Chapter 12 The Reckoning

Lila POV

By the time I was settling into my first-class seat on Air France 447, the carefully orchestrated destruction I'd left behind was already beginning to unfold. I wouldn't learn the full extent of the chaos until months later, through a series of calls from my sister and former pack acquaintances who felt compelled to share the gossip.

But even as the plane taxied toward takeoff, I could imagine Marcus discovering the contents of his safe—the divorce papers, the medical records documenting my sacrifice, and the fabricated miscarriage report that would break his heart in precisely the way mine had been broken.

During our layover in New York, I checked my phone and found seventeen missed calls from Marcus's number. I deleted them all without listening.

It was my sister Sarah who eventually told me about the video's impact on the pack hierarchy. She called me a week after I'd settled in Paris, her voice tight with a mixture of admiration and concern.

"Lila, what did you do?" she asked without preamble. "The entire werewolf community is in chaos. Marcus has been stripped of his position as heir, the Gray family business is hemorrhaging clients, and Elder Gray looks like he's aged ten years overnight."

I cradled the phone against my shoulder while arranging flowers in my new Parisian apartment, my free hand unconsciously resting on my still-hidden pregnancy.

"I told the truth," I said simply.

"The truth? You broadcast Marcus's private conversations, revealed pack business to outsiders, and—" Sarah paused. "Lila, is it true? About the baby?"

The baby Marcus thought I'd lost, yes. The baby growing safely inside me, no.

"The medical records speak for themselves," I replied, which wasn't exactly a lie.

Sarah's sigh carried across the Atlantic. "The pack elders called an emergency session. They're saying Marcus violated every principle of mate protection and pack honor. There's talk of permanent exile."

I felt a flicker of something—not satisfaction exactly, but justice. Marcus had planned to discard me quietly, to transition seamlessly from one family to another while I disappeared into European obscurity. Instead, he was facing the consequences of his choices in the most public way possible.

"And Vera?" I asked, though I already suspected the answer.

"That's the strangest part," Sarah said. "She miscarried the same week your video went live. Stress, the doctors said. The irony has everyone talking—Marcus lost both pregnancies because of his own choices."

I closed my eyes, one hand protectively covering my abdomen. Marcus thought he'd lost two children to his betrayal when in reality, one very much alive miracle was growing in secret, an ocean away from his reach.

Over the following months, Sarah kept me updated on Marcus's continuing downfall. The business empire crumbled as clients distanced themselves from the scandal. His father suffered a heart attack during the worst of the financial crisis. Marcus himself had begun drinking heavily, cycling through destructive relationships with women who seemed determined to punish him for sins he'd committed against someone else.

"He calls sometimes," Sarah told me during one of our conversations. "Asks if I've heard from you. He sounds... broken."

Good, I thought but didn't say. He'd broken me first, slowly and thoroughly, while planning his escape. Now he could understand what that felt like.

But I had moved beyond anger into something more powerful: complete indifference. Marcus Gray was becoming a cautionary tale in werewolf society while I was building a new life that had nothing to do with pack politics or failed marriages.

My music career was flourishing in ways I'd never imagined. European orchestras appreciated my linguistic abilities and cultural knowledge, hiring me not just as a performer but as a consultant on pieces that incorporated ancient werewolf mythology. I was making a name for myself that had nothing to do with whose wife I'd once been.

And every night, as I felt the gentle movements of the child Marcus would never know about, I was grateful for the choice I'd made in that sterile hospital room. This baby would grow up knowing only love, never wondering if the father had wanted it.

The truth had indeed been the most devastating weapon I could have wielded.

But it had also been my key to freedom.