Chapter Twenty: Family Meeting

                 Sophie Steele

"You don't have to say anything," Dominic told me outside the meeting room door. "You just have to be in the room."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Gerald wants you absent," he replied. "So you're going to be present."

He opened the door.

I walked in.

The room held eight people. A long table, dark wood, the kind that had hosted decades of decisions. Gerald sat near the head of it, not at the head, that would have been too transparent, but close enough to anchor the room's gravity toward himself. Aldric sat two seats from Gerald, upright, his hands folded on the table, his face the face of a man who had spent thirty years deciding things. Erik Aldric sat beside his father, younger, quieter, his eyes dropping to the table when I entered.

Two other council members I didn't recognise. Vivienne at the far end, straight-backed, giving nothing away. A family solicitor with a folder in front of him.

Every head turned when I walked in.

I found a chair on Dominic's side of the table, sat down, put my hands in my lap, and kept my face exactly where I needed it to be.

Gerald smiled at me warmly. "Sophie…. I'm glad you joined us."

"Thank you for including me," I replied.

He held my gaze one second longer than necessary, then turned to the room.

"Let's begin," he said.

He started with Richard. Of course he did. Richard was safe ground, ground nobody would contest, the warmest possible opening for whatever he intended to build on top of it. He spoke about Richard's vision for the estate, the business holdings, the pack's financial interests, and the need for clear custodianship during the transition period. The solicitor opened his folder. Numbers were mentioned, including percentages and timelines.

I listened, kept my face composed, and watched the room.

Aldric nodded at intervals. The two unfamiliar council members took notes. Vivienne watched Gerald with the particular stillness of a woman tracking something she had already identified.

Dominic said nothing. He sat with his coffee in front of him, his posture easy, his expression neutral, and said absolutely nothing.

Gerald moved smoothly from estate business into pack continuity. It was well done, the transition so gradual that the shift in subject felt organic, like one river becoming another without an obvious border. He talked about the Steele pack's standing among the regional councils, the importance of clear succession lines, and the historical precedent of formal verification processes for any heir who would one day carry the Alpha's weight.

"We're not just talking about inheritance," Gerald said, his tone measured, educational. "We're talking about the integrity of a line that other packs look to. That requires clarity, process and documentation."

He paused, looked at the table in the manner of a man thinking carefully, choosing words with precision.

"Any heir," he continued, "whose lineage requires formal verification should go through that process early, cleanly, without prejudice. It protects the child as much as the pack. It is not a judgment. It is simply the correct application of existing structure."

He did not say Ethan's name.

He didn't need to.

Under the table my hands had closed into fists, the knuckles pressing against each other, slow, controlled pressure, the only place I was allowing any of this to go.

Aldric leaned forward. "The council has a formal process for this, yes. It has been used before, in the Harken succession, in the Morrow case. It is not punitive. It simply establishes standing."

"Exactly," Gerald said. He looked at no one in particular. He was too smart to look at me.

I looked at Erik.

Erik was looking at the table. His jaw was tight. His father spoke beside him with the comfortable authority of a man who had no idea his son had been in Dominic's entrance hall two hours ago with a photograph, asking for a way out.

I filed that away.

One of the unnamed council members cleared his throat. "In terms of timeline, if a formal verification were to be initiated, would the child need to be present at the villa or…"

"Not immediately," Gerald said smoothly. "The initial step is documentation. Birth records, lineage confirmation. The physical introduction to pack structure comes later, once standing is established."

He wanted the birth certificate. That was what this was. He wanted it entered into formal process so it became a council document, accessible, reviewable, subject to whatever interpretation he could build around it.

I thought about the message to Gerald from the unknown number. The second name on the birth certificate.

My stomach tightened.

Dominic picked up his coffee. He drank a little, then he set it down.

That was the only movement he had made in twenty minutes.

Gerald looked at him. "Dominic, I'd welcome your thoughts."

"I'm listening," Dominic replied.

Two words. The flattest two words in the room. Gerald's expression did not shift, but something behind his eyes recalculated.

"Of course," Gerald said pleasantly. "There's no urgency. I simply want to ensure we handle things correctly, for the family's sake, for the pack's sake."

"Noted," Dominic said.

Gerald waited for more. Dominic offered nothing more.

The meeting ran another twenty minutes, settled back into estate business, timelines for the will reading, property decisions, the kind of material that gave everyone a reason to have been in the room that had nothing to do with what Gerald actually came to plant. He was thorough that way.

People began to leave in clusters. The solicitor packed his folder. Aldric spoke briefly to Gerald in a low voice near the door, Erik behind them, his eyes flicking once to Dominic, then away. Vivienne left without a word to anyone, her footsteps precise in the corridor.

The room emptied.

Gerald was the last to leave. He paused at the door, looked back at both of us.

"Good meeting," he offered. "Good to do these things properly."

He left.

The door clicked shut.

I turned to Dominic immediately.

"You let him talk," I said.

Dominic picked up his coffee. "I needed to know exactly what he's planning." He drank, set the cup down. "Now I do."

"The birth certificate," I said. "He wants it in council process. Once it's a formal document under council jurisdiction…."

"He can challenge the lineage on procedural grounds," Dominic finished. "Question the circumstances, the timeline, the validity of the bond at the time of conception. Make it a council matter rather than a family one." He looked at me. "Which is much harder to shut down quietly."

"He doesn't have the certificate yet."

"No," Dominic replied. "But someone sent him a message this morning telling him to look at the second name on it."

I stared at him.

"There's a second name on Ethan's birth certificate," Dominic said carefully. "That I don't know about."

The room went very still.

I looked at him.

The second name. The one I had put there six years ago in a Los Angeles registration office, alone, three days after Ethan was born, because the registrar had asked for the father's name, because I had stood there with a newborn, exhausted, heartsore, not yet fully sure of anything, and because I had written it down before I could talk myself out of it.

"Sophie," Dominic said quietly.

"I put your name on the certificate," I told him. "I always did."

He went completely still.

"Gerald's contact already has it," I said.

Dominic stood up slowly. "Then Gerald already knows Ethan is formally mine." He picked up his phone. "Which means this was never about verification."

He looked at me.

"It was about finding out if I knew.”