Chapter 3

Andrea:

I was folding the last of my scrubs into the suitcase when the front door of our apartment slammed so hard it almost rattled the framed photo on the wall. The one of Kane and me at the beach three summers ago, both of us laughing, his arm around my waist like he meant it. I frowned, wiped my hands on my jeans, and walked out of the bedroom.

My heightened senses could immediately detect that something was wrong, and my wolf started to stir within me.

Damn it, I had only managed to suppress her earlier. I took three deep breaths and calmed her down.

Three Omegas stood in the living room, wearing perfectly ironed uniforms that had the Omega logo on it. What was happening here? Behind them, Whitney Miller came into view.

Kane's mother. Throughout the five years that we have dated, I only met her a couple of times and each time she looked at me like I was dirt that Kane picked up. Each time we had dinner with his family, she always complained, showing Kane pictures of other wealthy and pretty ladies.

"Kane, darling. You could've had a diamond, and you chose a stone." She would say whenever we went for family dinner in my presence. Kane would laugh it off, not knowing how much it always pricked to my bones. Now, I am not scared of her since I'm finally leaving her son.

I guess he could have all the diamonds in the world.

"What are you doing here?" I said, my voice sharp as steel. She no longer had any control over me, we might as well get over this.

She propped herself on the sofa, her designer heels resting on the coffee table that I had paid for.

I watched her as she surveyed the apartment as though it were covered in garbage. The scent of her expensive perfume filling the whole room.

“This house is Kane's,” she said, her voice cold as always. Whenever she talked to her son, she was always warm and bubbly, but she talked to me as though I wasn't even worth her time. For a minute, I wondered what tone she would use to talk to Olivia, but then I pushed the thought down.

I don't want anything to do with them, which means I have to stop thinking about them.

“You’ve been living here for five years, eating his food and using his things. Now that you’re leaving, of course we have to check if you’re taking anything that belongs to the Miller family.” She continued, gesturing at the maids who moved toward my open suitcases.

I stepped in front of the bedroom doorway and blocked them, hands clenched hardly at my sides.

"Those are my things." I said, my voice sharp. "You have no right to go through any of my things, and you have no right to call me a thief. Kane and I rented this apartment together, I paid half the rent. Half the utilities. Everything."

She looked at me like I was spewing garbage, like she didn't even give a damn about the words that were coming out of my mouth.

I took a deep breath. "I am leaving your son, isn't that what you've wanted all these while? You don't even need to get rid of me, I'm leaving myself."

Whitney laughed and it made me angry, but I won't respond to that. She reached into her bag, pulled out a black bank card, and tossed it towards me. The plastic flew across the floor and stopped at my feet.

“There’s approximately five hundred thousand dollars on this card. That should be more than enough for someone like you to get by for a few years.” She said,

As though she was doing me a favour by giving me five hundred thousand dollars.

She had no idea I was Andrea Williams, daughter of the alpha of the northern packs, trained since childhood to one day take his place. My family’s net worth could have bought the Miller family three times over. I had never told Kane any of it. I had wanted him to love me for the woman who shared his bed and held his heart, not for the title and the trust fund that came with my name.

I stared at the card and laughed.

“Is that all the Miller family is willing to spend to send me packing?” She widened her eyes at me.

"How dare you? Where did you get your audacity from?" She hollered so loudly that even the maids flinched. “You think that’s not enough? You ungrateful little whore. You should be thanking me for giving you anything. You used my son for five years. You think anyone would pay you a cent more than that? You’re a nobody. Your family is nothing. You’ll never amount to anything without Kane."

I bent, picked up the card, and set it neatly back on the coffee table in front of her. My hand stayed steady. My eyes never left hers.

“Keep it. Maybe Kane can use it to buy himself a conscience. Because he’s going to need one, spending the rest of his life married to Oliva, lying to everyone about how happy he is. You can take your maids and get out of my apartment. I’m leaving on my own. I don’t need you to come in here and terrorize me.”

In a flash, she was already on her toes, coming towards me with her hands raised. She was seconds away from smacking me hard across the face when the door opened and Kane stepped inside.

He took in the scene in one glance: the Omegas frozen by the bedroom door, his mother with her hand still raised, me standing still as stone.

He frowned. “Mom. What are you doing here?”

In an instant, the cold frown she had been wearing wears off and she smiles at her son, bringing up her bubbly smile. “I’m here to help you clear out the ones who don’t belong. This girl was going to take all your things, Kane. I had to stop her. She’s just a gold digger. She was going to rob you blind.”

Kane shook his head and stepped farther into the room. His eyes found mine, pleading.

“Andrea, I’m sorry. I had no idea she was coming here. I never would have let her—”

Whitney cut him off, slamming her hand down on the table hard enough to make the bank card jump.

“What’s so special about her? Don’t forget that your engagement to Oliva is next week. Are you going to stand up for her and make us look like fools in front of the Smith family? The Smith will pull all their funding from the hospital and they are of royal bloodline. You know what that means for us. They’ll ruin us, Kane. All because you want to fuck some whore who’s not good enough for you.”

I flinched at the intensity of her words. I knew that Whitney was mean, but degrading me to this extent? That was just pure evil.

I watched him. I waited for the man I had lived with for five years to tell his mother to shut her mouth. I waited for him to order the maids out of the room, to tell me that I was the only one he cared for.

But those words never came.

After a few long seconds he simply moved aside. I didn't even feel the betrayal that was supposed to come. All I felt was old numbness settling in. Kane was never on my side, he was always going to please his family first.

I felt empty inside. I guess now I knew where I belonged.

I turned, walked back into the bedroom, and closed the last suitcase with a quiet click. When I wheeled it out, I passed him without looking at his face. I passed Whitney without acknowledging the hate rolling off her.

The elevator doors slid open. I stepped in and turned just long enough to see him still standing in the doorway. Whitney hovered behind him, voice rising again, hurling every ugly word she could think of. He didn’t move. He didn’t call my name. He didn’t come after me.

Not even once.

I ordered a taxi to the hotel that I just booked, it was the only place I knew would take me without questions on such a short notice. When the taxi arrived, I loaded the suitcases into the trunk myself, and got into the taxi.

Twenty minutes later I was checking into a suite on the top floor. After settling in, I ordered a bottle of champagne from room service, poured a glass, and drank it slowly while the city moved on without me.

I raised the glass once, alone, to start over. To never again let anyone treat me like something that could be bought off or discarded.

The next morning, all hell broke loose at Southgate Mercy Hospital.