Chapter 17: Still

Lola's Pov

Sofia was sitting in a chair with soft lighting behind her.

The baby was in her arms, fussing, turning her face toward the camera. Her small hand reached out toward the lens, fingers opening and closing the way babies do when they want something they can't name.

Sofia leaned close to her ear.

"Mama's not here," she whispered. "Where did Mama go?"

The baby's face crumpled.

The video was forty seconds long and I watched it three times.

“You bitch,” I whispered to myself.

By the third time I wasn't watching Sofia anymore. I was watching the baby's hand. The way her fingers reached toward the camera like she was trying to grab onto something she couldn't see.

She didn't know what a camera was. She didn't know she was being filmed. She was just reaching the way babies reach when they want to be held and nobody is coming.

I put the phone down and walked to the bathroom and ran cold water over my wrists.

I stood there for a minute. Then I went back to the desk.

I had work to do.

Williams was already inside the building when I arrived the next evening.

The location was a private floor above a law firm in the financial district. He was standing at the far end of the room with his back to the door, looking at something on his phone. He turned when he heard me come in.

He looked at my face for a moment without saying anything.

"Sit down."

"I'm fine standing."

He didn't push it. He pulled out a chair for himself and sat, setting his phone on the table. "The rogue report came in this morning. Three wolves, packless. Moving through the outer district in the direction of your last known location."

I pulled the chair out and sat across from him. "Tristain hired them?"

"That's the likely source. They're not acting randomly. Someone gave them a scent trail."

"How close are they?"

"Close enough that you can't go back to the penthouse tonight."

I looked at him. "You're telling me I need to move again."

"I'm telling you that staying where you are is no longer safe."

"Williams, I have the Council verification tomorrow evening. I have custody documents to review. I have Arthur waiting on three separate filings. I can't just disappear to another location and work from scratch."

"You can do all of that from a secure location. My network has a property twenty minutes from the verification office. Fully equipped. My people on the perimeter."

"Your people." I leaned back. "I've been surrounded by your people since I signed that contract."

"That's the point of the contract."

"I know what the point is." I looked at the table for a second. "I just want to be clear that I haven't forgotten what this is."

Williams tilted his head slightly. "What do you think this is?"

"A formal arrangement between two wolves who need something from each other. That's it."

"I haven't suggested otherwise."

"You looked at my face when I walked in like you were checking if I was okay. That's not strictly contractual behavior."

He was quiet for a moment. Then, "Your wolf is calm right now."

I looked at him. "Don't."

"I'm not making a claim. I'm making an observation."

"Then keep your observations to yourself."

"Lola." He leaned forward slightly, both forearms on the table. "I am not trying to get ahead of what this is. But you walked in here carrying something heavy and your wolf settled the moment you sat down. I noticed it. That's all."

I didn't answer him right away because the honest answer was that he was right and I didn't want to give him that.

My wolf had gone completely still from the moment I walked through that door. Not the careful stillness she had been holding for months, the kind that came from being constantly on guard.

Something different. The kind of still that comes when a body finally stops waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

I had not felt that in a long time.

It unsettled me more than the rogue report.

"The custody filing," I said, redirecting. "Arthur thinks I should show up before the hearing. Williams thinks Council first, i need a decision by morning."

"Council first. I haven't changed that position."

"Walk me through why again."

"Because the moment the Seal is verified, pack jurisdiction overrides the civil custody framework. The hearing judge changes. The burden of proof shifts. Sofia's forty three page filing becomes significantly less powerful in a pack courtroom than it is in a civil one."

"And if Tristain gets his emergency session before my verification tomorrow?"

"He won't."

"How are you sure?"

"Because two of the seven council members he was counting on are no longer available to him as of this morning."

I looked at him. "What did you do?"

"I had conversations. Through my network. Nothing illegal, nothing that can be traced back to you."

"Williams."

"The seats are not bought. They are simply no longer interested in backing a man whose financial empire is visibly collapsing."

He picked up his phone and turned it toward me. The IPO tracker was open. The valuation had dropped another four percent since my last check.

"They are practical wolves. They go where the power is. Right now the power is moving in your direction."

I looked at the numbers for a moment.

"Dre said his team has been trying to trace the transfers for two days," I told him.

"I know. They won't find anything."

"He's going to figure out it was me eventually."

"By the time he does, the Council presentation will be done and the Seal will be on record. There is nothing he can do with that information after that point."

I nodded slowly. My hands were flat on the table. My wolf was still doing that thing, that deep settled quiet that I couldn't explain and didn't want to examine too closely in front of him.

"The baby," I said.

Williams waited.

"I know what the DNA shows. I know what the bond scent told me the first time Sofia held her." I kept my voice even. "I know she is not biologically mine."

"Lola."

"I'm not finished." I looked at him directly. "I am not going to lose her to Sofia. I don't care what the biology says. I was her mother from the first night Tristain put her in my arms and I am not going to let a viral video and a sworn affidavit change that."

Williams held my gaze. "Then we make sure they don't."