FAZER LOGINCHAPTER 43SERA POVI found Boyd and the other three rogues in the small courtyard behind the infirmary. The space Kade had grudgingly allowed them during daylight hours, as long as a guard stood watch nearby.Boyd didn't look up from the knife he was sharpening. "You look like a woman with something on her mind.""I have several things on my mind. Most of them aren't your business.""Fair enough." He tested the blade against his thumb and set it aside. "Ask your question anyway. I can tell you're circling one."I sat down across from him. The guard shifted his weight but said nothing."The man who hired you. I want you to think back to that meeting again. Not what he said. What you noticed about him physically. Beyond the tattoo."Boyd's brow furrowed. He glanced at the others. They'd gone quiet, listening."We already gave the Alpha everything we remembered.""You gave him what you thought mattered. I want everything. Including the details you dismissed because they didn't seem impo
CHAPTER 47SERA POVI was packing when the first shot hit the window.Glass exploded inward. I hit the floor before my brain caught up, cheek against cold stone, one hand already reaching for the bag I'd been filling. Another shot. Then another. Three rounds. Evenly spaced. The kind of pattern that comes from someone who wants you to know they're not going to stop.The door slammed open.Kade.He crossed the room in three strides. Hauled me up by the arm. Shoved me behind the heavy oak desk before I could say a word. His body blocked the window. His claws were already out. Somewhere down the hall, boots pounded against stone."Stay down.""I'm not—""Stay. Down."Another round tore through the wall above us. Plaster rained onto the desk. I heard Kyle's growl tear out of Kade's chest. Low. Vibrating. The air in the room went thick with it.Then the shooting stopped.Ellis burst through the door. Chest heaving. Two guards behind him. "Rooftop. West side. Two shooters, already moving.""
CHAPTER 46ROWAN POVThe town matching the fragment took two days to identify, buried in an old regional gazetteer that hadn't been updated since before the border war that killed Kade's father."Sanctuary Hollow," Ellis read aloud, tracing the faded map with one finger. "Renamed generations ago. Most current maps just call it Hollow Creek. No wonder the name meant nothing to either of us.""Renamed by whom.""The gazetteer doesn't say. Just notes the change, no explanation." He looked up at me. "It's a half-day's ride east, past Diamond's border. Small settlement. Mostly abandoned, from what little else I could find."I didn't like the timing of it, the way every lead we'd chased since the ambush had a habit of sitting just beyond the edge of territory anyone bothered to patrol closely. That kind of placement wasn't accidental. Whoever built this network understood exactly which stretches of land drew scrutiny and which ones didn't, and they'd built their entire operation in the gaps
CHAPTER 42ROWAN POVThe search for Tricia turned up nothing by morning, no sign of her past the eastern tree line, no scent trail that held past the first quarter mile, which told me whoever had taken her, if she'd been taken at all, had known exactly how to move a body without leaving anything a wolf's nose could follow.I walked the tree line myself before calling off the outer search, checking every broken branch, every disturbed patch of undergrowth, looking for the kind of evidence that only reveals itself to someone willing to crawl through the mud to find it. There was nothing. Whoever had orchestrated this had either been extraordinarily lucky, or extraordinarily practiced.I called off the search and turned my attention inward instead, to the one thing I could still control."Show me everything," I told Ellis, once we'd shut ourselves into the security office with the door locked. "Every log, every entry point, every hour she's been logged leaving this estate since the day s
CHAPTER 4Damon's POVI knew it was fruitless listening to Ava in the first place.When I saw my bodyguard drag her back into the house, his hand was gripping the collar of her shirt as if she were some deadly criminal.Well, she is a criminal.Ava stole both my money and my heart.I asked the bodyguard what happened, and he told me she couldn't prove anything. The family that lived there moved away years ago.Part of me still remembered the panic in her eyes. But the empty house...the lies...they all pointed back to Ava.I scoff.Ava and her stupid schemes.For one stupid moment...I almost believed her.I leave Ava locked in the guest room before heading downstairs.This time, I honestly do not know what to do with her. For some weird reason, I am reluctant to take her to prison.I hastily wave away such thoughts and turn my attention back to the family dinner.I gaze around and notice that everyone has suddenly gone quiet. Every pair of eyes at the table is on me. They all look expe
CHAPTER 2Mia Hart woke to the sound of her phone screaming.Not literally. But seventeen notifications in thirty seconds felt close enough. She rolled over, squinting at the screen through crusted eyes. 2:47 AM, 2:48. Then 2:49. Her thumb swiped blindly across the glass.@WolvesInsider: Noah Hayes seen leaving arena with mystery woman—we all know who@HockeyBuzz: 100% confirmed? Sources say relationship has been ongoing for months@MiaHartFanClub (new account, 12K followers): THE QUEEN AND HER KINGShe laughed once, not because it was funny. Because the internet had created a relationship that didn't exist in less than eight hours. Thousands of new followers. Reporters requesting interviews. Fans editing videos of the "kiss" from seventeen different angles. Someone had already stitched together every clip of her and Noah from the past four years.The laugh died in her throat.She scrolled past the noise, past the tags, the edited photos and the speculative threads and the comments







