All Chapters of Claimed By The Steel Pack: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

​We hauled Marcus and the two elders up the dark concrete stairs, keeping our steps slow and steady. Every breath Marcus took came out like a wheeze, but he kept his boots moving, his heavy arm wrapped over Kaelen's shoulder while I kept my pistol raised, covering our rear.​The main house was completely quiet when we reached the top landing. The heavy smell of gunpowder and fresh plaster dust hung thick in the air, drifting through the high-ceilinged foyer like smoke.​The three guys we had knocked out near the front entry were gone, leaving only smeared trails of blood across the wood where their buddies had dragged them out. The heavy front doors hung wide open, letting in the cold night air and the faint light from the moon.​Kaelen set Marcus down on the bottom step of the main stairs, making sure the old man was propped up against the rail before turning back to me.​"Check outside," Kaelen grunted, his voice thick and rough. His grey coat was torn up, soaked through with blood

​The news of the board's fall went through the house fast before the ink on the papers was even dry.​By noon, two dark trucks pulled up the long gravel drive. I stood by the big glass windows of Kaelen's top office, watching as state agents loaded Arthur and his two friends into the back. The legal team had already filed the emergency papers, turning over the Swiss logs and Greta’s sign-off codes right to the prosecutor.​My father’s name was completely cleared on the record. The frozen accounts were unlocked, and by tomorrow, the whole public file would show the truth: Richard Vane was an innocent man, and Greta's crew was getting swept up by the law.​A heavy step sounded on the wood floor behind me. Kaelen walked into the room, holding two glasses of whiskey. He had put on a clean black shirt, though the white wrap on his arm still showed a bit of red at the edge.​He handed one glass to me, his fingers touching mine as I took it.​"Your father's lawyer just called," Kaelen said,

​The south wing of the estate smelled like fresh pine, white paint, and cold rain coming through the open terrace doors.​By three in the afternoon, two pack guys had finished hauling up the heavy oak desk and three steel filing cabinets from the lower storeroom. They worked fast and quiet, nodding to me every time they passed through the double doors. The old fear that used to hang around the house was gone, replaced by a steady, working calm.​I sat behind the wide wood desk, my laptop open beside two thick stacks of account books. My fingers moved fast across the keys, setting up the new server system that would run every dollar of Blackwood Logistics through a clean ledger.​A shadow fell across the doorway.​Marcus stood there, leaning his shoulder against the frame. He had a clean white bandage taped across his left jaw, and his right eye was still swollen a dark purple, but he moved without the limp he had this morning. He carried a heavy metal toolbox in one hand and a stack o

​By nine that night, the fog from the woods had crept right up to the glass doors of the main house.​The ground floor was quiet for the first time since I had walked through the front gates. The guards had gone down to the lower barracks, Marcus was off finishing the border reports, and the endless hum of the security alarms had finally been shut off.​I sat on the big leather sofa in the estate's private library, wrapped in an oversized dark sweater, my bare feet tucked under me. A fire was burning low in the stone hearth, throwing long shadows across the bookshelves. On the small table beside me sat my laptop, its screen dark. For the first time in months, there were no numbers to run, no bank accounts to trace, and no emergency alerts popping up.​The heavy wood door opened, and Kaelen walked in.​He had taken off his boots and left his sweater somewhere down the hall, wearing just a plain gray t-shirt and dark trousers. His hair was still damp from the shower, falling slightly ov

​The rain came back hard by noon, heavy and ruthless, pounding against the tall glass of the south wing like buckshot.​Marcus slammed three heavy steel lockboxes onto my desk, the metal clattering hard enough to rattle my laptop against the oak. Rainwater dripped off his tactical jacket onto the floor, filling the small room with the sharp smell of iron, wet mud, and cold wolf.​"Greta’s second vault," Marcus grunted, wiping a smear of dark grease off his bruised jaw with the back of his hand. "Found it buried under the floorboards down at her safehouse by the docks. Her private ledgers are inside. Everything she used to buy off the local precinct, the state prosecutors, and half the board."​I pulled the top lockbox closer and popped the heavy brass latch. Inside lay thick leather notebooks packed with tight handwriting, alongside a stack of encrypted thumb drives. I flipped to the first page of the top ledger, my eyes running over names, dates, and payout amounts going back seven y