All Chapters of Betrayed by the Mafia Alpha: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

POV :Lila (primary), Kehra (deeper signal), Maximus (uncoiled reflex), Elora (in between names), Saela (non-burial), and Thread, Lila I wasn't aware of the change until my own breathing started to stutter. Not from fear resonance. Something was under my skin that hadn’t been there since the Gate named me by accident. The basin field's air had become more dense. Not heavier more attentive. Like the earth had finally stopped pretending to be asleep. I reached for the thread at my sleeve instinctively. But it was gone. Not cut. Released. It had slipped into the night like it remembered another name to follow. And it left no warmth behind. Kehra’s silhouette leaned over the mirror bowl at first light. Not to reflect she hadn’t sought reflection in weeks. But the glyph near her hand pulsed. Faint. Half-drawn. Like a memory that hasn't been allowed to become real again. > As I got closer, I whispered, "That symbol shouldn't be visible." > “It isn’t,” Kehra replied. “I’m n

POV: Lila (primary), Kehra (anchored in contradiction), Maximus (stillness under siege), Elora (namekeeper), Saela (vow-resurrected), Vathil (mirror made awake) Lila The name Saela spoke no, the frequency didn’t linger in the air. It entered the stone. Every path we walked today hummed. But it wasn’t resonance. It was recall. Even the dust held its shape for longer than was necessary. Footprints did not fade. Our own steps became witnesses. Maximus refused to enter the basin field. Not out of fear. Out of knowing. He stated: > “We tried to build peace on top of unspoken things. And now those things are speaking louder than our silence ever dared.” His jaw was not clenched in rage as he kept watch at the treeline with his hands outstretched. In readiness. to preserve space. To not interrupt this reckoning. Kehra (anchored in contradiction) I sat beside the glyph that shouldn’t have returned. Charcoal in hand. Air too tight to breathe with rhythm. But I drew it any

Lila (primary), Saela (mirrorblood), Maximus (memory-bound), Kehra (signal split), Elora (voice carrier), and Vathil (as still place) are viewed from the perspective of the observer. Lila I did not speak this morning. Through my teeth, I breathed. Quiet. Intentional. Not to cast silence but to see if silence would return the gesture. It did. For exactly eleven steps through the grove, I walked and nothing answered. Not the wind, not the leaves, not the moss. As though every sound had curled inward, whispering: > "Today, we are not echoes. We are observants.” Saela stood in the glade, back turned, hands tucked into the folds of her coat. She wore a new color hollow gray threaded with duskroot blue. A reminder of who she had been before the first fracture. Before the thread chose me and not her. I knew it meant something. I also didn't want to inquire. But she spoke before I reached her: > “It’s awake and it’s watching.” > "The Door?" > “No. The part of it we gave

POV: Lila (primary), Saela (unfurling root), Kehra (rhythm unhidden), Maximus (watch without warning), Elora (ink made invitation), Vathil (held form), Thread (joined again, freely) Lila At dawn I walked the length of the basin field without my coat. In the wind, bare skin. Rewrapped thread, but loose. I didn’t hum. Didn’t chant. The grove, on the other hand, continued to respond as if anticipating this kind of silence. One that didn’t perform reverence but practiced it with ordinary steps. Kehra and I met at the northern arch halfway. She placed her hand on my shoulder briefly, then exhaled in one long ribbon of breath that touched the edge of my collarbone and curled away. No words. But I knew. Something had returned. And she had chosen not to make it a ritual. We sat beside the spiral memory root, hands in our laps. Saela approached carrying a basin stone and a folded piece of mirrorcloth. Maximus arrived later with nothing but posture. Elora tucked three reed qui

(primary), Saela (returning frequency), Kehra (disruption as melody), Elora (truth-bound scribe), Maximus (threshold in shadow), Vathil (awake but uncertain), and Nareth (first new arrival) are all portrayed from the perspective of the protagonist. Lila Something was waiting at the edge of the field. not concealed. Not quiet. Have patience. Before the sun rose, I felt it pulsing faintly in a rhythm I didn't recognize as it curled into the silence between tree roots. It didn’t match the Gate’s old cadence. Contrary to Vathil's breath, it did not hum. It throbbed. Softly. Steady. like a knock that penetrates blood. I stepped outside and the wind paused. So did I. because a brand-new thing had arrived, and it was neither hostile nor always welcome. Kehra moved differently today. Her balance shifted. She walked left-handed again, a habit she hadn’t returned to since the Reckoning. When I asked why, she said: > “My right hand can’t hold what this part of the myth is a