236 The Silent Uprising
Mara
Tiffany and I spent two quiet hours curled up on the couch, watching a movie neither of us was really paying attention to. My mind wandered constantly-to Rockville, to Lucian, to the silent question that weighed on every heartbeat: Would they
come back safe?
I didn’t say it out loud, but I whispered it in my mind over and over again. Goddess, please protect them.
Just after the credits rolled, a knock came at the door.
I already knew who it was. Austin had linked me moments before, his voice tight and uneasy.
I opened the door to find him standing there, visibly rattled.
“Luna Mara,” he said quickly. “You need to come. Something’s happening in the right wing.”
My brows furrowed, and Tiffany immediately rose behind me. We followed him without question.
The tension grew thick the closer we got to Alpha Vander’s wing.
And then I heard it.
“How could you do this to me!”
Alpha Vander’s voice, rough with fury, echoed down the hall. I felt a cold weight drop into my stomach.
We reached the door. Austin opened it, and we stepped inside.
Martha was sitting on the bed, crying. Alpha Vander stood across from her, fists clenched, eyes blazing with pain.
When he turned to look at us, something in his gaze faltered. It was a shattered look-a man teetering on the edge.
“Where are your mates?” he asked, voice quieter now but still charged.
“They’ve gone on a mission,” I replied carefully. He seemed to understand and didn’t press. He just nodded once.
“Alpha, what’s going on?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain steady.
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted back to Martha.
“Everything Lacy told us…” he finally said, “…was true.”
My heart dropped.
His eyes were bloodshot, brimming with disbelief and raw heartbreak. Behind him, Martha’s sobs deepened. Her
shoulders shook. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days-like her spirit had aged a decade in a few hours.
She shouldn’t have been out of bed.
I walked over and sat beside her, gently placing a hand on her trembling back.
“You need to take it easy, Martha,” I said softly.
To my surprise, she turned and hugged me-tight, desperate. I froze for a second, then wrapped my arms around her carefully. She felt weightless, her body fragile, as though she might break apart with the slightest pressure.
“I’m tired, Mara,” she whispered into my shoulder, her voice breaking. “I’ve been holding everything in for so long…”
She pulled back slightly, wiping her tear-streaked face before turning to Vander.
“You should’ve pulled the plug,” she said to him. “You should’ve let me go. At least then, I would’ve had peace.”
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Uprising
Her voice shook with decades of buried sorrow.
“I’ve been fighting all my life… trying to escape this bind. For thirty years, I’ve lived in a cage. I tried to survive-for the
children, for appearances-but I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. My children are strong. They don’t need me. I don’t want to keep living like this.”
Her words were a confession and a cry for release.
I sat there, stunned. Every sentence cut deeper than the last.
Was that why someone had forged her suicide letter? Because she’d truly wanted to end it… but hadn’t gone through with it
herself?
Had someone tried to “help” her die… or silence her before she could speak?
Either way, one thing was now undeniable: Martha had been carrying more than any of us could have imagined.
And someone had taken advantage of that.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Vander asked, his voice calm-but brittle. It was the kind of calm that came before a storm.
“Why did you lie to me?” he said again, his hand raking through his hair, fingers trembling. He was trying-really trying-to
hold himself together. And for the moment, he was managing.
But barely.
“I married you, Martha,” he continued, eyes locked on her. “I claimed you. Where is his mark?”
Martha paled. Her lips parted, and for a second, I thought she wouldn’t answer.
Then, like something inside her finally snapped, she whispered, “Back of my shoulder. Covered by the tattoo.”
Vander’s composure shattered.
He turned and slammed his fist into the wall with such force the sound cracked through the room. The drywall splintered beneath his knuckles. The entire atmosphere shifted-pressure pulsing through the air like a shockwave. I felt it slam into
my chest, heavy and nauseating.
Tiffany stumbled slightly beside me, and I instinctively placed a hand on my bump.
“Alpha, please-you need to calm down,” I said gently, grounding myself as the room trembled with the force of his power.
He inhaled sharply and stepped back. His chest rose and fell rapidly, but he reined it in. Barely.
I turned to Martha. She was crying silently, her shoulders trembling, but there was no hysteria in it-just exhaustion. The kind of sorrow that had long since burned through the screams and left behind only ashes.
Then she spoke.
“Alaric forced me into marriage,” she said, voice hollow. “I’d run too many times. He said claiming me was the only way to make sure I stayed. When I got pregnant, we moved to Kentville. He was chasing influence… territory. He pimped me out
to men-over and over again. Told me it was the price I had to pay for his success.”
Her voice cracked, and I clenched my fists.
“I was abused in every way, Mara. And when my belly began to show… he abandoned me. Just vanished. When I gave birth to Lacy, he came back-but only to take her. She didn’t fit into his plans. She was a problem, a loose end. I begged him to send her to my parents instead of… what he had planned. He agreed, but only because he didn’t want the responsibility.”
Martha wiped her cheeks with trembling hands, unable to meet Vander’s gaze.
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236 The Silent Uprising
“No one dared defy him. Not then. He was feared. Worshipped, even. I had to keep working for him while picking up
secret jobs just to support my parents and my daughter from a distance. One day, he summoned me to Neev. Said he had
a job for me.”
Her voice dropped into a whisper, haunted.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be the job.”
She looked at Vander then, eyes brimming with unspeakable sorrow.
“But it was you.”
Her shoulders curled inward, as if trying to make herself smaller.
“Alaric told me this wouldn’t be like the others. He wanted me to get close. Marry you. Kill you. Kill Lucian. Then hand everything I inherited over to him. He made it clear what would happen if I didn’t. I refused at first-until he took my parents and Lacy and hid them away.”
Vander’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Martha said. “Then… I met you again. And despite everything, I was relieved. You
remembered me from our first encounter. You were burned into my memory too. And slowly, painfully, I started to fall in
love.”
She glanced down, ashamed.
“But your heart… it still belonged to Natasha. I wanted to walk away. I tried. But I couldn’t. So I took a risk. I stopped
feeding Alaric information. I stopped trying to fulfill the mission.”
Her voice broke again.
“Vander was protecting my parents. Alaric didn’t have the strength to challenge him directly. That’s when the blackmail started. Alaric threatened to expose me-to tell Vander everything. Because he knew… once you learned I had a mate,
you’d cast me out without a second thought.”
She buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
“I was just trying to survive, Mara. That’s all I’ve ever done-survive.”
And in that moment, I saw it.
Not the brash, controlling Martha I had known.
But the broken girl beneath the mask.
A woman who had lived as a pawn, a possession, a prisoner.
And now, all her secrets had finally come undone.
