Chapter 51: Chapter 51

I swallow the initial ugly feelings that surface.

This is the bitch that killed my grandfather.

This is the wolf who stole my fiancee.

The same spiteful woman who’d pushed for me to be excommunicated by the Council and for the human courts to sentence me to ‘life in prison.’

Coming across her in the country club had been bad.

But I really didn’t expect to see her so soon again.

Lily looks the same as when I met her for the first time all those years ago.

She’s tall and thin in the way only actresses could be. Her skin has a perfect glow. Meticulously applied makeup, haute couture clothes, expensive designer handbag, Dior shoes.

She looks every bit the actress—and fiancee to one of the richest men in the city.

As a luna, born to the Alpha of Pack Atkinson and as the intended mate of Alpha Sean Stevens… she wears her position like a layer of armor.

If it hadn’t been for what she did to my grandfather, I might be more sympathetic. If someone had killed my sister—back before Evelyn showed herself for the evil person she is— I would’ve been outraged and wanted revenge too.

But it was an accident!

Lily hadn’t even been close to Jennifer. They were related, but for Lily to be so vengeful, so focused on hating Grace at every turn, even years later, it makes no sense.

Well, that’s not true. Lily wanted Sean. So there was motive there.

I can’t imagine what this wolf wants…

Annabelle, who was accompanying Lily, also notices me and she sneers. "I was wondering who this is.

Isn't she the perpetrator who killed Jennifer? This sure is karma. I can't believe she's now here working as a sanitation worker.”

I remain silent although inside, I’m seething.

Like these two women just happened to be in this neutral zone in the city, walking around this industrial neighborhood in their fancy clothes.

I’m the only reason they’d be down here.

But I pretend not to hear and continue sweeping the rubbish that had fallen around the dumpster.

“She sure is thick-skinned,” Annabelle says. “If it were me who had killed someone's sister, I'm afraid I would cry bitterly as I knelt down and begged for forgiveness," Annabelle taunts.

Beg forgiveness? Of the same wolf who’d killed her grandfather!?

Anger courses beneath my skin.

I pointedly look at the surveillance cameras at the corners of the building.

“You have anything to say for yourself, mutt?” Lily asks.

I take a deep breath and slowly raise my head. I glance between the two of them. "I've already paid the price.” I hold the broom in front of me, a physical barrier to encourage these two women to keep their distance.

I don’t think they’ll attack me here.

There are surveillance cameras all around the building—it is a government building—but government officials could be bought, as I learned in the course of my trial and when I’d been tricked into delivering the papers to Mia.

"I was incarcerated for three years over an unwarranted accusation and my lawyer license was suspended. I suffered through all sorts of hardships in jail and could only be a sanitation worker after being released.”

“Oh, poor you,” Annabelle mocks. “You have a shit job. Big deal. You’re alive, aren’t you? While Jennifer is dead!”

“You think you’ve paid the price? It was only three years in prison and you think that's the price?" Lily asks coldly. “It should’ve been a life for a life.”

"What do you want now?" I reply. "I'm already living the worst life possible. I have no family. No friendships. I’ve been declared a rogue and have no pack. Everything I’ve worked for was taken from me. Did you come here to gloat? I can now say that I have nothing to my name, and therefore I have nothing to lose."

Lily stares at her, making a sweep from the top of my messy head to the bottom cuffs of my neon orange sanitation worker uniform.

I look…ragged. My nails are broken, my hair is dull, my skin is dry. Little details, and in the whole scheme of things, such immaterial ones, but I’m reminded of my shortcomings as I stand here beneath Lily’s scrutiny.

"It seems like your hands have not been completely crippled!" Lily says, huffing coldly. "We were too gentle with you last time."

My hands tighten on the broom.

"Grace, you have nothing to do with Sean anymore. Do you understand me? Don’t let your younger sister make a fool of herself by trying to get close to him again. If she does, you’ll both pay the price for it.” Lily’s voice deepens, rumbling with the fury of her wolf. “And next time, I’ll see that you don’t even have hands to hold a broom…”