Elena.
I look at him for a long, long moment.
“I am so tired,” I say finally, “of being a piece on other people’s boards.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to apologise right now,” I continue.
“That’s not what this is.
Right now, this is survival.
We can deal with everything else after.
So tell me…..what is the plan?”
For the first time since he walked through that door, something in Dominic’s face settles.
It looks like relief.
It looks like he has been waiting three years for someone to take charge, and it never once occurred to him that it would be me.
He spreads a map across the kitchen table.
“There’s a boat on the northern shore.
Jiang has it fueled and ready.
We leave at dawn, before Catherine’s remaining wolves can establish a perimeter.”
“And go where?”
“To Damien.”
I look up sharply.
“Damien knows you’re alive?”
“Alexander told him four hours ago.
Your brother is …” he pauses, choosing his words carefully, ” absolutely furious.
But he’s protecting Sage and Vivian.
And he’s ready to move on Catherine the moment we give the signal.”
My wolf stirs.
Damien.
Just the thought of my brother steadies something inside me that has been shaking since this nightmare began.
“Vivian?” I ask carefully.
“Is she involved in this?”
“No.
She figured out what Catherine was doing and tried to warn you.
That’s why Catherine ran your car off the road.” He pauses.
“Vivian isn’t the enemy, Elena.
She never was.
She was just as much Catherine’s instrument as we were.”
I file that away.
Process it later.
“What do you need from me?”
He looks at me with those grey eyes so like mine in colour, so utterly unlike mine in every other way.
“I need you to trust me,” he says quietly.
“Just long enough to get us both home.
After that, I’ll sign whatever you need.
Go wherever you want.
Disappear from your life entirely.
But tonight, I need you to not hate me enough to let me keep you alive.”
I think about the three years.
I think about the empty bed and the uncompleted bond and the whispers from the pack.
I think about his note tucked into the wedding dress: You deserved better.
You always did.
“I don’t hate you,” I say, which surprises both of us.
“Elena?”
“Don’t make it into something it isn’t.” I fold the map.
“I just don’t have the energy left for hate.
Now show me what I can do to make sure we’re both alive to watch your mother answer for what she’s done.”
Something in Dominic’s expression shifts.
It is not an attraction.
It is not the kind of regret he’s worn for three years.
It is, I think, the first moment he has ever truly seen me.
Not as a cover.
Not as a wife.
Not as a convenient Omega who wouldn’t ask too many questions.
Just me.
Elena.
The Alpha’s sister.
The doctor.
The woman who tricked him into signing his own divorce papers and built a legal case against him while hosting his obsession’s widow in her home.
“God,” he says softly.
“You’ve been five steps ahead of everyone this entire time, haven’t you?”
I smile, and for once it isn’t practiced.
“Six, actually.”
“Then what was step five?”
I head for the bedroom to change into warmer clothes.
“Getting off this island alive.
Now let’s go find out what step six looks like.”
The boat ride back to the mainland is forty minutes of cold, salt-stung silence.
Dominic handles the engine.
I keep watch at the bow, my senses stretched outward the way Damien taught me when we were teenagers running security drills in the Nightshade forest.
My wolf, still tender and bruised, is nevertheless awake.
Alert.
She wants to protect what’s hers.
She’s just not entirely sure who that includes anymore.
We dock at a private marina thirty miles south of Seattle.
Jiang is waiting, which should feel reassuring.
But standing beside him is someone I didn’t expect.
“Vivian,” I say.
She looks as rough as I feel.
No makeup, dark circles carved deep, Mira asleep against her shoulder wrapped in a blanket.
She meets my eyes and doesn’t look away.
“I owe you more than an apology,” she says.
“But an apology is where we have to start.”
“It can wait until we’re somewhere safe,” I say, because it’s true, and because Mira’s ears are small and this night is already too heavy for a three-year-old to carry.
Vivian nods once, something that looks like gratitude flickering across her face.
“Catherine had my phone tapped,” she says quietly.
“I only found out last week.
By then, everything was already in motion.” She shifts Mira’s weight.
“She killed Sebastian.”
The night goes very still.
“What?” Dominic’s voice is barely a sound.
“The helicopter crash wasn’t an accident.” Vivian’s voice doesn’t break, but it costs her.
“I didn’t push him toward that trip.
She set it up.
She arranged the equipment malfunction.
Sebastian had found the same evidence you found, Dominic.
He was going to take it to the council himself.”
She had killed her own son.