing it spoken aloud in this room made those walls crack. "I have nothing to say to Marcus." "He anticipated that response." Ashford opened his briefcase, withdrawing a folder. "Which is why he's authorized me to offer you a substantial settlement. Five million dollars, a house in any territory outside of Silverpine jurisdiction, and a monthly stipend of fifty thousand for the rest of your life." I stared at him. "In exchange for what?" "You stay away from Silverpine. You never contact Alpha Thorne or his mate. You sign a binding agreement that you will not seek revenge or retribution for past grievances." His mate. The words burned like acid. "His mate," I repeated slowly. "You mean my stepsister. Lydia." Ashford's expression remained neutral. "Mrs. Lydia Thorne, yes. She is currently six months pregnant with the Alpha's first child." The floor dropped out from under me. Pregnant. Lydia was pregnant with Marcus's baby. The man who'd sworn I was his forever, who'd marked me under the full moon, who'd given me the ceremonial blade as a promise that our bond was sacred and unbreakable. The man I'd gone to prison for. "Let me guess," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Marcus is worried about what I'll do when I get out." "Alpha Thorne wants to ensure a peaceful transition. He believes this offer is more than generous considering—" "Considering I tried to kill his precious Lydia?" I leaned back in my chair. "That's what the court said, right? That I attacked her in a jealous rage?" "You were convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, Miss Winters. The facts of the case—" "The facts." I laughed, and it sounded broken even to my own ears. "Did Marcus tell you the facts? Did he tell you that Lydia wasn't just sleeping with my mate—she was deliberately triggering my heat cycles with wolfsbane so I'd be incapacitated while she seduced him? Did he tell you that the night I 'attacked' her, I'd just found them in our bed, in the house he built for me, and she was wearing my grandmother's necklace that he'd stolen from my room?" Ashford's pen paused on his notepad. "Those allegations were not part of the trial record." "Because my own father testified against me. Because the entire pack chose Marcus's word over mine. Because Lydia cried pretty tears and played the victim so perfectly that even the human judge bought it." I stood up. "You can tell Marcus to take his five million dollars and shove it up his entitled Alpha ass." "Miss Winters—" "We're done here." "Wait." Ashford's voice sharpened. "You need to understand what you're refusing. Alpha Thorne has taken extensive precautions. The moment you cross into Silverpine territory, you'll be met with resistance. He's placed protection details around his home, his mate, his pack headquarters. He's filed restraining orders. He's prepared to have you arrested the moment you violate the terms." "Sounds like he's scared." "He's protecting his family." "He's protecting himself." I leaned on the table, meeting Ashford's eyes. "Because he knows what he did. He knows that Lydia manipulated both of us, that he threw away a true mate bond for her lies, and that I took the fall for all of it. And now he's terrified that I'm going to make him pay." "Are you?" The question hung in the air between us. Was I going to seek revenge? Three years ago, I would have said no. Three years ago, I still believed in justice, in truth, in the idea that the bond between true mates meant something sacred. But three years in prison changes a person. Three years of silence where our bond used to sing. Three years of knowing that Marcus chose her, chose to believe her lies, chose to let me rot in here while he built a new life. "Tell Marcus this," I said quietly. "His precautions won't be enough. His money won't be enough. His pack won't be enough. Because I'm not the same weak, trusting girl who loved him. Prison taught me patience. It taught me strategy. And most importantly, it taught me that the only person I can rely on is myself." Ashford packed up his briefcase slowly. "You're making a mistake." "No. The mistake was loving him in the first place. Everything after that is just correction." He left without another word. I sat back down, my hands shaking now that the adrenaline was fading. Pregnant. Lydia was pregnant. The image of her round with Marcus's child made my stomach turn. But beneath the pain, beneath the rage, something else stirred. Something cold and calculating that had grown in the darkness of my cell. Marcus thought he could buy my silence. He thought barriers and bodyguards and restraining orders would keep me away. He had no idea what was coming.