The Woman I Called Worthless Was the One Who Brought Me to My Knees (Caleb's POV)

"We'll flay you alive in front of everyone — and pay the debt in your bones and your pup's blood!"

Scarface's voice detonated across the square like a thunderclap.

Five million gold coins?! Flayed alive to settle a debt?!

I stood on the Packhouse steps, and it was as though a torrent of ice water had been dumped over my head, shattering in an instant the smug satisfaction I'd been riding just seconds before.

A moment ago, I had been perfectly convinced that as long as the mob's fire burned a little hotter, Chloe — cowering somewhere in the north wing — would break down in tears and beg me to intervene. Then she would hand over the Silver Pack's treasury keys with both hands.

But now, the most bloodthirsty, most lawless collection enforcers in the entire Pack had swung their guns toward my own front steps.

Down in the square, the mob that had been screaming for Chloe's death just moments ago had gone dead silent. Torches dropped from terrified hands and clattered to the ground. Every face was wide with fear, all eyes locked on us. Who hadn't heard of the underground loan sharks? When they came for you, even a top-ranked Pack walked away missing a layer of skin.

"You — you people are talking nonsense!" Selena, pressed tight behind me, let out a piercing shriek. She seized my arm in a death grip. "Alpha! I don't know these people! Five million — whatever it is — drive them out!"

"How dare you." I dug deep for what was left of my Alpha dominance and hurled it at them, forcing my voice steady against the enforcers' killing intent. "The Blood Moon Pack will not stand for baseless slander. Selena is my Co-Luna. She would never go near your back-alley loan pits. Bring me proof — real proof — or you are not taking anyone from my Pack!"

"Alpha, you want proof?"

A voice carrying quiet contempt emerged from behind the line of black-clad enforcers. A middle-aged man stepped forward: neat in a well-cut tailcoat, gold-rimmed glasses catching the light, a cold professional smile fixed on his lips.

My eyes went wide. My pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Marcus?!

That was the Silver Merchants' Guild's shadow handler in the black market — the obsessive bookkeeper who had always trailed behind Chloe like a loyal hound. What in the world was he doing standing with the loan sharks' enforcers?!

"Marcus!" I snapped. "What business does a Silver Pack lackey have here?!"

Marcus didn't so much as glance at my anger. Slowly, he reached into his breast pocket and drew out a rolled document reeking of blood, then snapped it open in the air with a single sharp flick.

Hum.

Blood-red light blazed from the parchment. At the very bottom, unmistakable and undeniable, was a handprint — a blood seal carrying Selena's own scent signature.

A blood pact.

"Three days ago," Marcus's voice carried to every corner of the square, "your esteemed Co-Luna — face covered, travelling alone — ran to one of our black market collection offices herself and signed this blood contract. Principal: one hundred thousand gold coins."

"No! That's a forgery! Chloe set me up — that bitch is framing me!" Selena lunged forward as if she meant to tear the contract apart. Scarface raised his gun and leveled it at her skull. She crumpled onto the steps, instantly paralyzed with fear.

The blood in my veins went cold and still.

"One hundred thousand gold coins!" Marcus turned to face the gathered Pack members. "Do you know how this great hero spent that money? A full fifty thousand — straight to the elders in the main hall. Premium charcoal and magical beast meat. Just to buy those old bones' silence! Another twenty thousand for a custom Luna gown and top-grade jewels! And another twenty thousand to keep the mercenary garrison from mutinying!"

My head was buzzing. The elders huddled in the great hall doorway turned the colour of bruised liver, hung their heads in guilt, and didn't dare breathe.

"One hundred thousand coins — burned through until barely ten thousand remained!" Marcus's arm swung down and pointed at the ten bodies laid out in the square. "And for the Wolfsbane antidote the border patrol urgently needed — she spent a mere one thousand coins on mouldy, rotting, adulterated refuse cut with paralytic weed!"

Boom.

The square erupted.

"You're lying!" Selena was still screaming hysterically.

"Am I?" Marcus let out a cold laugh and snapped his fingers.

Two enforcers dragged a figure forward and threw him down at the foot of the steps — a black market trader, face a wreck of bruises and dried blood.

"Say everything you heard when the money changed hands — every word, in front of the whole Pack. Leave nothing out!" Marcus raised his boot and drove it hard into the man's back.

The terrified trader pointed a shaking hand at Selena and wailed, "It was her! That Co-Luna right there! She paid one thousand coins for the worst-grade drug waste I had, and she said it herself — 'As long as it doesn't kill them outright, slow-acting is fine. Put the rest toward that ruby jewellery set.' It's all in the ledger — her signature, her scent on every page. You cannot fake that!"

Marcus snatched the ledger — soaked through with Selena's scent — and slammed it down on the stone at my feet.

Witness. Evidence. Every word of it a slap across Selena's face.

"She stole the medicine money!" A bereaved family member collapsed to their knees, voice breaking into a raw wail, finger leveled at Selena. "You killed my husband! You bought yourself jewellery with the money meant to save him! She should pay with her life!"

"No — Alpha, save me! Caleb, please!" Selena threw herself at my legs and locked her arms around them.

I stood there, frozen. The Alpha of Blood Moon Pack — played for a fool in front of his entire Pack by a lowly Gamma mistress. And just minutes ago I had been ready to protect her.

She had stolen from the war chest. She had killed my best fighters. She had signed a blood contract with the most dangerous loan sharks in existence, and now dragged a five-million-coin death sentence to my door. She was going to pull the entire Blood Moon Pack down into the abyss.

"You actually dared to play me..." I lowered my head.

"You worthless piece of garbage!!"

I locked my hand around Selena's throat and hauled her off the ground.

"Ugh — Alpha — let go —" Her legs kicked wildly at the empty air. Her face went purple. Her eyes bulged.

"You destroyed my army! You destroyed my territory! And then you went and made enemies of the underground loan sharks!" I had completely lost my mind. I couldn't feel the fractured bones tearing through flesh. My head was filled with nothing but the burning shame of betrayal and the terror of total ruin. "Die!"

My grip tightened. My nails sank into the meat of her throat.

One second before I crushed her windpipe —

Bang.

A heavy-calibre sniper round punched into the stone slab between my feet.

Scarface blew the smoke from his rifle muzzle and fixed me with a flat stare. "Alpha. You want to deal with your own people, that's your business. But that woman signed a blood contract. Her life belongs to the house until the debt is cleared. You kill her before those five million are paid — joint liability. The debt transfers. To you. To this entire Pack."

I shuddered at those words. My hand snapped open. Selena dropped, hit the steps hard, and curled into herself retching violently.

I stood there dragging air into my lungs, looking at my Pack — anger, despair, accusation on every face. Then at the enforcers at the bottom of the steps, weapons ready. Five million gold coins. Even if I sold every stone of Blood Moon Pack's territory, I would still fall short.

In the depths of that despair, I raised my head.

My eyes cut across the crowd and locked onto the broken window on the second floor of the north wing.

Chloe was there. Reclining on a sofa, a cup of hot tea in her hands, watching the scene below with the cold detachment of someone watching circus clowns.

I am an Alpha. I do not bow. Not to anyone. But I knew — the whole territory knew — that she was the only person who could produce that kind of money.

Just as I was preparing to swallow my pride and beg —

Marcus, surrounded by his ring of enforcers, turned away from me entirely.

He turned to face the north wing.

He dropped to one knee in the snow. He pressed his right fist to his chest.

And before the broken window on the second floor, he bowed his head — a formal oath of fealty.

"Boss." His voice was quiet, and it carried perfectly in the dead silence. "The blood contract is in effect. Your call — do we take the skin now, or do we foreclose on Blood Moon Pack's territory outright?"

Absolute silence.

My knees gave out. I hit the steps.

Boss?!

The shadow financier behind the most feared underground operation in the entire Pack —

Was Chloe.

The woman I had written off as worthless?!