Chapter 12
Calhoun’s pov~
I opened the trash like a man opening a wound.
My hands shook. For a second the world went grainy at the edges, like the light had been turned down inside my skull. One scroll and the abyss yawned back at me, several emails from the Pack partners, all of them, every single one of their messages, their interest, their meeting requests were deleted. Not archived. Not ignored. Deleted. In my trash.
I blinked until spots swam. How? I’d been buried in files last night. I hadn’t touched my phone. The only other person who had been in this apartment was Carmela. That realization hit me hard. White-hot rage crawled up my veins and took my hands. Carmela.
That sheltered princess of a woman who’d never punched a clock in her life. Carmela, who wore power like perfume but had never actually worked for it. Why would she delete emails she didn’t understand? Why would she throw away a deal that meant profit for the Pack? For us?
My mouth tasted like metal. Losing this would cost...no, not just cost. It would gnaw a hole in the quarter, in the numbers I fed my decisions with for the Pack, in a dozen calculated places I couldn’t afford to bleed from.
I fished my phone out and dialed. I scrolled contacts, found Elodie’s number and pressed call. The line clicked, rang, and went straight to voicemail. Again. Again. My heart did something dumb in my chest. It slid, then missed a beat and fell into a pit.
Elodie never let anything go to voicemail. Ever.
I dug through the trash folder with my thumbs as if my hands could claw her back. My throat was raw. Then there it was: a message. And I hit restore. What I saw wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t a reason. It was a goodbye.
“Nine years loving you in silence. Five years pretending it was enough. This is the end of the line. Alpha Calhoun, I’m no longer your assistant. I no longer have feelings for you. We’re just two strangers now. In this lifetime, let’s never cross paths again.”