Chapter 10 The Vault of Secrets

Lila POV

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed midnight as I crept down the stairs, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floors. Marcus had come home three hours ago, reeking of wine and Vera's perfume, mumbling apologies I no longer bothered to acknowledge. He'd collapsed into bed without even changing his clothes, his breathing now deep and rhythmic with alcohol-assisted sleep.

I'd been waiting for this moment for weeks—the perfect opportunity to access his private sanctuary.

The study door clicked shut behind me with barely a whisper. Marcus's personal safe sat behind a false panel in the built-in bookshelf, concealed behind first-edition volumes on werewolf law that he'd inherited from his grandfather. I'd discovered its existence purely by accident two years ago, but had never imagined I'd have reason to violate his most private space.

The electronic keypad glowed softly in the darkness. My fingers trembled slightly as I entered the sequence I'd memorized from watching him one drunken night last month: 0847. Our wedding anniversary, backwards. Even his secret code was a mockery of what I'd thought our marriage meant.

The heavy door swung open with a soft mechanical hiss.

Inside, neat stacks of documents were organized with the same meticulous precision Marcus applied to everything else. Property deeds, investment portfolios, insurance policies—the paper trail of a life built on inherited wealth and careful planning. But it was the manila envelope marked "Personal" that made my heart clench.

I pulled it out with shaking hands, already knowing what I'd find. Photos of Vera, spanning months. Ultrasound images of their child. A jeweler's receipt for an engagement ring that cost more than most people's cars. Hotel receipts from romantic weekends I'd thought were business trips.

Evidence of a future he'd been building in secret while I'd been planning our European life together.

I set the envelope aside and reached for my own carefully prepared documents. The manila folder felt heavy with the weight of my counter-strategy, each paper inside designed to deliver maximum emotional impact.

First, I placed the divorce papers at the very top of Marcus's document stack. The signatures were bold and final, my legal name written with the flourish I'd practiced until it felt natural. He would see these first when he next opened the safe, the legal dissolution of our marriage positioned like an execution notice.

Beneath the divorce papers, I arranged the medical records from my wolfsbane poisoning. Page after page documenting the night I'd saved his life and the devastating cost to my own body. The toxicology reports, treatment plans, surgical procedures—all of it timestamped and detailed, a medical chronicle of sacrifice he'd chosen to forget.

But it was the final document that would cut the deepest.

I pulled out the forged medical record I'd obtained that morning, my hands steady despite the magnitude of what I was doing. Dr. Martinez had been surprisingly understanding when I had explained my "situation"—a woman escaping an abusive marriage who needed medical documentation to prevent her husband from following her. The doctor had provided exactly what I'd requested: an official record showing pregnancy termination due to complications from previous toxin exposure.

The document was perfectly crafted, bearing yesterday's date and Dr. Martinez's official signature. According to the fabricated medical record, Lila Gray had suffered a miscarriage at eight weeks gestation, caused by lingering effects from the wolfsbane poisoning I'd endured three years earlier.

Marcus would read this and believe he'd lost a child—our child—because of the very night I'd saved his life.

I positioned the fake medical record directly beneath the divorce papers, where Marcus couldn't miss it. Let him discover simultaneously that I was leaving him and that we'd lost a baby he never knew existed. Let him realize that his affair had cost him not just his marriage, but the heir he'd been so desperate to produce.

The cruelest irony was that it was almost true. I had been pregnant, the toxin exposure had complicated everything, and in a sense, his choices had caused me to lose the future we might have had together. The only lie was in the timing and the medical cause.

I wasn't proud of the deception, but I was past caring about moral high ground. Marcus had spent months lying to my face while planning his exit strategy. Now it was my turn to control the narrative.

At the bottom of the stack, I placed a handwritten note on my personal stationery. The words were simple, devastating in their brevity:

*Marcus,

By the time you read this, I'll be gone. The lawyers will contact you about finalizing our divorce. Don't try to find me.

This could have been your child.

Goodbye,

Lila*

I stood back and surveyed my work. The safe now contained the complete story of our marriage's end, told in legal documents and medical records that would leave no room for denial or rationalization. Marcus would understand exactly what he'd lost and how much his betrayal had cost us both.

The real child—the impossible miracle growing inside me—would remain my secret. This baby would grow up knowing only love, never wondering if the father had wanted it. In Paris, I would build the life I'd dreamed of, free from pack politics and failed marriages.

But Marcus would live with the ghost of the child he thought he'd lost, the heir he believed his own choices had destroyed.

I closed the safe door, hearing the electronic lock engage with a soft click. The keypad's glow faded to darkness, hiding the devastating surprise that waited inside.

I climbed the stairs to our bedroom, where Marcus slept peacefully beside the suitcase I'd been packing in careful increments. Tomorrow I would finish my preparations. Tomorrow I would say goodbye to the life that had nearly broken me.

Tonight, I'd planted the seeds of understanding that would bloom into devastating clarity once I was safely gone.

Justice, I'd learned, was sometimes as simple as ensuring that the consequences of one's choices could no longer be avoided.

And Marcus Gray was about to discover just how heavy those consequences could be.