All Chapters of Betrayed by the Mafia Alpha: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Lila The first time I put on the Luna command silver cuffs, it was for a special occasion. Once more? They were forged in blood. Six chairs stood in the re-sanctified war hall beneath the compound. Not thrones. Not iron or ivory. Just stone marked with the sigils of wolves who’d bled, survived, and remembered. It wasn't called a council by me. I called it a reckoning. Elora sat at my right. Seer. Guide. Keeper of what burned quietly. Leif guarded the left flank, his blade never more than half-sheathed. The others? Kael of the Broken Pack, who defied a forced mating claim, was once sentenced to death. Vena, the last blood-witch from the Marrow Forest, her tattoos now branded over with lunar ash. Koa, a half-shift hybrid who’d never belonged to any class and never wanted to, until now. And in the sixth seat? Empty. Until the mimic arrived. She didn’t enter like a threat. She didn’t speak when summoned. She came quietly. And laid something at my feet. a boulder. Sm

Lila Just before falling asleep, I lost track of the fact that I wasn't the only one thinking. Then came the echo. Soft. Unmistakable. Not me. Not memory. Her. She didn’t speak in words. She breathed into my lungs. I awoke speaking in a voice that didn’t fully belong to me. Maximus had heard it before I even opened my eyes. “That wasn’t just you,” he said from the bedside chair, leaning forward, eyes dark and alert. “No,” I admitted. “It was us.” The fusion had not completely subsided. Our soulstrings were still knitting together in strands too ancient for even Elora to translate. Where my thoughts began, hers now leaked. When she remembered something, I sometimes wept and didn’t know why. I’d stare at Maximus and feel a sadness I didn’t own until I realized she was watching him, too, from inside, wondering if she’d ever have something only hers. Elora pulled blood again that morning. Mine ran silver-bright. Brighter than any Lunan should have been. El

Lila I was beginning to think that memory could hurt. Not because it persisted. But because it chose when to come out, it was calm until it wasn't, like a storm that was just wind. The Gate had been humming in my bones for days now. Low, resonant, unpredictable. Not painful exactly, but it made my skin feel thinner, my blood lighter. I couldn’t tell if I was getting closer to something or if something was getting closer to me. Maximus felt it too, even if he hadn’t said so. He stopped leaving the room for any length of time. He hadn’t touched me in two days. Elora found me in the temple crypt, barefoot, tracing the forgotten sigils carved into the altar floor. My fingertips had a faint glow that was half Luna, half mimic. Fully me. “I need to go deeper,” I told her, still staring at the glowing runes. She didn't ask me what I was saying. She didn’t need to. She instead stated, "The Gate is opening more." “You know what’s on the other side, don’t you?” “No.” My voice was s

POV: Lila & Maximus Lila The sky refused to fade. It should’ve gone dark. Should’ve blinked, dimmed, returned to its rightful hush after the Skybound ruling. But the glyphs above the compound still glowed like open wounds in the stars. I couldn’t sleep. Not with the mimic humming under my ribs and my name still echoing in celestial dialect across the night. They’d accepted me. However, the prophecy was still active. It had just grown eyes. Elora found me tracing the ancient maps of the Outer Bone Range scorched relics from the time Sylva believed the Gate’s roots ran deeper than anyone realized. She pointed to a folded glyph on the edge of the sky diagram. The same glyph that now hovered overhead. > “It’s not just a marking,” she whispered. “It’s a path.” She meant: the Gate’s memory isn’t sealed to the temple anymore. It’s moving. Calling. Maximus The night after the Tribunal ruling, I dreamed her name. Not Lila’s. The mimic’s. I didn’t even know she had one

Lila, with Maximus and Saela's reflections interwoven. When the final glyph flared overhead, it didn’t burn. It crooned. Three notes. No rhythm. No melody. Just certainty. Elora dropped the scrying bowl. Saela stilled on the balcony. Maximus reached for my hand as if something might take me before the sound ended. > “It’s not a warning,” I whispered. > “It’s a summons.” The Gate had waited long enough. Lila They gave us until moonrise. Not because they were concerned about what would happen if we refused. Because they knew resisting was over. We’d crossed the spiral. We were the spiral. Now the Gate wanted one of us to anchor it fully. One spirit. One keeper. No echoes. I found Saela in the mirror chamber, seated before the glass, pressing her fingertips to the reflection like it might teach her something about being real. > “You feel whole now,” I said. "I feel... visible," > > “And yet only one of us gets to remain.” > “I didn’t ask to be born.” > “I