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The pregnancy test showed two lines. I was sitting on the bathroom floor, crying happy tears, when I heard my husband's phone buzz on the nightstand. Then buzz again. Then again. I wasn't the type to check his phone. Five years of marriage, and I had never once looked through his messages. But something — call it instinct, call it fate — made me pick it up. "Last night was incredible. I can't stop thinking about you." The message was from someone named "V." My hands went cold. I scrolled up. Photos. Videos. Dates and times that matched every single "late meeting" and "business trip" Ryan had taken in the past eight months. Eight months. He'd been sleeping with someone else for eight months while I was working double shifts at the hospital to support his so-called startup that never made a dime. I heard the shower turn off. Ryan walked out with a towel around his waist, still humming. When he saw me holding his phone, the color drained from his face. "Sophia, I can explain—" "Eight months, Ryan." "It's not what you think—" "There are videos. It's exactly what I think." He lunged for the phone. I stepped back and held it out of reach. "Who is she?" "Nobody. She's nobody. It was a mistake." "Eight months is not a mistake. Eight months is a decision. Who. Is. She." Ryan sat on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. The performance of a lifetime. "Her name is Victoria. She's... she works in finance. Sophia, please, I love you. It didn't mean anything." I looked down at the pregnancy test still clutched in my other hand. Two pink lines that had meant everything to me five minutes ago. Now they meant nothing. No — they meant everything. Just not in the way I'd imagined. "I want a divorce." "Sophia, don't be dramatic—" "I'm not being dramatic. I'm being clear. I want a divorce, I want you out of this apartment by Friday, and I never want to see you again." I threw his phone on the bed and walked out. I didn't cry again that night. I sat at the kitchen table and did the math. The apartment lease was in my name, but I'd burned through my savings covering Ryan's failed business expenses. My credit cards were maxed. I had exactly $2,340 in my checking account, and rent was $1,800. The next morning, I called my best friend Dana. "I need a job. A real job. Not nursing — I can't do twelve-hour shifts anymore." I put my hand on my stomach. "Not in my condition." "What condition? Sophia, what happened?" "I'm pregnant. And I'm getting divorced." Silence. Then: "I'm coming over." Dana showed up with coffee and a laptop. She'd already pulled up three job listings. "This one," she said, pointing to the screen. "Executive assistant at Whitmore & Associates. It's a big consulting firm downtown. The pay is incredible — $75,000 base, full benefits, and they're hiring immediately." It was perfect. Too perfect. "What's the catch?" "The CEO is supposedly a nightmare. They've gone through four assistants in the past year." I didn't care if the CEO was the devil herself. I needed that salary. I needed those benefits. I needed health insurance before my first prenatal appointment. I applied that night and got a call the next morning. The interview was scheduled for Thursday at 9 AM. I put on my best blazer — the one I'd bought for Ryan's company launch party that never happened — and walked into the most beautiful office building I'd ever seen. The receptionist smiled at me. "You're here for the EA position? Take the elevator to the 30th floor. Ms. Ashford is expecting you." Ms. Ashford. The elevator doors opened to a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows. A woman stood with her back to me, looking out at the city skyline. Her dark hair was pinned up perfectly. Her posture radiated power. "Sit down," she said without turning around. I sat. She turned slowly, and my entire world collapsed. I knew that face. I had stared at it for hours last night, burned into my memory from every photo and video on Ryan's phone. "V" wasn't just a letter. Victoria Ashford — my husband's mistress — was about to become my boss.

I died on a Tuesday. My husband, Ryan, poisoned my coffee. I know because I watched him do it — through the kitchen camera he never knew I'd installed. I was lying on the cold tile floor, my body convulsing, foam spilling from my lips. My six-year-old daughter, Emma, was screaming, shaking my shoulders. "Mommy! Mommy, wake up!" Ryan pulled her away. Not gently. He yanked her by the arm and threw her toward the hallway. "Shut up, Emma. Mommy's just tired." Then he called someone. "It's done. Come over. Bring the dress." Twenty minutes later, while I was still dying — still conscious, still feeling every nerve in my body shutting down — his mistress, Kendra, walked through my front door. She was wearing my wedding dress. She looked down at me, tilted her head, and smiled. "You should've signed the papers, Sophia. Would've been so much easier." I died staring at my daughter's face through the hallway bannister. Emma's eyes were wide. Terrified. She understood more than any child should. That was my last life. When I opened my eyes again, it was Tuesday morning. The coffee was brewing. Ryan was in the kitchen, his back to me. Whistling. I watched his hand reach for the small vial hidden behind the spice rack. My blood ran cold — then hot. This time, I didn't drink the coffee. This time, I had a plan. I walked calmly into the kitchen. Ryan turned, startled to see me up so early. "Morning, babe. Made you coffee." He smiled. That perfect, practiced smile. "Thanks," I said. "But I think I'll skip it today." Something flickered in his eyes. Just for a second. "You sure? It's your favorite blend." "Positive." I picked up Emma from her bed, grabbed the emergency bag I'd packed in my previous life but never got to use, and headed for the door. "Where are you going?" Ryan's voice sharpened. "Emma has a doctor's appointment." "Since when?" I didn't answer. I just walked out. In my last life, I'd been a fool. A trusting, devoted fool who believed her husband loved her. I ignored the signs. The late nights. The secret phone calls. The way Kendra always seemed to be around — at every dinner party, every family gathering, always touching Ryan's arm a beat too long. I ignored it all because Ryan told me I was paranoid. "You're crazy, Sophia. She's just a friend." I believed him. Right up until the moment he killed me. Not this time. I strapped Emma into the car seat and pulled out of the driveway. In the rearview mirror, I saw Ryan standing at the front door, phone already pressed to his ear. He was calling Kendra. I was sure of it. My phone buzzed. A text from Ryan: Where are you really going? Then another: Don't do anything stupid. Then a third: Remember what happens to women who don't listen. I stared at that last text, my hands trembling on the steering wheel. In my previous life, that threat would have made me turn the car around. I would have apologized. Made excuses. Swallowed my fear and walked back into that house like a good wife. But I wasn't that woman anymore. I'd already died once for being obedient. I turned off my phone and drove toward the one person Ryan didn't know about — my old college roommate, Diane, who happened to be a prosecutor. But I didn't make it to Diane's. Because three miles from her office, a black SUV pulled up beside me and ran me off the road. The car spun. Emma screamed. When the dust settled, I looked up through the cracked windshield. Kendra stepped out of the SUV, wearing designer sunglasses and a smirk. "Ryan said you might try to run."

The pregnancy test was still warm in my hand when I heard them through the bedroom door. "She's just a surrogate, Marlee." My husband's voice—low, tender, the way he used to speak to me before our wedding became a transaction. "Once she delivers the heir, I'll file the annulment. You and I can finally stop pretending." "But she's so clingy, Dominic." A woman's laugh, soft and poisonous. "She actually thinks you love her." My fingers closed around the plastic stick so hard it cracked. Two pink lines. Positive. I'd been trying to tell him for three days. The door was slightly ajar. Through the gap, I could see them on our bed—our bed—Dominic's hand tangled in Marlee Ashford's copper hair, his lips brushing her temple with a gentleness that made my stomach heave. Not because of the morning sickness. Because he'd never once touched me like that. My wolf stirred inside me—weak, suppressed, barely a whisper. She'd been fading since the day I married Dominic Cross, Alpha of the Ironveil Pack, in a contract ceremony that smelled like old paper and obligation. No mating mark. No bond. Just a signature and a promise that I'd carry his bloodline heir in exchange for my dying mother's medical treatment. The treatment had been paid for. My mother had died anyway, three months ago. And now I was pregnant with his child, standing outside his bedroom, listening to him plan my disposal. I should have walked away. Should have gone downstairs, packed my bag, disappeared into the night like the nobody he'd always treated me as. That's what the old Ivy would have done—the orphan, the packless wolf, the girl who'd learned to survive by making herself small. Instead, I pushed the door open. Dominic's head snapped toward me. For one fraction of a second, something flickered across his face—guilt, maybe, or just annoyance at being caught. Then his expression hardened into the cold, aristocratic mask I knew so well. "Ivy." He didn't move away from Marlee. Didn't even have the decency to pretend. "How long have you been standing there?" "Long enough." My voice came out steadier than I expected. I held up the pregnancy test. "I came to tell you something." His eyes dropped to the test. I watched his pupils dilate—wolf instinct, recognizing his offspring before his human brain could process the information. "Is that—" "Positive." I set it on the dresser with a click. "Congratulations, Alpha Cross. Your contract is fulfilled." Marlee sat up in the bed, the sheet pooling around her waist, and I noticed she wasn't even trying to cover herself. She looked at me with an expression of such calculated pity that my wolf—dormant, dying, barely there—growled for the first time in months. "Oh, Ivy," Marlee sighed. "This must be so hard for you." "Get out," Dominic said to me. Not to her. To me. "We'll discuss this in the morning." "No." The word surprised all three of us. "We'll discuss it now. Specifically, we'll discuss paragraph fourteen of our contract—the clause that guarantees me full custody rights and a settlement upon confirmed pregnancy." Dominic's jaw tightened. "You're not in a position to make demands." "I'm in exactly that position." I pressed two fingers to my wrist—an old habit, counting my own pulse to stay grounded. "I'm carrying your heir. And according to Lycan contract law, that makes me the most powerful person in this room." The silence that followed was delicious. Then Marlee whispered something in Dominic's ear, and the look on his face changed to something that made my blood run cold. "Actually," he said slowly, "there's been an amendment to the contract." "What amendment?" He reached into the nightstand drawer and pulled out a document I'd never seen before. "The one," he said, "that removes your custody rights entirely."

The satisfying sound came when the scissors cut through my wedding dress. One clean line, straight down the center. I didn't cry. I was done crying three hours ago, when I walked into my husband's office and found his secretary sitting on his lap, wearing the diamond necklace he told me he'd bought for his mother. My name is Vivian. For three years, I was Mrs. Dominic Ashford — wife of Manhattan's most celebrated real estate billionaire, the man Forbes called "the gentleman king of New York." Gentleman. I almost laughed. Gentlemen don't get their secretaries pregnant while their wives are undergoing IVF. I found out this morning. Not from Dominic — God, no. He was too busy buying prenatal vitamins for her. I found out from a pharmacy receipt that fell out of his coat pocket when I was taking it to the dry cleaner. Prenatal vitamins. Folic acid. A brand I recognized because I'd been taking the same ones during my own failed fertility treatments. I called the pharmacy. Pretended to be his assistant. Asked them to confirm the customer's details for the insurance claim. "Yes, ma'am. The vitamins were purchased for a Ms. Nicole Brennan. Same billing address as Mr. Ashford's office." Nicole Brennan. Twenty-four years old. Legs that went on forever. The kind of girl who called me "Mrs. Ashford" with a smile so sweet it could rot your teeth. She'd been his secretary for eight months. She'd been pregnant for ten weeks. I'd been trying to conceive his child for two years. Two years of hormone injections. Two years of scheduled intimacy that felt like a medical procedure. Two years of Dominic holding my hand in the fertility clinic, telling me, "We'll get there, Viv. I'm not going anywhere." He wasn't going anywhere. He was just bringing someone else along for the ride. After the pharmacy call, I drove to his office. I didn't plan to. My body just took me there, the way your tongue finds a broken tooth — you know it'll hurt, but you can't stop. His corner office had floor-to-ceiling windows. From the hallway, you could see everything. Nicole was perched on his desk. Not his lap — I was wrong earlier. His desk. Her skirt was hiked up, and his hand was on her bare knee, and they were laughing about something on his phone. Then he leaned forward and kissed her stomach. He kissed her stomach the way he used to kiss mine after every failed IVF cycle, whispering, "Next time, baby. Next time it'll work." I stood in that hallway for eleven seconds. I counted. Then I walked away. I drove home. I went to our bedroom closet. I took out my wedding dress — preserved in its archival box, wrapped in acid-free tissue, $12,000 worth of French lace — and I cut it in half. It felt so good I almost smiled. Now I was standing in the bathroom, staring at something that changed everything. Two pink lines on a pregnancy test. After two years of failure, after all the injections and the tears and the scheduled sex — I was pregnant. With Dominic's baby. And he would never, ever know.

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