Chapter 7
Maximilian returned home, egg yolk dripping from his hair.
His mother huddled in the corner of the living room, visibly shaken by the mob still gathered outside.
“Mother, where’s Juliette?”
“After you ran off with Scarlett last night, that cursed girl took off. Why are you even asking?”
Maximilian’s heart sank deeper.
“Maximilian, what’s with those people out there? They’re throwing things! Screaming about murder-what in the world
happened?”
“Don’t tell me that jinx actually killed someone?”
“Just divorce her already!”
He ignored her rants and called his secretary, instructing him to trace my whereabouts from the night before until now.
Using tracking magic, the secretary discovered I had already left Ironvale.
He sent Maximilian the surveillance footage-and with one look, Maximilian’s composure unraveled.
It meant I wasn’t bluffing.
I was burning it all to the ground.
He scrambled to contact my old friends, but before he could reach anyone, devastating news dropped: investors were
pulling out of Frosthowl Pack projects.
The moment the news hit, the pack’s stock began a freefall, flirting with total collapse.
Maximilian had no choice but to slink back to the Frosthowl Pack, his pride in tatters.
At the emergency council meeting, he promised to contain the online fallout and bring back the warrior team.
Only barely managing to calm the panic, he returned to the hospital-just in time to hear Scarlett’s grating voice the
moment he stepped through the door.
“Maximilian, Juliette’s gone too far. Look online-they’re ripping me apart!”
“She’s just a broken cripple now. Without you, she’d be rotting in a ditch. Just divorce her already-teach her a lesson.”
“Why should I keep taking all this heat? They’re saying horrible things about me!”
She burst into loud, whiny sobs-completely blind to how serious things had become.
Maximilian’s expression darkened, but he forced himself to approach her calmly.
“Juliette went too far, yes… but we pushed her too far too.”
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“I’ve been thinking-maybe I shouldn’t have taken her legs. She used to be this bright, fearless she-wolf. Now… she’s
paralyzed. It’s too cruel.”
“When she comes back, I’ll hire the best healers. I’ll make it up to her.”
Scarlett’s face twisted with fury, but before she could lash out, Maximilian’s phone buzzed-another round of urgent debt
notices.
He turned to her. “Scarlett, I need you to return the shares I gave you. Just temporarily. Once things stabilize, I’ll give them
back.”
Scarlett’s face hardened.
“Absolutely not.” Her voice cut like glass. “You promised those to me and Buddy. You don’t get to take them back just
because you feel like it.”
Maximilian was stunned. He hadn’t expected such a harsh refusal.
He’d truly thought they were a team. That’s why he’d transferred a portion of the Frosthowl Pack shares to her after Buddy
was born.
He’d given everything-convinced himself it was love, even at the cost of Juliette’s pain.
But now…
“Scarlett, the pack’s in crisis. This is about survival. I just need enough leverage to keep us afloat.”
Scarlett narrowed her eyes.
“So that’s it? You’re having second thoughts? You and Juliette trying to set me up now?”
“Nice try, but I’m not stupid. What’s mine stays mine.”
“And don’t you forget-I gave you Buddy. Is this how you repay me?”
With no other option, Maximilian was forced to sell the ancestral wolf castle.
His mother, humiliated and displaced to a crumbling shack, was livid when she found out Scarlett had refused to return
the shares.
Enraged, she stormed into the hospital.
Words were barely exchanged before they flew at each other, screaming.
Scarlett, younger and faster, had the upper hand-until Maximilian’s mother snapped.
In a blind rage, she grabbed a kettle of boiling water and hurled it straight at Scarlett’s face.
Scarlett was rushed into surgery, having suffered third-degree burns over ninety percent of her face.
Maximilian’s mother was arrested at the scene for aggravated assault.
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