Chapter 31 · Night

"Get out, Callum." I already had the deadbolt half-turned when his hand hit the door above my head and shoved it back open.

He didn't come in like an alpha. He came in like a man who hadn't slept in three days, tie gone, collar open, the mark on his own throat still an ugly pink where he'd clawed at it in his sleep — I knew that because pack gossip travels faster than blood.

"You annulled it," he said. "The wedding. The whole thing. Voided, like it never happened."

"That's what a rejected mark does, Callum. Funny how you never bothered to learn that before you said it out loud in front of two hundred people."

He flinched. Good. I wanted him to flinch.

"I need the file," he said. "The port contract. Rowan, if the merger board thinks the marriage fell apart because of scandal instead of paperwork, they pull out. People lose their jobs over your filing cabinet."

"People lost their mate over your mouth." I stepped back so the door could close, not because I wanted him in, but because I didn't want the whole hallway hearing this. "You want the clean version.