Title: A Forbidden Deal With My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle

Elisa's POV The pasta was still warm in the container when I knocked on Williams' apartment door. I had spent all afternoon making his favorite food, the same recipe his mother taught me last Christmas. Three weeks until our mating ceremony. Three weeks until I would officially become his forever. The door was unlocked. "Williams?" I pushed it open, balancing the food container and my purse. "I know you said you were busy tonight, but I thought you might be hungry." The living room was dark except for the hallway light spilling from his bedroom. I heard a sound. A laugh. Female. My wolf stirred uneasily inside my chest. "Williams?" I walked down the hallway, and my heart was beating too fast now. The bedroom door was cracked open. I could see movement inside, shadows against the lamplight. I pushed the door open. Williams was in bed. Lena was on top of him, her red hair cascading down her bare back. They froze when they saw me, but neither of them scrambled to cover themselves. Williams just stared at me with cold, empty eyes. The pasta container slipped from my hands and hit the floor. The sauce splattered across the hardwood. "Elisa." Lena's voice was soft, almost pitying. She climbed off Williams slowly, reaching for a sheet. "We didn't want you to find out this way." "Get out," I whispered. My wolf was screaming inside me, clawing at my chest. "No." Williams sat up, completely unbothered by his nakedness. "This is my apartment. You get out." "What?" The word came out broken. "I'm rejecting our mate bond." His voice was flat, businesslike. "I don't want you, Elisa. I never did." My knees buckled and I grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling. Rejection. The word tore through my chest, shredding something vital inside me. "You can't," I gasped. "We're fated mates. The ceremony is in three weeks." "Fated?" Williams laughed. It was a cruel sound. "You're an omega. Do you know what that makes me look like? My father has been telling me for months to end this, but I thought I could make it work. I was wrong." Lena wrapped the sheet around herself and walked over to stand beside Williams. She placed her hand on his shoulder, a gesture of ownership that made my stomach turn. "I'm pregnant," Lena said quietly. "With Williams' baby." The room tilted. I pressed my hand against the wall, trying to breathe, trying to think. "How long?" My voice sounded strange, distant. "Does it matter?" Williams stood up, pulling on his pants. "It's over, Elisa. Accept it." My wolf howled inside my mind, a sound of pure agony. I felt the bond between us, that invisible thread that had connected us since we first met, begin to fray. Williams was doing this. He was actively severing it, ripping it away from me. "Please," I whispered. "Please don't do this." "I, Williams Crane, reject you, Elisa Monroe, as my mate." The bond snapped. I screamed. The pain was white-hot, burning through every nerve in my body. My wolf thrashed and howled, lost and broken. I collapsed against the doorframe, tears streaming down my face. When I looked up, Williams was watching me with detached curiosity, like I was an experiment he was observing. Lena looked away, at least having the decency to appear uncomfortable. "Get out of my apartment," Williams said. I ran. I did not remember getting to my car or driving home. Everything was a blur of pain and tears. My wolf was fractured inside me, whimpering and bleeding from the severed bond. Omegas were not supposed to survive rejection. The pain alone could kill us. But I made it home. My father's house was small, a rental on the edge of pack territory. I pulled into the driveway and saw the front door hanging open. Every light in the house was on. "Dad?" I stumbled out of the car, my body still trembling from the rejection. "Dad!" I heard voices inside. Shouting. The sound of something breaking. I ran through the open door and froze. My father was on his knees in the living room. Blood dripped from his nose, from a cut above his eye. Two large men stood over him. One of them held a baseball bat. "Stop!" I screamed. The man with the bat turned to look at me. He smiled. His teeth were yellow and crooked. "Well, well. The daughter. Right on time." "Elisa, run!" My father tried to stand, but the other man kicked him in the ribs. He went down hard, gasping for air. "What do you want?" My voice shook, but I stepped forward, placing myself between the men and my father. "Money," the man with the bat said simply. "Your daddy borrowed a lot of money from some very important people. Now they want it back." "How much?" "One hundred and fifty thousand dollars." The number hit me like another rejection. There was no way. My father worked as a mechanic. I was barely scraping by on my art school scholarship. We would never have that kind of money. "We don't have it," I whispered. "Then we have a problem." The man tapped the bat against his palm. "You have thirty days to get the money. If you don't, your father dies. And you?" He looked me up and down slowly, making my skin crawl. "You become collateral. We know some people who would pay good money for a pretty little omega like you." "Please," my father gasped from the floor. "Please, just give us more time." "Thirty days." The man with the bat walked past me, pausing to lean close to my ear. "Better start figuring out how to raise that money, sweetheart." They left, slamming the door behind them. I dropped to my knees beside my father, my hands shaking as I tried to assess his injuries. This could not be happening. Not tonight. Not after everything. "Why did you borrow money from loan sharks?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Your tuition," my father whispered. "After your mother died, I couldn't afford it. I just wanted you to have a chance, baby. I'm sorry." Headlights flooded through the window. A car engine purred outside, expensive and powerful. I looked up and saw a black luxury car pull up to the curb. The two loan sharks who had just left came back out of the shadows where they had been waiting. When they saw the car, they straightened. Then, impossibly, they bowed. The back door of the car opened. A man stepped out, but I could not see his face in the darkness. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and he moved with the controlled power of an alpha. He walked up the driveway slowly. The loan sharks kept their heads bowed, not daring to look at him. When he spoke, his voice was deep and smooth, the kind of voice that commanded instant obedience. "I will cover her debt. All of it." He paused at the doorway, still shrouded in shadow. "But the girl comes with me."