All Chapters of CLAIMED BY THE FOUR ALPHA BROTHERS: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

Calix's POVThe crest haunted me. There I was, in my office at 2 a.m., staring at the improved pic on three different monitors, a nagging suspicion hovering in the back of my brain and not letting me sleep until I followed the thread.Blackthorn Capital's records went back further than anyone realized, through years of vendor agreements, ancient alliances, and mergers that time had buried.If this crest had ever graced the front pages of our paper, even briefly, decades ago, there'd be paper traces all over these archives.My first instinct was to check obvious keywords.Nothing. I experimented with different spellings, old dating, and cross-checked the remaining, foggy details of the crest against anything in the library's databases.And after three hours, tired and bleary-eyed with my face stuck to the screen, I was just about to throw in the towel.I almost texted Knox twice, just to have someone awake with me as I stared at the same crappy picture over and over again. And both ti

Soren's POVThe tranquilizer had been bothering me since the night of the rescue, a detail nobody else seemed to be chasing while everyone focused on the crest and the shell companies and Mara's decades-deep paper trail. I'd read the tox screen so many times over the past two weeks that I could recite the numbers in my sleep, and every time I did, the same question circled back without an answer. Something that specific, that restricted, didn't appear out of nowhere. Someone had sourced it deliberately, and whoever that someone was had left a trail, even if nobody else had thought to look for it yet.I still had contacts from my hospital years, people who owed me favors they'd never fully repaid, and at six that morning I decided to finally call one in."Dr. Ashford," Marguerite answered on the second ring, her voice sharp despite the hour. She'd always been an early riser, even back when we worked the same understaffed ward together. "This is either an emergency or you need something

Calix's POVRonan picked me up himself at the border. Which is how I knew, even before we had a chance to discuss the very real reason I had driven two hours and sat among the woods, which neither of our families could entirely take credit for.The drive out had let my mind wander more than I wanted. I kept recalling Calla's face this morning in the kitchen when her shoulder had exploded before I knew it had. I didn't think I'd told Ronan that bit either. I wasn't sure whether it was relevant."I don't have to be here, I responded as I shook his hand."I wanted to see the expression on your face when you described what the building forty minutes out of your jurisdiction suddenly meant to my border patrols." His voice was blunt, not harsh; the same straightforwardness that I'd come to trust in him over the past several months. "Come with me. Say all you left on the phone."We started along the tree line, his two scouts trailing a respectful distance behind us, and I laid it out the w

Calla's POVDaven knocked on my door at eight, and something about the sound, too careful, too deliberate, told me he'd been standing out there longer than a normal knock would suggest."Come in," I called, setting down my hairbrush.He stepped inside slowly, closing the door behind him with a quiet click, and I knew before he said a single word that whatever he'd come to ask me wasn't going to be easy for either of us."You look like you rehearsed something on the way up here and lost it on the stairs," I said, trying to soften whatever was coming before it arrived."Something like that." He sat on the edge of the chair by my window, hands clasped between his knees, and took a long breath before meeting my eyes. "We have proof now, Calla. Real proof. Thornfield, the building, the tranquilizer, the border gap. All of it traces to Mara, cleanly, undeniably.""That's good news. Why do you look like you're about to tell me someone died?""Because the council won't act on paperwork alone.

Calla's POVI didn't call him back that day. Or the next day either. I sat with it instead, turning the request over slowly in my hands like something sharp I hadn't yet decided whether to pick up.The third day, I drove out to the overlook alone again, though without telling the other because there was no longer any point to sitting with it alone.It had just become yet another way of not doing so.He was there twenty minutes after my text, like he knew I'd turn up here for some reason."You didn't have to come to me," he said. "I would've met you anywhere.""I needed the drive. Time to think without anyone watching my face while I did it." I crossed my arms against the wind. "I have questions before I give you an answer.""Ask them.""Why now? You've known about the bloodline for months; you said so yourself. Why wait until Voss's name was already in your hand before you asked for this?""Because asking you before I had anything real to trade for it would have made this extortion in