The Alpha Billionaire's Fatal Misjudgment

Two days later, Chase buried the child Lily claimed I had killed.

The family cemetery had frozen overnight. Wind knifed through my thin black dress as a syndicate enforcer shoved me toward the outer ring of mourners.

"Perimeter," he said. "Alpha's orders."

I caught myself against a marble headstone. "Touch me again and you will regret it."

He laughed under his breath but stepped back.

Hundreds of executives, pack elders, and family allies crowded around the open grave. At the front, Chase draped his heavy coat around Lily's shoulders and guided her into a velvet chair.

I had received no coat. No seat. No place with the family whose business I had helped build.

The officiant finished the final rite, and the crowd bowed its head.

Chase did not.

His gaze found me across the cemetery.

"Evelyn."

The mourners parted at once.

I walked down the aisle they made for me, shoes slipping on frozen grass. I stopped ten feet from the grave.

"Closer," Chase said.

"This is close enough."

Lily made a small sound and pressed a hand to her chest.

Chase's jaw tightened. "Kneel."

A murmur moved through the crowd.

I looked at the frost beneath my feet, then at him. "No."

"Get on your knees and apologize to Lily. Confess what you did in front of the pack and my brother's grave."

"I will not confess to a crime I did not commit."

"You pushed a pregnant woman down the stairs."

"She threw herself down them after I caught her destroying financial records."

Several board members shifted uneasily. Good. At least some of them still remembered the audit that had vanished from the calendar.

I raised my voice.

"Check the reserve accounts. Check the offshore transfer requests. Ask why the auditors were dismissed before they could reconcile the books."

"This is a funeral," an elder snapped.

One of the older board directors, Martin Vale, glanced toward Chase. "The quarterly audit was postponed without a vote," he said cautiously. "That part is true."

Lily immediately pressed a hand to her mouth. "Please do not turn my baby's burial into a board meeting."

The sympathy of the crowd swung back toward her exactly as she intended. Several mourners glared at Martin until he lowered his eyes. I filed away the reaction. Lily did not merely rely on Chase's grief. She weaponized everyone else's discomfort too.

"It became a trial when he ordered me to kneel."

Lily stood behind Chase. "Please, don't fight because of me."

I laughed once. "You have done nothing but make people fight because of you."

"Enough," Chase warned.

"No. You crushed evidence without looking at it. You froze my accounts without an investigation. Now you want a public confession because it is easier than admitting you might be wrong."

His eyes brightened from gold to burning amber.

"Kneel," he commanded.

Alpha pressure slammed into me.

My knees buckled.

I hit the icy stone border around the grave hard enough to send pain through both legs. The force pressed against my shoulders and spine, trying to fold me to the ground.

Gasps rose from the crowd.

Chase stepped closer. "Apologize."

I planted both palms on the ice.

"No."

"You will remain there until you do."

Cold soaked through my dress and tights. My hidden pregnancy had become the only thing that mattered. I could not let my body stay compressed under that pressure. I needed to get upright, even if the movement looked like defiance.

I slid one foot under me.

"Stay down," Chase said.

I forced air into my lungs. "I am standing."

"Evelyn."

"You do not get to use your rank to manufacture guilt."

I pushed higher.

The effort tore a gasp from me. My muscles shook violently, but I lifted one shoulder, then the other.

Lily suddenly backed into Chase.

"She's coming at me!"

I was still several feet away.

"I am trying to stand," I said through clenched teeth.

"Keep her away from me!" Lily cried.

Chase reacted before he looked.

His boot struck my left shoulder.

The impact threw me backward off the stone border. I hit the frozen ground with my hip and the back of my head. White light burst across my vision.

For a second, I heard nothing.

Then pain ripped through my lower abdomen.

Not the dull ache of cold. Not the bruising in my shoulder.

Something deep and sharp tore inside me.

I curled onto my side and clutched my stomach.

"Do not ever lunge at her again," Chase said.

I tried to answer, but another wave of pain stole my breath.

He turned away.

Lily looked back at me from under his arm. Her expression was almost serene.

"Chase," I managed.

He did not stop.

Warmth spread beneath my thighs.

At first, I thought I had lost control of my bladder from the impact. Then I looked down.

Bright red blood soaked through the black fabric of my dress and ran across the white frost.

The closest mourners recoiled.

A woman screamed for the medical team.

For one suspended second, nobody moved. Then Martin Vale pushed through the line of mourners and dropped his coat over my legs. "Get the doctor," he barked at the nearest guard. "Now."

Lily caught Chase's sleeve. "She is pretending. She wants to ruin the funeral."

Martin looked at the blood running between the stones. "No one can fake that much blood."

The first medic reached me with a trauma bag and froze when his scanner passed over my abdomen. His expression changed so sharply that Chase noticed.

"What is it?" Chase demanded.

The medic did not answer him. He looked at me instead. "How far along are you?"

I closed my eyes. The secret was over.

Chase finally turned.

His face changed when he saw the blood.

I pressed both hands over my stomach and stared straight at him.

For the first time since the staircase, fear broke through his certainty.

And everyone in the cemetery saw it. No whisper could erase that.