Then, I quietly turned and walked away. Back in my car, I stared at the image on my phone. I created a dummy account within the pack’s internal network, uploaded the photo, and sent it directly to Tim—Janine’s mate.
Back at my place, I started gathering every gift Jonathan had ever given me during the last five years. Jewelry. Letters. Trinkets. All of it went into boxes. I brought them downstairs, one by one, and lit a fire in the hearth. One after the other, I fed the past to the flames, watching each piece blacken and curl into ash.
Just as the last box began to catch, Janine appeared—uninvited. Without saying anything, she kicked one of the boxes, scattering burning embers and ash everywhere. Some landed on her, but she didn’t even flinch. She just smiled.
I narrowed my eyes. “What exactly do you think you’re doing, Janine?”
“Oh! My bad,” she said with feigned innocence. “I must’ve tripped. Didn’t mean to. Wait—are these from Jonathan? Why are you burning them? Did it finally hit you how irrelevant you’ve always been to him?”
My jaw tensed. “Come again?”
“I mean, it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? You couldn’t even keep your mother safe. She died because you were too weak to stop it.”