Later, I gradually heard bits and pieces of news about Marcus.
The first piece of information came from my former colleague at the pack clinic. She told me Marcus had been able to get out of prison a year early, but at a devastating cost.
His mother had sold their family home–the same house where I’d spent countless evenings having dinner with them, thinking I was part of the family. She’d emptied every savings account, cashed out all their investments, and even sold her late husband’s war medals to scrape together the compensation money.
“She looked like she’d aged twenty years overnight,” my colleague whispered. “When she came to handle the paperwork, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely sign her name.”
They were completely bankrupt.
But Marcus’s troubles had only just begun.
After being thrown out by Dominic’s guards that day, Marcus hadn’t learned his lesson. My security team later told me he’d tried to force his way back into the venue again, screaming my name like a madman.
“He kept yelling that you belonged to him,” one guard reported. “Said he wouldn’t give up until you came back to him.”
This time the guard squad didn’t hold back. They broke one of his legs so cleanly that the bone snapped like a twig. The sound echoed through the parking lot.
When Marcus dragged his lame leg home in defeat, he encountered his former friends from Serena’s birthday party. The same ones who’d called me a homewrecker and cheered when they thought I was being humiliated.
Those friends had all lost everything trying to pay the compensation they owed me for the damages. Their houses were foreclosed, their cars repossessed, their families broken apart by the financial strain.
Since they didn’t dare provoke us, when they finally encountered Marcus limping down the street, they took all their rage out on
him.
“This is all your fault!” one of them screamed, shoving Marcus against a brick wall. “You said she was just some pathetic omega who’d never fight back!”
“You cost us everything!” another snarled, landing a punch to Marcus’s already swollen face. “My wife left me because of the debt. My kids won’t even look at me!”
They beat him until he was unconscious in the alley, leaving him there like trash.
Marcus tried to find work after that, but he hit walls everywhere. The werewolf community was smaller than most humans
realized. Word traveled fast.
At a construction site, the foreman took one look at him and spat on the ground. “You’re that piece of shit who messed with the Alpha King’s Luna, aren’t you? Get lost before I call security.”
At a restaurant, the manager recognized him despite his fake name. “We don’t hire scum here. You’re lucky I don’t beat you senseless myself.”
Even when he tried manual labor jobs in the remotest parts of the territory, someone would always recognize him. The story of his public humiliation had spread like wildfire through social media.
Eventually he could only wander around like a rogue wolf, surviving by hunting small game and selling whatever medicinal herbs he could forage. He lived in abandoned buildings, stealing clothes from donation bins, becoming the very bottom–feeder he’d once looked down upon.
As for Serena, her fate was perhaps the cruelest twist of all.
1/2
After divorcing Marcus when the money ran out, she disappeared without a trace. She didn’t even say goodbye to her son–just packed a single suitcase one night and vanished like smoke.
Her son was left behind, dumped on Marcus’s mother like an unwanted pet.
Marcus’s mother had been so excited about having a grandson before. She’d bought him expensive toys, cooked his favorite meals, bragged about him to all her neighbors.
But after spending more time with him, she discovered he was a little monster. The child had inherited his mother’s manipulative nature and his unknown father’s violent temper.
By then it was too late to get rid of him. She was legally his guardian.
The old woman and the child would either argue or fight every day. He would scream at her, throw tantrums when he didn’t get what he wanted, and break things out of spite.
“I want my mommy!” he’d shriek, throwing dishes at the wall. “You’re not my real grandma! You’re just an old ugly witch!”
Several times they made Marcus’s mother so angry she fainted from the stress. The neighbors complained constantly about the
noise.
One night, Marcus was secretly visiting his mother in her rundown apartment. He couldn’t stay long–too many people were looking for him, wanting to collect on old debts.
On the way back to his makeshift shelter, while foraging for medicinal herbs in the expensive part of town, he suddenly saw a familiar figure.
A woman stepped out of a sleek black luxury car, her designer heels clicking on the pavement. She wore an elegant dress that probably cost more than most people’s monthly salary, and diamond jewelry sparkled on her throat.
It was Serena.
She’d become someone else’s mistress. Some rich Alpha’s kept woman, living in comfort while her son grew up unwanted and
unloved.
Marcus’s eyes turned red with rage. All the humiliation, all the suffering, all the loss–it all came flooding back in a tsunami of
fury.
“You!” he screamed, stumbling forward with his broken leg. “You’re the one who ruined me! You’re the one who destroyed everything!”
